120 Fun Facts About Purim

What did Mordecai put on as a sign of mourning when he learned of Haman's decree?

Sackcloth and ashes kept Mordecai outside the palace, since nobody in mourning dress could pass the king's gate, so he and Esther had to trade messages through a servant.

What does the Hebrew word Purim literally mean?

Haman cast lots to choose the date of the massacre, and the holiday took its name from them.

The word pur, root of Purim, is usually traced to which Mesopotamian language?

Akkadian is the likely origin, and the word stayed foreign enough that the Book of Esther stops twice to translate it for its Hebrew readers.

Purim always falls about a month before which major Jewish festival?

Passover follows a month later, a pairing the Talmud prizes: it speaks of keeping one redemption, the rescue in Persia, right beside the other, the Exodus.

The Megillah read aloud on Purim gave English the slang phrase 'the whole megillah', meaning what?

A long, tedious story is the slang sense: the scroll is read aloud from beginning to end, and Yiddish speakers made 'a gantse megillah' a joke about anything that drags on.

The name Ahasuerus is believed to derive from the Old Persian name of which king?

Xerxes I is the usual match: his Old Persian name, Xšayāršā, became 'Xerxes' in Greek and 'Ahashverosh' in Hebrew, which is why some modern Bibles simply print 'King Xerxes' all through the story.

What was Esther's original Hebrew name?

Hadassah means myrtle, and the Talmud's rabbis argued over why it suited her: one said she was of middling height like the tree, another that her complexion was greenish like it.

Often called her uncle, Mordecai is which relative of Esther in the Hebrew text?

Her cousin: Esther was the daughter of Mordecai's uncle Abihail, and he adopted her when her parents died, while later retellings such as the Latin Vulgate made her his brother's daughter.

Like King Saul before him, Mordecai belonged to which tribe of Israel?

Benjamin was King Saul's tribe too, and both men descend from a Kish, so Mordecai against Haman 'the Agagite' plays as a rematch of Saul against King Agag, the enemy he once spared.

What did Queen Vashti refuse to do, costing her the crown?

Appear before the king's guests she would not, on the seventh day of his drinking feast, and his advisers turned one refusal into an empire-wide decree that every man be master of his own house.

At the king's feast that opens the Purim story, the wine was served in cups of what material, no two alike?

Gold beakers, each of a different design, came with a single rule for the drinking: the king told his stewards to serve every guest exactly as he wished.

Which two palace guards' assassination plot did Mordecai expose?

Bigthan and Teresh, eunuchs who guarded the king's door, were executed once Mordecai's warning reached the king through Esther, yet Mordecai himself got no reward, an oversight the whole plot later turns on.

Why did Haman decide to destroy all the Jews of the empire?

Mordecai refused to bow to him, and Haman, told that the man was a Jew, thought it beneath him to punish one person, so he set out to destroy the whole people instead.

Haman is called 'the Agagite', linking him to which ancient enemy of Israel?

Amalek, whose king Agag gives Haman his label, is the nation the Torah orders Israel to 'blot out', which is why congregations drown out Haman's name whenever it is read.

How many days did Esther ask the Jews of Shushan to fast before she approached the king?

Three days without food or drink, night and day, was Esther's condition for risking an uninvited visit to the king, an offence punishable by death: 'if I perish, I perish,' she said.

What was the name of Haman's wife, who urged him to build a gallows for Mordecai?

Zeresh proposed the fifty-cubit gallows, then changed her tune within a day: after Mordecai's moment of honour she told Haman he could not win against a Jew and was sure to fall.

When Esther risked approaching the throne unsummoned, what did King Ahasuerus hold out to spare her life?

His sceptre, held out and touched at its tip, was the only reprieve from a law that put to death anyone who entered the inner court uninvited, and Esther had not been called for thirty days.

What reward did Haman suggest for a man King Ahasuerus wished to honour?

