From Northern Israel to Southern California, Purim Celebrations Bring Cheer to Hard-Hit Communities

As the festive holiday of Purim begins Thursday evening, March 13, Chabad reps around the world will bring the holiday’s joy and observances to Jewish people, including in communities that have been hit hard by war and natural disasters. 

Chabad reps will read the megillah, share mishloach manot gifts of food, coordinate the distribution of matanot la’evyonim – gifts of money for the indigent – and host Purim feasts in more than 100 countries around the world.

In Cancun, Mexico, Chabad will celebrate with hundreds of Jewish college students visiting for spring break. Chabad of Miami Beach is doing the same. The students– facing antisemitic hatred and adversity on campus–will now celebrate their Judaism proudly and joyfully, as they hear the Megillah in Mexico or Miami. 

IDF soldiers stationed at Mt. Hermon may need to bundle up for the chilly mountaintop weather, but the warmth of the holiday will reach them in Syria as well. Rabbi Sholom Ber Hertzel of Chabad of the Golan Heights launched a massive initiative that will deliver 12,500 mishloach manot gifts to soldiers stationed in Syria and Northern Israel.

In Bahia Blanca, Argentina, where many thousands of residents have been displaced by flooding, Chabad is distributing food, clothing and financial aid to people who lost everything days before Purim. With their own soup kitchen destroyed by the floods, truckloads of supplies and volunteers made the 400-mile trek from Buenos Aires

The wildfire-devastated Pacific Palisades Jewish community gathered for a pre-Purim event at Our Big Kitchen in Los Angeles, California, where they baked hamantashen – the traditional three-cornered Purim pastry – and received mishloach manot gifts. On Purim, they’ll gather in Beverly Hills for a Royal Purim Celebration – a chance to forget, for a few hours, the reality of a community turned to ash and the road to rebuilding that lies ahead.

For the megillah reading schedule and to join your local Chabad’s Purim events, click here. You can participate in the mitzvah of giving charity to the needy of Israel here.