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Sarajevo Jews celebrate a second Purim. For centuries, they weren’t alone.
(JTA) — Starting tonight, many Jews around the world will celebrate Purim in the same ways: by reading the story of the heroic Queen Esther, dressing in festive costumes and drinking alcohol.
For many of the 900 or so Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it will be the first of two annual Purim celebrations.
Since 1820, locals have also observed the Purim de Saray (Saray being a root of the word Sarajevo) early in the Hebrew calendar month of Cheshvan, which usually falls in October or November of the Gregorian calendar.
In that year, the story goes, a local dervish was murdered, prompting the corrupt Ottoman pasha of Sarajevo, a high-ranking official, to kidnap 11 prominent Jews, including the community’s chief rabbi, a kabbalist named Moshe Danon. The pasha accused them of the murder of the dervish — who had converted from Judaism to Islam — and held them for ransom, demanding 50,000 groschen of silver from the Jewish community.
But the pasha, who was a transplant from elsewhere in the Ottoman empire, deeply offended the multiethnic populace of Sarajevo, who considered the Jewish community — then around one-fifth of the city’s entire population — an essential part of their home. So local Jews, Muslims and Christians rebelled together, storming the pasha’s palace and freeing the imprisoned community leaders.
Ever since, Bosnian Jews have celebrated that story by visiting the grave of the Sarajevan Jewish historian Zeki Effendi, who was the first to document it. Dozens also take part in a pilgrimage every summer to the grave of Rabbi Danon, who is buried in the south of Bosnia, not far from the Croatian border, where he died on his way to what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
For centuries, several other Jewish communities around the world observed their own versions of Purim based on stories of local resistance to antisemitism, inspired by Esther and her uncle Mordecai, who in the original holiday story save all of Persia’s Jews from execution in the 5th century BCE.
Here are the stories behind some of those traditions.
Ancona, Italy
An aerial view of Ancona in 2006. (Wikimedia Commons)
Jews settled in and around Ancona on Italy’s Adriatic coast in the 10th century, and by the 13th century they had established a flourishing community, which included figures such as the Jewish traveler Jacob of Ancona — who may have beaten Marco Polo to China — and famed poet Immanuel the Roman, who despite his title was born in a town just south of Ancona.
Though the city’s Jewish community was largely spared by the Holocaust, it has slowly declined over the years and is believed to have fewer than 100 members today. What it is not short on, however, are local Purim stories — the city is known for multiple celebrations that were established over the centuries.
The first, marked on the 21st of the Hebrew month of Tevet (usually in January) was established at the end of the 17th century and marks an earthquake that nearly destroyed the city.
“On the 21st of Teveth, Friday evening, of the year 5451 (1690), at 8 and a quarter, there was a powerful earthquake. The doors of the temple were immediately opened and in a few moments it was filled with men, women and children, still half-naked and barefoot, who came to pray to the Eternal in front of the Holy Ark. A true miracle then took place in the Temple: there was only one light, which remained lit until it was possible to provide for it,” wrote Venetian Rabbi Yosef Fiammetta in 1741, in his text “Or Boqer,” meaning “the light of the morning.”
Other Ancona Purims were established a half and three-quarters of a century later, respectively. The story for the first commemorates fires that nearly destroyed the local synagogue but miraculously did not, and the next tells of a pogrom that nearly destroyed the community as Napoleon marched through Italy during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Today, these stories have largely faded into memory. But a few centuries ago, Italy had a high concentration of communities that celebrated local Purims — including in Casale Monferrato, Ferrara, Florence, Livorno, Padua, Senigallia, Trieste, Urbino, Verona and Turin — some into the 20th century.
“It would be hoped that the local Purims are not forgotten or that they are restored in the communities that have not completely died out,” the late Italian Rabbi Yehuda Nello Pavoncello once wrote, according to the Turin Jewish Community, “so that the memory of the events reconnects us to the infinite links of the chain of the generations that have preceded us, who have suffered.”
North Africa
An illustration shows King Sebastian of Portugal being fatally wounded at a battle in Morocco in 1578. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
The extra Purim phenomenon was not confined to Europe.
In Tripoli, Libya, local Jews established the so-called Purim Barghul after the deposition of a local tyrant in the late 18th century. Ali Burghul, an Ottoman officer who was installed after the downfall of the Qaramanli dynasty, ruled the region brutally for two years, treating minorities particularly harshly. After factions of the Qaramanlis were reconciled, Burghul was driven out. Jews would go on to celebrate that day, the 29th of Tevet (usually in January).