A parade in royal robes, on the king's own horse, was Haman's idea because he assumed the honour was his; minutes later he was leading Mordecai through the city square, calling out his praise.

At what event did Esther reveal she was Jewish and expose the plot against her people?

Her second private banquet was the moment: at the first she only asked the king and Haman back the next day, a delay in which Haman built the gallows he would end up on himself.

After victory in Shushan, what more did Esther ask for?

Another day to fight was granted, so the Jews of Shushan rested a day later than everyone else, which is why cities with ancient walls still keep Purim a day after the rest of the world.

Shushan Purim is kept a day late in cities walled since the time of which biblical leader?

Joshua's day is the yardstick, so walls that fell long ago still count, and the one exception is Shushan itself, treated as walled because the miracle happened there.

Which is the only city where Purim is definitively kept on the later, walled-city date?

Jerusalem alone is known for certain to have had walls in the required era, so towns with doubtful histories, among them Hebron and Tiberias, hedge by keeping both days.

What is the name for the gifts of food and drink exchanged on Purim?

Mishloach manot means 'sending portions': the rule is two ready-to-eat foods to one person, and the Talmud tells of two rabbis who met it by simply swapping their Purim meals.

What is mattanot la-evyonim?

Charity to the poor on Purim means at least two gifts to two people, and Maimonides ruled it better to spend more on them than on one's own feast, since no joy is greater than gladdening the poor.

On Purim, how far did the sage Rava say drinking should go?

Unable to tell Haman from Mordecai, or 'cursed' from 'blessed', was Rava's measure; later rulings softened it, Maimonides asking only for wine enough to fall asleep, since a sleeper cannot tell the two apart either.

What is the Adloyada?

A humorous Purim parade held in Israel, it got its name by contest: hundreds of entries came in, and the writer I. D. Berkowitz's 'Adloyada' beat a suggestion from the poet Bialik.

In which city was the first Adloyada held, in 1912?

Tel Aviv was in only its third year when schoolteacher Avraham Aldema organised it, and the day went so well that the town made it a yearly fixture.

A few Megillah verses, such as one recalling the exile, are sung to which other book's melody?

Lamentations lends its mournful chant to a handful of verses, such as the one on the exile of Mordecai's ancestors, so grief keeps breaking into an otherwise festive reading.

What is the Yiddish name for the ratchet noisemaker used at Haman's name?

Grager is the Yiddish word for the rattle; the 16th-century codifier Moses Isserles ruled that the noisy custom should be neither abolished nor mocked, though rabbis since have protested that it disturbs the service.

In medieval France, children wrote Haman's name on what, then knocked them together to rub it off?

Smooth stones were struck together until the name wore off, and when the stones fell out of use the knocking stayed, growing into the din that greets Haman's name in synagogue.

What shape are hamantaschen?

Triangular, and often said to copy Haman's three-cornered hat, though the Book of Esther never gives him one.

What is the oldest and most traditional hamantash filling?

Poppy seed paste was there from the start: the pastry is probably the German Mohntasche, a poppy-seed pocket, taken up for Purim because 'Mohn' sounded so much like Haman.

Which meat-filled dumplings do Ashkenazi Jews traditionally eat in soup on Purim?

Kreplach hide their filling inside the dough, the usual reason given for serving them on Purim: the story's miracle is hidden too, behind what look like coincidences.

Among whom did Purim's custom of masks and costumes probably begin?

Italian Jews of the late 15th century picked it up from the carnival season around them, and a leading rabbi of the day ruled that even men and women swapping clothes was harmless, since it was all in fun.

What is a Purim spiel?

A comic play retelling the story, the Purim spiel soon outgrew its plot: by the 18th century it was a licence for satire, and today's versions mock the community's own leaders as readily as Haman.

What is Purim Katan?

The 14th of Adar I in a leap year passes almost unmarked: the reading, gifts and feast all wait for the second Adar, and the first date keeps only a ban on fasting and eulogies.

