Masked

Purim in my childhood primarily meant delivering mishloach manot — festive Purim packages. In the morning at the Jewish nursing home in Bussum, and in the afternoon at the Sinai Center in Amersfoort, the Jewish psychiatric hospital. It was a fixed ritual: the whole family dressed up, with a boombox loudly playing Hasidic music, moving through the hospital. In my memory, that area was gigantic. We traversed endless long corridors and visited room after room.

I was about 5 or 6 years old, and my older brother had bought a kaffiyeh — a Palestinian scarf — at the Arab market in Israel. When the Second Intifada broke out a year later, we were no longer allowed to wear it, not even during Purim — a change I didn’t fully understand then. But during the Purim I’m talking about, there was no war yet, and I proudly wore my kaffiyeh. The others were dressed as nurses, wearing doctor’s coats. We had found a stretcher, which doubled as a mobile music cart and a transport vehicle for the treats we were handing out. At one point, I got tired — little legs can only carry you so far — and I let myself sink onto the stretcher.

As I lay there, the cart was wheeled into a courtyard. One of the patients looked at me, my face partially covered with the kaffiyeh. His eyes lit up. He had apparently learned about Purim and joyfully called out to his friends: “Hooray, Haman is wounded!”

My students come from both the left and right of the political spectrum. Some are critical, others supportive of the Dutch government, Trump, or Israel. As a rabbi, I have to be there for everyone and ensure that I don’t alienate anyone — from me or from each other — their community. At the same time, I must stay true to myself. How do I balance that?

The Jewish people have always had enemies, but those enemies don’t fit into a fixed profile. Just as a Purim mask hides the identity of the wearer, in an era of extreme geopolitical shifts, it is difficult to determine who truly has our best interests at heart. But one thing is certain: I may have been the one lying on the stretcher, but it was Haman who was wounded.

I can certainly criticize someone’s opinions, but it must be clear that the critique is directed at the manifestation — Haman — not the person themselves.

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