(Centuries later, in 1970, dictator Muammar Gaddafi established his own holiday, the Day of Revenge, which celebrated the expulsion of Italian officials from Libya; some say it also celebrated the exodus of Jews since the formation of the state of Israel. Within a few years after Gaddafi’s decree, Libya’s Jewish community had dwindled to less than two dozen, effectively ending the nearly 3,000-year history of Jews there.)
In northern Morocco, Jews commemorated the defeat of a Portuguese king, Don Sebastian, who attempted to take over parts of the country but was defeated in a battle in August 1578. Jews had believed that Sebastian would have tried to convert them to Christianity if he had prevailed.
Today only around 2,000 Jews remain in Morocco, but some Moroccan communities marked the day into the 21st century.
Saragossa
A view of an 11th-century palace in Zaragoza, Spain. The Purim of Saragossa story is set in either Zaragoza or Syracuse, Italy. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Scholars still debate which city was the origin of the Purim of Saragossa story — it could have been Zaragoza in Spain or Syracuse in southern Sicily, which was often referred to in the medieval era as Siragusa. Both cities were part of the Spanish empire in 1492 and were depopulated of Jews following the Inquisition.
Either way, Sephardic descendants in places around the world, including Israel and the Turkish city of Izmir, observed their own Purim story by fasting on the 16th of the Hebrew month of Shevat — generally in February — and feasting on the 17th.
The story tells of an apostate named Marcus who slandered the Jewish community to a non-Jewish king, putting their status in jeopardy. But at the last minute, Marcus’ deception is revealed, and he is executed while the community is saved.
The story could have been entirely fabricated. According to Jewish historian Elliot Horowitz, the establishment of this second Purim story may have been a way for the descendants of Saragossan Jews, whether they are originally Spanish or Sicilian, to maintain a unique identity in the larger Sephardic diaspora.
“The Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean in the early modern period were often composed of émigré subcommunities, each of which was distinguished by the customs and liturgy of its place of origin,” he wrote in his 2006 book “Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence.” “The ‘Purim of Saragossa,’ the earliest manuscript evidence for which dates only from the mid-eighteenth century, may well have been ‘invented’ by former ‘Saragossans’ eager to maintain their distinct identity in the multicultural Sephardi Diaspora of the eastern Mediterranean.”
Regardless of its origins, the Megillah of Saragossa text continued to be published through at least the end of the 19th century. It was well known enough that an American Reform rabbi from New York would publish a stage play based off of it in the 1940s.
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Jews in Iran and in the diaspora find respite in celebrating Nowruz amid war
Anna Hakakian, a resident of Great Neck, New York, grew up in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. At that time, Nowruz, the secular Persian New Year, offered a rare moment of respite from a conflict that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
That war came in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Iran’s new leaders tried to ban Nowruz, seeing it as un-Islamic. But Iranians of all religions refused to let it go.
This week, Hakakian is celebrating Nowruz in the shadow of another war. For her, the holiday carries the legacy of Iranians fighting to preserve thousand-year-old traditions despite efforts to suppress them.
“They really tried to erase this from our culture these past 47 years, but it didn’t work,” she said. “It had nothing to do with religion, and all the religions celebrated it, and that’s why it really lasted, because they all fought to keep it.”
How Jews celebrate a Zoroastrian holiday
Nowruz is a 3,000-year-old celebration rooted in ancient Persian tradition, predating the religious divisions that later shaped the region. Its name, meaning “New Day,” marks the arrival of spring.
Though rooted in Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, Nowruz is celebrated by Iranians of all faiths. Even observant Jews mark the holiday. “You don’t get the sense that Iranian Jews took Nowruz any less seriously than non-Jewish Iranians,” said Lior Sternfeld, an expert on Iranian Jews and author of Between Iran and Zion.
The holiday lasts 13 days and begins at the exact moment of the spring equinox. Every year, the start time varies, so Iranians often stay awake until the early hours of the morning to welcome the new year. This year, Iranians brought in the holiday on March 20, around 6 p.m. in Tehran. The celebrations will continue until April 2.
Iranians mark the event by setting up a haft-seen table — a vibrant display of symbolic objects that represent themes of spring and renewal. The table traditionally includes seven items beginning with the Persian letter “S,” like sprouts (sabze), the Iranian spice sumac, and hyacinth flowers (sombol). Iranians also visit one another’s homes, hold neighborhood parties and — during the final days of the holiday — gather for picnics.
