🡄 (Previous category) :: 📁 Purim Readings

Purim Sheni Readings

This is an archive of megillot written for a Purim Sheni, a secondary Purim. In many Jewish communities around the world, “local Purims” celebrating the survival of specific communities are made which include the retelling of stories of their redemption under chilling circumstances.

Click here to contribute a reading you have written, translated, or transcribed for a Purim Sheni.

Resources filtered by COLLABORATOR: “Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)” (clear filter)

Sorted Chronologically (old to new). Sort most recent first?

💬 מְגִלַּת סָארַגוֹסָא | Megillat Saragossa — a Purim Sheni scroll for the 17th of Shəvat commemorating the deliverance of Aragonese (or Sicilian) Jewry

The Megillat Saragossa (also known as the Megillat Syracusa) in Hebrew and English, named after the tale of rescue and reversal of fortune in the cultural memory of some Sepharadi communities, to be read on the 17th of Shəvat. . . .

Categories: Extracanonical Megillot, Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 15th century C.E., 17 Shəvat, 52nd century A.M., local communal deliverance commemorations, medieval megillot, romanticism, second Purims

Contributor(s): Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Unknown Author(s)

י״ט של ק״ק קארפינטראס לט״ו בחדש כסליו | Poetic Additions for 15 Kislev, for when a heavily armed group of gentiles didn’t commit mass slaughter in Carpentras (1512)

The Seder ha-Tamid, a Provençal (Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin) siddur published in Avignon in 1766, has liturgical additions for an amazing five different local festivals — one for Avignon, and two each for Carpentras and Cavaillon. Here’s a series of piyyutim for the fifteenth of Kislev in Carpentras. On 15 Kislev 5273 (24 November 1512 Julian), a troop of armed men entered the Jewish quarter in Carpentras. While we don’t know much else beyond that, we do know that this was a terrifying enough occurrence to the Jews of Carpentras that when the armed men left, a holiday was declared with multiple piyyutim and a full recitation of Hallel. . . .

Categories: Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 16th century C.E., 54th century A.M., על הנסים al hanissim, Arba Kehillot, Carpentras, local communal deliverance commemorations, Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin, salvation, second Purims

Contributor(s): Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Unknown Author(s)

💬 מְגִלַּת פִּסְגָּה | Megillat Fustat — a Purim Sheni scroll for the 28th of Adar commemorating the deliverance of Egyptian Jewry from Hain Ahmed Pasha in 1524

Behold, a full text of the Megillah of Fustat, telling a story of a great miracle that happened in 1524 CE (5284 AM). . . .

Categories: Extracanonical Megillot, Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 16th century C.E., 28 Adar, 54th century A.M., Egyptian Jewry, Fustat, Ottoman Egypt, the KA

Contributor(s): Unknown Author(s), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

💬 מְגִלַּת סֶבַּאצְטִיָין | Megillat Sebastiano — a Purim Sheni scroll for the 1st of Elul commemorating the deliverance of Maghrebi Jewry from King Sebastian of Portugal in 1578

Presenting the full, somewhat short text of the Megillah of Sebastiano, telling the story of a great miracle that occurred to the Jewish community of Morocco on 1 Elul 5338, or August 4 1578 CE. On that day, King Sebastian of Portugal attempted to conquer Alcácer Quibir in North Africa — and inevitably to force the inquisition on the Jews of Morocco. But he was turned back at the last moment, protecting Moroccan independence for several more centuries. This scroll is traditionally recited in Jewish communities in the Maghreb to celebrate the repulsion of the Portuguese. . . .

Categories: Extracanonical Megillot, Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 16th century C.E., 54th century A.M., Alef b'Elul, Maghrebi Jewry, Morocco, Rosh Ḥodesh Elul (אֶלוּל)

Contributor(s): Unknown Author(s), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

עַל־הַנִּסִּים בְּ-כ״ח שְׁבָט | Al ha-Nissim for 28 Shəvat, for the fortunate rescue of a wanderer in the area of the synagogue in Avignon (1766)

The Seder ha-Tamid, a Provençal (Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin) siddur published in Avignon in 1766, has liturgical additions for an amazing five different local festivals — one for Avignon, and two each for Carpentras and Cavaillon. I’m working on transcribing all of these, but to start, here’s an Al haNissim for the twenty-eighth of Shvat in Avignon. Written in rhymed prose, this text tells the story of a gentile who fell headfirst down a deep well near the synagogue, but successfully managed to flip himself over and wedged his feet in the walls. Even more miraculously, afterwards he declared that it was his own fault he fell in the pit! The Jews of the Comtat, an area under direct papal control at the time, were well aware of the tenuousness of their position, and were the man a talebearer then they could have faced a pogrom or exile. . . .

Categories: Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 18th century C.E., 56th century A.M., על הנסים al hanissim, Arba Kehillot, Avignon, local communal deliverance commemorations, Nusaḥ Comtat Venaissin, salvation, second Purims

Contributor(s): Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut), Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation) and Unknown Author(s)

אַזְכִּיר מַעֲשֵׂה ה׳ | Azkir Ma’aseh Hashem — a Purim Sheni piyyut of Tripoli for the Shabbat preceding the 29 of Tevet, by Avraham Khalfon

In North Africa, a unique custom developed of reciting a Mi Khamokha v-Ein Kamokha piyyut, inspired by the famed Shabbat Zakhor work of Yehuda haLevi, on the Shabbat before a local Purim (a celebration of community’s deliverance from destruction). This piyyut, written by R. Avraham ben Rafael Khalfon, was recited on the Shabbat before 29 Tevet in the community of Tripoli, to celebrate the victory of the Karamanlid dynasty over the despotic usurper Ali Burghul (after events transpiring from 1793-1804). . . .

Categories: Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 19th century C.E., 29 Tevet, 56th century A.M., Alphabetic Acrostic, Libyan Jewry, Maghrebi Jewry, North African Jewry, פיוטים piyyuṭim

Contributor(s): Avraham Khalfon, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

💬 מְגִילַּת הִיטְלֶיר | Megillat Hitler — a Purim Sheni scroll for French Armistice Day [after World War Ⅱ] by Asher P. Ḥassine (Casablanca, 1943)

A megillah attesting to the terrible events of World War II from the vantage of North African Jewry in Casablanca. . . .

Categories: Extracanonical Megillot, Modern Miscellany, 🌐 Armistice Day Readings, Purim Sheni Readings

Tags: 20th century C.E., 58th century A.M., Maghrebi Jewry, Morocco, the Holocaust

Contributor(s): Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (transcription & naqdanut) and Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (translation)

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