Purim is a Jewish holiday, celebrated annually on the 14th of the Jewish month of Adar (or 15th of Adar in the walled cities) in commemoration of the miracle related in the Book of Esther in which the Jewish people, through the intervention of a young Jewish woman named Esther, who concealed her Jewish origins, manages to survive an attempt to be annihilated under the mandate of the Persian king Ahasuerus, identified by some historians as Xerxes I, around 450 A.C.
The Book of Esther tells how King Ahasuerus of Persia, instead of killing all the Jews in his kingdom, as his minister Haman had requested, kills Haman, his ten sons and the enemies of the Jews throughout the world. empire. Ahasuerus places Mordecai, Esther's cousin, in Haman's post.
Despite the fact that Purim is considered one of the most joyous days on the Hebrew calendar, Jews have an obligation to fast and pray on the eve, in memory of the Persian Jews who fasted in the face of the impending conflict that could have led to their extermination.
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