Avi­va Ben-Ur February 26, 2021

“Fire­crack­ers burst into the air and zigzagged errat­i­cal­ly across the ground. Masked rev­el­ers poured into the streets. Men, women, Chris­tians, Jews, enslaved and free, filled the air with the chaot­ic sounds of shout­ing and singing. Adults and chil­dren donned ​“inde­cent” cos­tumes, some beat­ing drums. The pun­gency of intox­i­ca­tion waft­ed through the trop­i­cal breezes. No, this was not the com­mem­o­ra­tion of nation­al inde­pen­dence, a mark­ing of the end of war, or New Year’s Eve in a plea­sure gar­den. This was the Jew­ish hol­i­day of Purim, as cel­e­brat­ed in the Dutch Caribbean two cen­turies ago.[1]…”

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