Purim Vinz marks the Jews' return after the Fettmilch uprising of 1614 to which German city?

Frankfurt's Jews were driven out by the mob of Vincenz Fettmilch, a baker, and allowed home on the very day he was executed two years later, a return they marked each year as 'Purim Vinz', after his first name.

What did Ahasuerus three times offer to grant Esther, whatever she asked?

Half his kingdom was on offer three times, and three times Esther let the chance pass, asking in the end only for her own life and the lives of her people.

The Purim scroll and which other book are the only Hebrew Bible books never to name God explicitly?

Song of Songs, a book of love poetry, shares the distinction, yet Rabbi Akiva defended its place in the Bible by calling it the 'holy of holies' of all scripture.

In which section of the Hebrew Bible does the Purim scroll sit?

Ketuvim (Writings) took the scroll in only after argument: the Talmud preserves the sage Samuel's view that it lacked a sacred scroll's sanctity, having been given to be read aloud but not written down.

Esther and which other woman give their names to books of the Hebrew Bible?

Ruth is the other, and the pair mirror each other: Ruth is a foreigner who joins the people of Israel, while Esther is an Israelite who hides her origins in a foreign court.

Which 1st-century historian retold the Purim story for Greek readers, calling the king Artaxerxes?

Josephus told it in Book 11 of his Antiquities, working from the longer Greek version of Esther, so his account quotes in full the royal decrees that the Hebrew book only mentions.

Which token of royal power did the king take back from Haman and hand to Mordecai?

His signet ring sealed both decrees: Haman used it to order the massacre and Mordecai to authorise the Jews' defence, because an edict sealed with it could never be revoked.

How must the reader pronounce the names of Haman's ten sons during the Megillah?

In one breath, because, as the Talmud puts it, the souls of all ten departed together, so the reader runs the ten names into a single unbroken phrase.

What did Haman offer King Ahasuerus in return for leave to destroy the Jews?

Ten thousand talents of silver was the bribe, and the king waved it aside, telling Haman that both the money and the people were his to do with as he pleased.

When the Fast of Esther on 13 Adar falls on Shabbat, to which day is it moved?

The preceding Thursday takes the fast, which is a custom rather than one of the Bible's fixed fasts, so the pregnant, the nursing and the unwell are excused.

What is Purim Meshulash?

A Purim spread over three days arises when the walled cities' date lands on the Sabbath: the Megillah is read on Friday, the festival prayer is said on Saturday, and the feast and food gifts wait for Sunday.

Which Nazi leader cried out 'Purimfest!' as he went to the gallows at Nuremberg in 1946?

Julius Streicher, publisher of the Jew-baiting paper Der Stürmer, was one of ten Nazis hanged that night, a tally later writers set beside the ten sons of Haman.

What position did Mordecai hold at the end of the Purim story?

Second in rank to the king, Mordecai took over Haman's estate as well as his office, and used the post to write to every province fixing Purim as a yearly festival.

Which additional prayer is inserted into the daily prayers and grace after meals on Purim?

Al HaNissim, 'for the miracles', is slipped into the daily prayers, while the festive psalms of Hallel are left out: one Talmudic sage reasons that reading the Megillah is itself the day's hymn of praise.

How does modern scholarship generally regard the Purim story's biblical source?

As a historical novel with legendary elements: the court colour is convincing, but Persian records know no Jewish queen, and the book's numbers run to tall-tale size, like a gallows fifty cubits high.

In Israel hamantaschen go by the Hebrew name oznei Haman, referring to which part of the villain?

His ears is the literal meaning, and the Hebrew phrase probably helped reshape the German pastry name 'Mohntasche' into the Yiddish 'hamantasch'; a fried Sephardic pastry goes by the same name.

Before meeting the king, each woman in the Purim story was treated for six months with oil of what?

Myrrh filled the first six months of a full year of beauty treatment, with perfumes and cosmetics for the second half, all for a single night with the king.

