I remember the first time I noticed something strange about the megillah, the biblical Book of Esther that is read aloud in synagogues worldwide today, on the Jewish holiday of Purim. It was ten years ago, in 2005, while listening to the reading in my hometown synagogue. I recall thinking: When did this story become so gruesome?
I was born and raised in the Hasidic community and was living then with my wife and five children in the all-Hasidic village of New Square, New York, home of the Skverers, one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the country. Many of its male residents cannot speak, read, or write in Englishâ??Yiddish is their exclusive language. Itâ??s a place that absolutely forbids television, movies, and the Internet. The village is led by the rebbe, the sectâ??s supreme religious leader, and it functions as a quasi-theocracy.
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