So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies…..in the fortress of Shushan, the Jews killed a total of five hundred men (and they also killed the ten sons of Haman , the foe of the Jews)…..and the Jews in Shushan mustered again on the fourteenth day of Adar and slew three hundred men in Shushan…….and the rest of the Jews, –those in the king’s provinces—likewise mustered and fought for their lives. They disposed of their enemies, killing 75,000 of their foes…….and they rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and merrymaking.” (From chapter 9 of the Book of Esther)

So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies…..in the fortress of Shushan, the Jews killed a total of five hundred men (and they also killed the ten sons of Haman , the foe of the Jews)…..and the Jews in Shushan mustered again on the fourteenth day of Adar and slew three hundred men in Shushan…….and the rest of the Jews, –those in the king’s provinces—likewise mustered and fought for their lives. They disposed of their enemies, killing 75,000 of their foes…….and they rested on the fourteenth day and made it a day of feasting and merrymaking.” (From chapter 9 of the Book of Esther)

On the day before Purim in  February 1994, I woke up in my home in  Jerusalem to the news that Baruch Goldstein – an American immigrant to Israel who had joined Meir Kahane’s far-right anti-Arab Kach movement — had massacred 29 (and wounded 125) innocent  Muslims in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. He was following in the footsteps of the Jews of the mythical town of “Shushan” in........

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