The Talmud teaches that when the month of Adar begins, people should do more of what?

Rejoicing is the rule for Adar, Purim's month, and the saying was built as a mirror image: it answers the older rule that rejoicing is cut back when Av, the month the Temple fell, begins.

The names Mordecai and Esther have been read as allusions to which pair of Mesopotamian gods?

Marduk and Ishtar were Babylon's patron god and its great goddess, and the echo led some scholars to read the whole book as an old Babylonian myth retold with human heroes.

Which holiday, once kept for a Maccabean victory, fell on the day before Purim?

Nicanor Day honoured Judah Maccabee's defeat of the Seleucid general Nicanor, whose severed head was put on public show, and 2 Maccabees dates the feast as 'the day before Mordecai's day'.

A Chabad tale links which Soviet leader's fatal stroke to a Purim gathering held the same day?

Stalin was struck down on Purim 1953 and died four days later, and within weeks the 'doctors' plot' case against a group of mostly Jewish physicians was dropped as a fabrication.

Hebron's 'Window Purim' recalls the community being saved when what mysteriously appeared in a window?

A bag of money, enough to meet the pasha's ransom demand, is said to have turned up after the whole community had fasted and prayed, and Hebron kept the anniversary as 'Purim Taka'.

Herodotus names which queen as wife of the Persian king usually identified with Ahasuerus?

Amestris is the only queen Herodotus gives him; scholars have tried to match her with the book's queens, but a Persian general's daughter cannot be the story's Jewish orphan.

The Book of Esther is one of how many Megillot, or Scrolls, in the Hebrew Bible?

Five short scrolls share the name and all are read in synagogue through the year, but say 'the Megillah' on its own and everyone understands Esther, the one whose reading the rabbis made a duty for all.

How many provinces 'from India to Cush' did the king rule, according to the opening verse of Esther?

127 provinces is the book's count, where Herodotus gives the empire only 20 satrapies, and the rabbis tied the figure to Esther's ancestress Sarah, who lived 127 years.

What did the sleepless king order on the night before Haman meant to ask for Mordecai's execution?

He had the chronicles read to him, and there it was found written that Mordecai had exposed an assassination plot and never been rewarded, the turn on which the whole book pivots.

Returning from the garden, what did the king think Haman was doing as he fell on Esther's couch?

Assaulting her was the king's reading — 'Will he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?' — though Haman was in fact pleading for mercy; attendants covered his face at once.

What did the Jews pointedly refuse to do when they struck down their enemies in Esther 9?

They refused to take any plunder, though the edict allowed it — a pointed reversal of King Saul, whose crown was forfeit for keeping forbidden spoil in the war that spared Haman's ancestor Agag.

Esther's name is commonly traced to a Persian word meaning what?

Star is the usual reading, from a Persian word related to the English one, and the Talmud has its own version: the nations named her after the planet Venus because of her beauty.

The citadel of Susa, where the whole Book of Esther is set, lies in which modern country?

Iran's town of Shush stands on the ruins, where French excavators dug up not only the royal city but the law code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian monument hauled there centuries before Esther's day.

Which famous manuscript find includes every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther?

The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve at least a scrap of every other book, and scholars suggest Esther was left out on purpose: the sect's calendar had no Purim, and the heroine marries a foreign king.

Which artist painted the punishment of Haman, shown as a crucifixion, in a Vatican fresco?

Michelangelo put the scene in a corner of the Sistine ceiling and stretched Haman on a tree instead of a gallows, in keeping with the Latin Bible, where the stake Haman orders is called a cross.

What does Mordecai say will happen to the Jews if Esther stays silent?

Relief will come from elsewhere, Mordecai says, but she and her father's house will perish, and he ends by asking whether she became queen 'for such a time as this'.

Which eunuch in charge of the harem gave Esther special food, seven attendants and the best rooms?

Hegai's favour paid off: when her turn came, Esther took nothing with her except what he advised, and the king preferred her to every other woman.

