Purim 08: 33 Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Ban Purim

Prohibition of holiday shocks community

No Purim This Year, Humbug: Rabbis (at left, during outdoor exercise class) concluded that children dressing up for the holiday (above) could lead to mixed dancing.

by Jewish Week Staff

New York — Fresh from their success in canceling a chasidic music concert that would have benefited orphans in Israel, 33 fervently ultra-Orthodox rabbis have decided to cancel the holiday of Purim because it could lead to “spiritual joy, brotherly love – and worse,” they said in a statement today.

The rabbis said the planned March 21 holiday — featuring Megillah reading, gifts to the poor, the sending of shlach manos, and the Purim se’uda (festive meal) which calls for imbibing alcohol -- would cause “ribaldry and lightheadedness” and “strip the youth of every shred of Fear of Heaven and [lower] them into a pit of destruction,” according to the ban.

The edict came as a shock to American Jews, who claim they secured rabbinic

approval for the holiday of Purim several thousand years ago.

In the past, this same group of rabbis has banned drinking water in Brooklyn, baby strollers on Shabbos, Indian wigs, travel for vacation to Miami Beach, television, mixed seating in concerts, fruit roll-ups, hoola hoops in pre-schools, the Internet, secular newspapers and certain Jewish books about certain sages who allowed a certain amount of secular education in their schools, red dresses at weddings, collar-less shirts even on Sundays, saying gezundheit when someone sneezes, attending Knick games except during “the 9 days,” walking on the other side of the street on 13th Avenue, getting married with more than a two-piece band, brides taller than 5-feet-8, car-pooling, wearing seat belts on dates, the word “evolution,” all forms of birth control (except marrying ugly women), dinosaurs, the earth going around the sun, singing Carlebach-composed tunes, smiling, laughing and excessive sleeping or breathing.

“And those are the things banned only in the past week,” noted a rabbinic secretary to the esteemed group, checking a long list. “About the only things they haven’t banned are smoking cigarettes, agunot and rabbis who are child abusers.”

Why so many prohibitions?

“We don’t want to be seen falling down on the job,” said Rabbi Shimon Chass, a spokesman for the group, joined by a colleague, Rabbi Moshe Shalom.

The pair, known as Chass V’Shalom, has led the group’s efforts in recent years.

Asked how many bans have been imposed, Rabbi Chass said he’d lost count because he had banned pens and paper and couldn’t keep track.

He said funding has come primarily from residuals for a commercial the group did endorsing Ban deodorant.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization