'Iranian Holocaust': Palestinian flag placed on Mordechai's tomb as Jews celebrate Purim

• Published date: 23 March 2024
• Author: OHAD MERLIN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

This year a picture from the Iranian city of Hamadan went viral, showing a Palestinian flag hung defiantly right at the entrance to the shrine where, according to Jewish tradition, the graves of the heroes of the Book of Esther, Queen Esther and Mordechai, are believed to be; a flag found by the chief rabbi of Iran took him by surprise. This shrine has served as a place of Jewish pilgrimage and has been vandalized and obstructed in the past, and included arson, demonstrations in front of the shrine with Hezbollah flags and signs reading "Death to Israel". In a country where the right of peaceful assembly is rarely honored unless aligned with, if not ordered by the regime, these demonstrations are even more meaningful

One allegation constantly directed at Jews during Purim is the perpetration of the so-called "Holocaust of Iranians."

One user uploaded an elaborate infographic referring to an Iranian tradition to travel in nature on the 13th of the Iranian month of Badar, claiming that on this day, "Esther, a Jewish lover of King Ahasuerus, exploited the king's state of inebriation to pass a decision to commit genocide against all non-Jews. Once Iranians heard that they fled the cities to the mountains to find asylum." The infographic also claimed that following this decision, 75,000 Iranians were murdered and 15 Iranian 'nations' were lost forever. Jews. it said, celebrate this brutal genocide by consuming blood-tainted food and wine and eating food shaped like the hat of Haman.

Another user published a picture of a doll being hung in what apparently looks like an Israeli street, claiming that it is a personification of an Iranian woman and adding: "On the eve of the anniversary of the 'Iranian holocaust,' Israel is preparing for the Purim celebration, hanging dolls of Iranian women. And then Iranian sellouts who worship Israel also bend over backward to defend racist Jews!"

A third user referred to Purim as "the holiday of the slaughtering of Iranians" adding that Haman was "an Iranian minister murdered by Esther and Mordechai;" while another one pointed to the picture mentioning ironically the well-known Iranian protest slogan "woman, life, freedom."

Writer and Iran expert from Haifa University Dr. Thamar Elam Gindin stated, "Like...