Which eunuch told the king a gallows stood ready at Haman's house, sealing his fate in Esther 7?

Harbona, one of the seven eunuchs from chapter 1, added that the gallows was meant for Mordecai 'who spoke up to help the king' — and the king's whole reply was 'Impale him on it!'

Which royal adviser warned that Vashti's defiance would teach every wife to despise her husband?

Memukan proposed the decree, and a midrash identifies him with Haman himself — so the man who had Vashti removed would later be destroyed by the queen who replaced her.

Whose 'Esther', written in 1718 and expanded in 1732, is counted as the first English oratorio?

Handel gave it in 1732 as a concert piece, sung in English with no scenery or acting, and its success showed him there was a public for sacred drama, the road that led from Italian opera to Messiah.

Outside the Inferno, Dante shows Haman crucified in a vision in which of his works?

Purgatorio holds the vision: on the terrace of the wrathful Dante sees 'one crucified, disdainful and ferocious', an example of anger punished, with Ahasuerus, Esther and 'the just Mordecai' around him.

In Talmudic legend, Haman fetches his own scissors for Mordecai, a skill learned in twenty-two years as what?

Barber of the village of Kartzum, says the Talmud: with every bathhouse and barber's shop shut on Esther's orders, Haman had to wash Mordecai and cut his hair himself before the parade.

The Midrash makes Vashti the daughter of which Babylonian king, slain the night his city fell?

Belshazzar's daughter, in the rabbis' telling, throws it in her husband's face: her father could drink with a thousand guests and keep his head, she sneers, while the king is only the son of his stable hand.

Which Purim custom aimed at Haman did the emperors Honorius and Theodosius II ban?

Burning him in effigy on a frame that looked like the holy cross struck the emperors as contempt for Christianity, so their law of 408 told governors to stop it; the custom carried on for centuries regardless.

The Greek Esther closes with a note dating its arrival in Egypt to the fourth year of which couple?

Ptolemy and Cleopatra date the note, which is oddly guarded: Dositheus only 'said' he was a priest, and he and his son only 'said' that the letter about Purim was authentic.

The Greek version of Esther recasts Haman as a native of which land, plotting to hand it the Persian empire?

Macedonia had swallowed the Persian empire under Alexander by the time the Greek version was made, so its Haman becomes a Macedonian scheming to hand the kingdom to his countrymen.

Which French dramatist wrote the 1689 play 'Esther' for the noble girls' school at Saint-Cyr?

Racine had left the theatre for a career at court when Madame de Maintenon asked for a pious play her schoolgirls could act, and the result later gave the first English oratorio its plot.

At which American university did the mock-academic Latke–Hamantash Debate begin in 1946?

Chicago's Hillel chapter held the first debate in the winter of 1946, and Nobel laureates such as Milton Friedman have since taken part in full academic regalia; no side has ever won.

In the Talmud, Haman is glad his date fell in Adar because which leader of Israel died that month?

Moses died on the seventh of Adar, which Haman took as an omen of calamity; the Talmud adds that he overlooked that the prophet was born on that very date too.

Which American novelist hailed the queen who defied King Ahasuerus as a pioneer of women's rights?

Harriet Beecher Stowe admired the queen's disobedience, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton agreed that it added glory to her generation; the rabbis of the Midrash had cast the same queen as wicked and vain.

Which Dutch master painted 'Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther' in 1660, late in his career?

Rembrandt sold the canvas to the Amsterdam collector Jan Hinlopen, and it has hung in Moscow's Pushkin Museum since 1924.

Which reformer was a fierce critic of the Megillah, doubting the value of even its Hebrew text?

Martin Luther judged even the original Hebrew version to be of very doubtful value, yet the book stayed in Protestant Bibles, with only its Greek additions set apart in the Apocrypha.

In the Quran, a figure named Haman serves which ruler, who has him build a tower of baked bricks?

