BONUS EPISODE: The Purim War

This is a bonus episode with Ben and Matan that we recorded in response to the ongoing Iran War, which was launched a few days before the Jewish holiday of Purim. As the first bombs were being dropped from American and Israeli warplanes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech explicitly connecting the biblical story of Purim - a court drama in which Jews are threatened and then annihilate their enemy in Ancient Persia - with the attack on Iran.Again, we're able to use the BAD COUSINS framework to analyze the ways that politicians use biblical and religious stories to explain, win support for, and push their own - often violent and chaotic - agendas.Using the biblical sources and Elliot Horowitz's excellent 2008 book Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence, Matan connects the Abrahamic family to Haman, the antagonist of the Purim story, and explains the far-right Zionist perspective on Amalek, the vague enemy of all Jews.Ben and Matan then discuss why the Purim story shouldn't be thrown out of the Jewish canon, despite the way it's used to justify so much violence, and find a few threads of hope and inspiration in the story and its characters.Follow us on instagram @KolloMedia and @the_diasporistSubscribe to the Kollo Media newsletter to get exclusive interviews, episodes, and info about BAD COUSINS - plus the rest of the Kollo Media podcast and audiobook catalogue, which you can see at kollomedia.com.