In a couple of months, Jews around the world will celebrate Purim, marking the deliverance of the Jews of the Persian Empire from extinction 2,300 years ago.
In Iran, the center of the ancient Persian Empire, the date will be marked with mourning and anger.
For years already, Iran has been teaching schoolchildren that Purim marks the massacre of 75,000 Persians by the Jews under the command of Queen Esther. It is presented today as an ancient Iranian holocaust perpetrated by the Jews.
The Iranian version leaves out the part where Haman, the royal advisor, convinces the Persian king to sign a decree permitting the wholesale slaughter the Jews of the empire. When Esther reveals her Jewish background to the king and reveals that Haman was tricking him, the king issues a second decree, allowing the Jews to defend themselves. By God’s grace, the Jews are largely spared, while their enemies are slaughtered.
This year, Iran may go further than simply revising the biblical account.
Iranian authorities have decided to downgrade the status of the “Tomb of Esther and Mordechai the Jews” in the city of Hamadan in central Iran.
The tomb had previously enjoyed that status of an official pilgrimage site.
Following the downgrading, the Iranian news agency Fars began pushing the idea that Esther and her uncle Mordechai were responsible for a massacre of Iranians, and that their burial place had merely been tolerated until now.
The Iranian news agency MEHR reported that a couple of weeks ago, a group of 250 militant Iranian students gathered at the tomb and threatened to tear it down.
what a bunch of codswallop ..they will say ANYTHING to pick a fight!!!
cant find it on website, where is it? i looked under the religious and pilgrimage part.
I’m an iranian jew. I know for sure that 90% of people dont even know what purim is its just few of anti jews who find something about jews and right away connect that subject with israel and try to make a big deal out of it.I know for sure that the tomb of esther is protected by goverment and it is one of the sites that tourists go to see from all over the world no one will touch it.
I think you’re the am ha’aretz over here it says in the megilla that mordechai wass led into galus to shushan habira(so by that point you cant prove that he was buried in israel) even tho they might have taken mordechai’s bonesto eretz israel(i don’t know where hes buried)
and hu do they think they are to keep on making up all these lies about us do they not have ANYTHING better to do??? its getting really stupid and boaring!!!!!!
are you kidding?
To No 6
Your parents visit a building that they were told is the kever. It is not. I have been to the kevarim in Eretz Yisrael. The kevarim were identified by the Ari Zal. How could Mordechai be buried in Iran? Was he not a member of Anshei Kneses Hagedola? Did the Anshei Kneses Hagedola ever meet in Iran? Did the Sanhedrin ever meet in Iran? What naarishkeit!
the web site was nice
but i just could not read the third line
no matter what we say or do, these people will not listen because they are nuts and insane. you cant talk to an insane person and expect them to listen to you.
are these people claiming to be descendants of homon horosho?
in any event , it’s time to say l’chaim and do teshuvoh
I hope you guys realize that this is nonsense. Not that I particularly like the Iranian leadership, but for the record they fully acknowledge the role Mordechai and Esther and the jews and they teach everyone, locals and tourists alike the real history. If you visit the local Hamadan municipalities’s website you will see it for yourself.
http://hamadan.ir/Hamedan/Fa/History_Es.asp
Please verify these reports before you publish sensationalist nonsense and get the proletariat all riled up.
Firstly my parents r both from iran and theyve visited the kever of mordechai and queen esther so they r obviously buried in iran if the story happened there.and I am very sure
They are like babies. They wanna be able to threaten everyone and get away with it. Just like they are trying to do now with their nuclear toys. Same now as they were then, but probably worse. And they just keep proving it again & again.
This tomb in not the kever of Mordechai and Esther, regardless of what their local tradition says. The real kever is in Eretz Yisrael, in the north Galil. Mordechai went up from Persia to Eretz Yisrael at the end of the 70 years of golus, and lived in Eretz Yisrael for many years, where he was a member of the Sanhedrin and the Anshei Kneses Hagedola. There is no record that he ever returned to Persia, or that his bones were taken there for buriel.
Yes when the Jews defend themselves it is a tragedy.
May we crate many more Nakba Days.
but these people are clearly ill and collectivly need to be seing someone