According to an Iranian Jewish woman living in the U.S., who asked to remain anonymous because her family remains in Iran, some Jewish Iranians are going to great lengths to celebrate the holiday even amid the war. During her biweekly, one-minute phone calls with her parents — kept short to avoid state surveillance and the exorbitant cost of roughly $50 per minute — they told her they had celebrated Nowruz at home, the last thing they did before fleeing to a safer part of the country to avoid bombardment.
“We only talk for one or two minutes. Usually, they just call to tell me they’re alive. But this time because of Nowruz, the call was a little bit longer,” she said. “It was three minutes! Now three minutes is long.”
Videos and photos circulating on social media show the bazaar in Tehran, which had been closed since the war began, alive once more with patrons shopping for Nowruz essentials like fresh flowers and greens.
Most Nowruz traditions are shared across religions, but Jews have adapted certain customs to reflect their heritage.
Many Muslim families include a Quran on their haft-seen table, but “We Jews … put a little Torah in there,” Hakakian said. “We just adjust a little bit to include our history, but everything else is the same.” Some Jewish families elect instead to include a book of Hafez poetry, a secular symbol of Iranian culture and literary tradition.
The holiday typically falls a week or two before Passover, which shares similar themes of renewal and rebirth. While Nowruz is traditionally marked by spring cleaning, Sternfeld said many Jewish Iranians connect the two for practical reasons.
“If Pesach is a few days away, you want to use this occasion to get rid of chametz while you’re cleaning for Nowruz.”
The only holiday celebrated in public
In Iran, Jewish holidays are kept quiet, confined to private homes, and sometimes even basements or secret locations to maintain discretion. But Nowruz is the one holiday Jews are able to celebrate outwardly.
“Holidays were stressful. They were very stressful. I associate holidays with having to watch myself. I thought there was no such thing as a carefree holiday,” said the anonymous Iranian Jewish woman.
Cindy Chaouli, an Iranian Jew who left the country in 1978 and now lives in Los Angeles, recalled how “subdued” it felt celebrating holidays like Purim and Passover during her childhood. “It was celebratory, but it was still quiet from the outside world.”
Nowruz, by contrast, spilled into the streets.
“It was totally different,” said Chaouli. “This was the one holiday that was universal. It had nothing to do with religion. You felt it as much outside as you did inside yourself.”
She recalled visiting the homes of non-Jewish neighbors during the holiday.
“I remember going to our neighbor’s house downstairs and having sweets … they’d make a drink called sharbat with cherries, sugar and water. You would just eat and play. It was just extremely celebratory.”
Nowruz in exile
After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, much of Iran’s Jewish community dispersed — many settling in Los Angeles and Long Island, New York, now home to two of the largest Iranian diasporas in the U.S., where Iranians continue to celebrate Nowruz with fervor.
“Here … everyone has parties, all the families get together, we have Nowruz billboards everywhere,” Chaouli said, referring to advertisements across the city publicizing Nowruz events, which this year, honor the plight of Iranians in Iran.
In the days leading up to the holiday, Persian grocery stores become scenes of near chaos. At Elat Market, a kosher Persian grocery store in Los Angeles, the crowds are notoriously intense when Nowruz and Passover coincide.
“There was a woman and her mother — one was standing at this container, filling bags and throwing them over people’s heads,” Chaouli recalled.
This year, many of the Persian stores are adorning their windows with the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag, a symbol of protest against the Islamic Regime.
Out on the streets, the celebratory mood is unmistakable. “Everyone I say hello to, it’s ‘Happy Nowruz,’” she said. “It’s a very celebratory time here.”
The sense of shared celebration has been tested in recent years. Chaouli said she has felt tensions between Jewish and Muslim Iranians in the diaspora grow in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and the Gaza war that followed.
“After October 7, there was definitely a rift and a lot of friendships were lost,” she said.
But with the new war dredging up shared feelings of grief and cautious hope for the country’s future, Chaouli feels Iranians of all religions are celebrating the holiday together more intensely than before.
“I’ve heard multiple people say that it doesn’t feel the same this year,” said Hakakian. “There’s a feeling of guilt to celebrate and to be happy when all this is going on. But at the same time, we say, Nowruz is here. It’s giving us hope.”
