Purim and Your Jewish Senior

How-to's for fun and food on the most festive of holidays

Purim is the most joyful holiday of the Jewish calendar. It’s a compact day filled with readings of the Book of Esther, masquerades, parties, exchange of food gifts, gifts of money to poor people, and festive meals with family and friends. A famous storybook character called it 8 days of fun, all in one.

It commemorates the salvation of the Jews during the reign of Ahasuerus in ancient Persia in the year 357 BCE. Despite a genocidal plot by Haman to eliminate all the Jews of the kingdom, the king’s wife revealed herself as Jewish and requested a royal decree that allowed the Jews to defend themselves. It is a time to focus on hidden miracles that seem to be happenstance.

Help your senior celebrate this lively holiday. Begin by decorating the home with symbols of masks, scrolls, noisemakers, and food baskets. Download some coloring pages from kosheronabudget.com, Chabad.org, aish.com or Pinterest. You can introduce your senior to the therapeutic effect of coloring or hang up the colored pages as decorations. Play Purim music to get her in the mood. Hang a classic Purim print on the front door, a traditional Eastern European Jewish practice, as the whole month is considered joyous.

Check the supermarket shelves for pastries traditionally eaten Purim time. They are triangles filled with preserves, chocolate, poppy seeds, or jelly and called hamantaschen, pockets of Haman who was the villain in the Purim story.

Prepare and decorate some gifts of packaged food items for shalach monos, the traditional exchange of food gifts with friends. This was how the Jews of old celebrated their lifesaving victory. This is usually a craft activity for Jewish families. Buy pretty gift bags, use ribbon, tissue paper, raffia, glitter, and get creative. Don’t forget to write a card wishing the recipient happy Purim. Have the packages ready a day or so before, as people may want to stop by before the busy holiday.

Getting your senior into the spirit of Purim can mean planning costumes for Purim day ?(March 24 this year) for both of you, doing some face painting, and applying festive makeup.

Together with your senior and his family, decide on a visitor safety policy. Make sure you have masks at the doorway.

Take photos of everyone who comes, with or without your senior. Make sure to capture snapshots of the Purim baskets as well as the decorations that you’ve created. These will be the basis for your photobook or scrapbook, a creative project for after Purim.

If your senior wishes to hear the reading of the Book of Esther, arrangements may be made to hear it by phone, in the synagogue, or through a one-on-one reading. Your senior will want to follow along during the forty-minute reading and will

locate a Hebrew copy of Scriptures for that purpose.

A festive meal with meat or chicken is traditionally eaten in the afternoon. Your senior may wish traditional kreplach, a triangle shaped filled pocket, to accompany chicken soup.

Encouraging your senior to give some money to charity on Purim day will not only fulfill a commandment of the day, it will strengthen his sense as a giver. You can conclude the day with conversation about Purims and parties past, how the family dressed up, what went on in the synagogue and Purim meals that were prepared. Keep it joyous and keep it light.