Pharaoh's Haman is named six times in the Quran, in an Egyptian setting many centuries earlier than the court where the Megillah places its villain.

According to a Talmudic saying, what should a person increase once the Hebrew month of Adar begins?

Rejoicing rises with Adar just as it falls when the mournful month of Av begins, the Talmud teaches, and the saying is sung as a popular Purim tune.

Esther's other, Hebrew name, given in Esther 2:7, is the word for which fragrant evergreen plant?

Myrtle suited her, one Talmudic sage said, because she was neither tall nor short but of middling height like the shrub; another said the righteous are called myrtles.

The Talmud names Esther beside Sarah, Miriam and Deborah in a list of seven women with which role?

Prophetesses numbered seven in the Talmud's count, the others being Hannah, Abigail and Huldah, set beside forty-eight male prophets.

In 'For Your Consideration', executives rename the film 'Home for Purim' after which holiday?

Thanksgiving replaces the Jewish festival once Oscar buzz builds around the fictional family drama and the studio decides its title is too Jewish to sell.

In a Talmudic legend, which angel gave the queen a tail to keep her from King Ahasuerus's feast?

Gabriel fixed a tail on her, in one telling, while another rabbi said she broke out in leprosy; either way the Talmud denies that modesty kept her away.

Which hamantash filling honours a Bohemian jam seller cleared of poisoning charges in 1731?

Prune hamantashen marked the release, four days before Purim, of David Brandeis, jailed with his wife and son when a customer's parent died; a court found consumption, not his plum jam, to blame.

Which recitation is skipped on Purim because the Megillah reading is said to replace it?

Hallel is left out because, in Rav Nachman's view, reading the Megillah is itself the act of praise; Rava added that the Jews were not yet free, having remained subjects of the same king.

How are Purim food parcels customarily delivered to friends, a job often given to children?

Via a third party is the custom, though handing the parcel over in person is allowed, and the young go-betweens are rewarded with sweets and treats for their trouble.

What does the Shulchan Aruch tell Purim givers to do when anyone at all holds out a hand?

Give without checking, the code says: on this one day nobody is to be exacting about who deserves a coin, and in some places the custom extends to non-Jews as well.

Which ancient Temple levy do many Jews recall by giving special coins just before Purim?

The half-shekel was announced every year on the first of Adar, and the Talmud says Israel's coins were thereby given ahead of the fortune Haman offered for the Jews' destruction.

What is the Sabbath immediately before Purim called, when an extra passage from Deuteronomy is read?

Shabbat Zachor takes its name from the Hebrew for remembrance, and its Deuteronomy passage recalls a desert ambush on the weakest stragglers by the nation Haman was said to descend from.

What is the Hebrew word for the festive daytime meal that is one of Purim's four main obligations?

Se'udah means a festive meal, and Purim's must be eaten by day: like the food gifts and the alms, it is an obligation that applies only in daylight hours.

Which city's Jews kept a local Purim after a governor who vowed to kill them was overthrown in 1524?

Cairo's Jews were saved when Ahmed Pasha, a rebel governor who had jailed their leaders for ransom, was attacked in his bathhouse, fled the city and was soon beheaded.

What did King Ahasuerus hold out to Esther to spare her life when she entered his court uninvited?

His golden sceptre was the only reprieve from a law that put to death anyone who approached the throne unsummoned, and Esther had not been called for thirty days.

What did Mordecai put on before wailing through the city at news of Haman's decree against the Jews?

Sackcloth and ashes were the garb of public mourning, and because nobody so clothed could come before the king, Esther had to send a servant out to learn what was wrong.

Which object did King Ahasuerus hand to Haman, and later to Mordecai, as the power to issue decrees?

His signet ring went first to Haman and, once Haman was hanged, straight to Mordecai, so that both the death decree and its remedy carried the same stamp of authority.

Where was Mordecai sitting when he learned of two courtiers' plot to kill King Ahasuerus?