In Hakakian’s Persian calligraphy class, which she takes alongside Iranians of different faiths, the holiday became a moment of shared mourning.
“We sat together, and first we said, ‘Happy Nowruz,’ and then we all sat together in a moment of silence for the Iranian people,” she said. “It didn’t matter who’s Jewish, who’s not. We were all grieving for Iranians. And that, to me, was a moment — like, yes, we do need a moment of silence together.”
The post Jews in Iran and in the diaspora find respite in celebrating Nowruz amid war appeared first on The Forward.
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UK Doctor Known for Antisemitic Posts Arrested After Violating Bail, Charged With Inviting Support for Hamas
Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan addresses the Activist Independent Movement’s Nakba77, Birmingham Demonstration for Palestine, outside the local BBC offices and studios in 2025. Photo: Screenshot
A British Palestinian doctor based in the United Kingdom and known for antisemitic social media posts on Friday pleaded not guilty to inciting support for Hamas, a proscribed terrorist group, and publishing material intending to stir up racial hatred.
Rahmeh Aladwan, 31, appeared in Westminster Magistrates Court in London, where she was released on bail. The doctor, who is part of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), will next appear at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey, in London on April 24.
The court appearance came one day after British law enforcement arrested Aladwan and slapped her with four counts of “inviting support for Hamas” and two counts of stirring up racial hatred through both spoken words and written material. The charges followed a series of statements and publications she allegedly made in support of Hamas and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
According to a statement from the Metropolitan Police, officers apprehended Aladwan at her residence in Pilning, South Gloucestershire, and transported her to a central London police station on the grounds that she had breached bail conditions “imposed following previous arrests.”
British law enforcement had arrested Aladwan on Oct. 21, charging her with four counts related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred.
A group of demonstrators praised Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, as she left the courthouse on Friday. One waved a Palestinian flag. Another wearing a keffiyeh held a protest sign while someone banged a drum and a voice yelled, “You’re a hero.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a British charity and watchdog group, noted that a social media account titled “GLOBALISE THE INTIFADA” called for the gathering, urging that “our sister Dr Aldwan needs our support” and “this is as serious as it gets.” The account features inverted red triangles to bookend its name, a symbol used by Hamas to mark Israeli targets to be attacked in its propaganda. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the symbol has been widely used by activists to express opposition to the Jewish state and support for the Palestinian terrorist group.
“It speaks volumes about pro-Palestine activists in Britain that they rush to the defense of those charged with supporting Hamas,” CAA said of the demonstration.
According to police, on July 21, 2025, on King Charles Street in London, Aladwan “used words that were threatening, abusive, or insulting intending thereby to stir up racial hatred or having regard to all the circumstances was reckless as to whether racial hatred would be stirred up,” a violation of the Public Order Act of 1986.
On Nov. 19, 2025, police allege that Aladwan “published or distributed written material that was threatening, abusive or insulting intending thereby to stir up racial hatred or having regard to all the circumstances was reckless as to whether racial hatred would be stirred up,” a violation of the same law.
Aladwan’s charges of inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organization range from summer through winter of last year, with her alleged crimes committed in July, August, October, and on New Year’s Eve.
The UK’s Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), which adjudicates on complaints made against doctors, in November suspended Aladwan from practicing medicine for 15 months in response to complaints filed by the CAA, finding that her words could have an “impact on patient confidence” and discourage people from seeking treatment from her.
Some of Aladwan’s antisemitic statements in the original CAA complaint against her included “Britain is totally occupied by Jewish supremacy” and “I will never condemn the 7th of October,” referring to Hamas’s 2023 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. She also infamously labeled London’s Royal Free Hospital “a Jewish supremacy cesspit.”
In a July 6, 2025, posting on X, Aladwan clarified her position for those still confused about her activism’s mission, writing, “Let’s make this crystal clear: anti-Zionism means ‘Israel’ has no right to exist. No debates. No exceptions. ‘Israel’ is genocide. Its supporters are genocidal — and that includes over 90% of Jews on earth.”
Aladwan’s antisemitism has served as the iceberg’s tip in UK, signaling a lurking crisis in the country’s system of socialized medicine.
Last year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for an urgent review to accelerate regulators seeking to counter hateful medical practitioners. “There are just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively,” he said at the time.
The results of the investigation came in this week. UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced their planned implementation through a series of reforms.
These challenges of antisemitism manifesting in medical settings have also shown up in South America, Australia, and across Europe.
In January, Argentina’s José de San Martín Hospital suspended Miqueas Martinez Secchi, a resident physician specializing in intensive care, after writing about Jews on X that “instead of performing circumcision, their carotid artery and main artery should be cut from side to side.”
In February, Australian nurses Sarah Abu Lebdeh and Ahmad Rashad Nadir pleaded not guilty after seizing international attention when a video of them threatening to kill Israeli patients went viral.
In the Netherlands last year, police investigated a nurse who threatened to deliver lethal injections to Israeli patients. In Belgium, a doctor listed “Jewish (Israeli)” as a medical problem when treating a 9-year-old. A Belgian-Israeli living in Amsterdam revealed that a nurse in Amsterdam denied her medical care after refusing to remove a pro-Palestine button.
Responding to Aladwan’s arrest, a CAA spokesperson said, “The cycle of repeatedly arresting Dr. Aladwan and her breaching her bail conditions and being re-arrested may finally be broken, as she now faces charges relating to terrorism and other offenses.”
“This is a doctor whose current interim suspension from practice was even in doubt, so pitiful is our healthcare regulation system, and who has been repeatedly arrested and faced effectively no penalty,” the spokesperson added. “This case will now be a real test of English justice, and whether it can be delivered for British Jews.”
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NYPD Details Increased Security Measures for Passover Amid ‘Heightened State of Alert’ Against Terrorism Threats
New York City Police Department (NYPD) vehicles are seen in Brooklyn, New York, United States, on Oct. 13, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Reuters Connect
The New York Police Department (NYPD) will increase its presence around the city as New Yorkers celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover next week amid what Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described on Thursday as the most threatening terrorist landscape of her career.
“In my 18 years in government, which started in counterterrorism, I have not seen a threat environment quite like this one,” Tisch told leaders of the Jewish community who gathered at 1 Police Plaza for the NYPD’s annual pre-Passover security briefing. “It is clear that we will be in a heightened state of alert for the foreseeable future.”
“You will see increased patrols in the vicinity of synagogues and other houses of worship,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said at the security briefing. She added that the NYPD will deploy members of its counterterrorism divisions, critical response command, heavy weapons teams, and K-9 units to “high threat” locations around the city.
The department is also relying on its system of cameras and sensors, monitored by members of the NYPD’s intelligence division, as well as as its international partners in the Middle East to help them with early-warning detection of threats against New Yorkers.
“These teams provide necessary deterrence and target guarding, and they should also provide reassurance that we are everywhere, that we can be omnipresent,” Weiner said. “There will be security measures that you see, and many others that you won’t. As this onslaught of misplaced retaliation, retribution, and hate continues, we will continue to do all in our power to interrupt it.”
In her remarks, Tisch mentioned four terrorist attacks that took place on US soil since the joint US-Israeli military strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. The attacks include a deadly mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, on March 1, in which the gunman wore a shirt featuring the image of the Iranian flag; an ISIS-inspired attempted bombing at an “American’s Against Islamification” protest in Manhattan’s Upper East Side on March 7; a car ramming at a synagogue in Detroit, Michigan, on March 12 by a man whose family has ties to the Hezbollah terrorist organization; and the shooting of a ROTC instructor in Norfolk, Virginia, that same day by a gunman and known terrorist who screamed “Allahu Akbar.”
Tisch also noted attacks in Europe, including the arson attack targeting four Hatzalah vehicles parked outside a synagogue in north London early this week.
“These are perilous times to be sure. I know you feel the stress and anxiety in your synagogues, in your schools or community centers, and even in your own homes. I feel it too,” Tisch said. “But I also know the NYPD is laser-focused on keeping this city safe with one of the most impressive and sophisticated intelligence and counterterrorism operations in the world.”
She said the NYPD is preparing for a “safe and joyful Passover celebration” and talked about uniformed patrols officers being stationed over Passover around synagogues, Jewish schools, and other Jewish sites. “This work we do together is vital because on top of raising our terrorism level, escalating conflict in the Middle East is also fueling antisemitism around the globe and certainly here at home,” she noted.
In the immediate aftermath of the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic hate crimes in New York City surged 80 percent from Oct. 7 until the end of 2023, according to the police commissioner. By the end of last year, that number began to decline and overall hate crimes decreased by nearly 16 percent. However, since the start of 2026 – following the appointment of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — antisemitic crimes, as well as hate crimes overall, are again on the rise, she concluded by saying.