At the palace gate Mordecai got wind of the conspiracy, and it is the same spot where he later would not rise or stir as Haman walked by.

Which king had carried Mordecai's family into exile from Judah, according to Esther chapter 2?

Nebuchadnezzar deported them with King Jeconiah of Judah, a detail critics seize on, since it would make Mordecai well over a hundred by the time of the story.

What did King Ahasuerus decree across his empire after the queen defied his summons in Esther 1?

Men rule their homes, ran the decree sent to every province after an adviser warned that the queen's example would teach wives everywhere to scorn their husbands.

What did King Ahasuerus and Haman do once the decree went out, while the capital was in confusion?

They sat down to drink, a chilling touch in a book where wine flows at every turning point, from the first queen's fall to Haman's own.

What did many people of other nations do out of fear once Mordecai's counter-decree went out?

They became Jews, the Megillah says, though the Vilna Gaon held that they only dressed the part out of fear, one reason given for Purim's custom of disguise.

Which oil were the women of King Ahasuerus's harem treated with for six months before meeting him?

Oil of myrrh came first in a full year of beauty treatments, with six months of perfumes to follow, before any woman's single turn to go to the king.

In which Hebrew month did Haman have his date for the massacre picked, eleven months ahead?

Nisan, the month of Passover, opens the biblical year, and the date selected fell in the twelfth month, leaving almost a year for the plot to unravel.

Haman promised King Ahasuerus's treasury ten thousand talents of which metal for his decree?

Silver on that scale was a vast fortune, and the king waved it away, telling Haman that the sum and the people alike were his to do with as he pleased.

Why, in Esther 8, could King Ahasuerus not simply cancel the decree Haman had sent out in his name?

Sealed edicts were irrevocable, so Mordecai drafted a fresh decree that let the Jews assemble and defend themselves on the very day set for their destruction.

The real empire used Aramaic, but in which form do King Ahasuerus's decrees go out in the Megillah?

In each people's language and script, the Megillah says again and again, a flourish scholars count among its improbabilities; Mordecai's decree adds the Jews' own script too.

At which two times must the Megillah be heard on Purim, a duty the Talmud ties to a verse of Psalms?

At night and again by day is the requirement, drawn from a psalm about calling out by day and by night; Purim's other duties, the meal and the gifts, belong to the daytime alone.

Why, in Rabbi Joshua ben Levi's ruling in the Talmud, are women obliged to hear the Megillah read?

They shared in the miracle, he reasoned; later commentators split on whether that means a woman brought the rescue about or that women faced the same death sentence.

A few verses of the Megillah about exile are chanted to the melody of which other biblical book?

Lamentations lends its dirge-like chant to phrases about exile and grief, so listeners hear the sorrow before the reader swings back to the Megillah's own tune.

Which Church Father moved six Greek chapters, absent from the Hebrew text, to the end of Esther?

Jerome's choice shaped Catholic Bibles for centuries, giving Esther chapters numbered up to 16, while Protestant editions print the additions apart or leave them out.

Per the Mishnah, a person who reads the Megillah in which way has not fulfilled the obligation?

Out of order is the fault: the same chapter of the Mishnah accepts a reading broken off and resumed, done while dozing, or left until late in the day, but never one that jumps backwards.

How is the whole Megillah customarily arranged before it is read, a habit dating from the Geonim?

Unrolled like a letter, the Megillah lives up to the word its text uses for itself, 'iggeret' or epistle, and in some communities it is read out rather than chanted for the same reason.

Which hymn does the congregation traditionally sing once the Megillah reading and its blessing end?

Shoshanat Yaakov, 'the rose of Jacob', closes an alphabetical poem recited after the evening reading, and it is also sung as a children's Purim tune.

Which British actress played the Jewish queen opposite Richard Egan in 1960's 'Esther and the King'?

Joan Collins took the title role for director Raoul Walsh in a production filmed in Italy, with Mario Bava as its cinematographer.