#purim 2024

[jewelleria]

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be. 

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate. 

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified. 

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map. 

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle. 

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more. 

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop. 

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments. 

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on. 

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not. 

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways. 

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine. 

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war. 

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this: 

I am a Jew. 

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love. 

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners. 

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee! 

Then they sent me this: 

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die. 

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind. 

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake. 

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired. 

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people? 

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews. 

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like. 

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for. 

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war. 

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why. 

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be. 

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

[tikkunolamresistance]

Anti-Zionism & Purim:

Purim is a wonderfully joyous, often colourful and very tasty, Jewish holiday celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (which corresponds to late winter/early spring). A holiday where drinking is a mitzvah, some dress up as characters from the Book of Esther, we gift good food and most definitely argue about which hamantaschen filling is best. Purim is about Jewish joy, resistance and outliving those who wish for our destruction.

Purim starts the evening of Saturday 23rd March, and ends at sundown the following day, Sunday 24th.

What’s the Purim story?

It is a story of salvation, of Jewish survival and being against all odds. The story of Purim comes from the salvation of the Jewish from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day”. Haman, or Haman the Agagite, was a royal vizier in the court of the Persian empire, to King Ahasuerus/Xerxes I (465 BCE) who was agrivated by Moredcai, of the tribe Benjamin, and his refusal to bow down to his demands— thus Haman seeked revenge on his rejection and convinces the King to issue a decree to kill all Jews in the Persian empire. However the genocidal plot would soon be thearted by Hadassah, or as we know her, Queen Esther.

Queen Esther was an incredible Jewish woman whom the King Ahasuerus (transliteration of Xerxes) had fallen in love with. The Queen revealed her Jewish identity and pleaded with the King to spare her people, to which then, the King was appalled by Haman’s treachery— ordering his execution and granting Jews permission to defeat their enemies.

This story is apart of the Five Melligot (Melligah meaning “scroll” in Hebrew), the Book of Esther.

How is Purim celebrated?

Celebrating Purim depends on minhagim (customs) amongst Jewish cultural and ethnic communities: Ashkenazim may celebrate differently from Sefardim, who celebrate different from Middle Eastern, North African, South Asian and Ethiopian Jewry!

However, these are some universal rituals:

• Listen to the Purim story, the Book of Esther, typically at a Synagogue.

• Eating good for Seudah, a meal had during the day of Purim. Including foods such as pomegranate and wine brisket, hamantaschen, boyosa, challah with various toppings, rugelach, onion and poppy seed rings, hojuelas, kreplach, pickled vegetables and so much more.

• Mishloach Manot, gifting food to friends and/or family.

• Tzedakah, charity, and Metanot L’evyonim, supporting those in need.

• Haka’at Haman: during Megillah reading, there is a custom to make noise at the reading of Haman’s name. From stomping your feet to booing, this minhag is associated with Jewry of France and Provence, though has roots in Talmudic sources. You can read more here.

• Drinking lots of wine!

If you have any specific cultural Purim traditions, leave a comment! Traditions vary from family, to minhag, to cultures!

So, what do we learn from the story of Queen Esther?

Where our Rabbis may dress as Queen Esther, and we get drunk because it’s might be your favourite mitzvah, where we stick to tradition and try a new hamantaschen filling, and hearing the megillah like it’s the first time, all over again. Purim is where we introspect through our celebration; the very expression of joy, against all odds, is where we seek our growth. We exercise our liberty, our bravery and boldness— like Esther, we do not hide our Jewishness, instead we decorate ourselves. We do not stand in the face of adversity and let it through, we crush it and celebrate our resilience. Purim is a reminder of pride, of resistance and using your voice for those who may have theirs silenced. Like Queen Esther, we must not allow genocide and violence, and certainly not in our name as a people who have faught against it through out history. In honour of Purim, we must use what power we have to call for Tikkun Olam— a better future, for all.

Purim is where live to see ourselves dance and sing, the complete expression of G!d— HaShem, the Divine, the Universe, our collective human spirit— we live to build a future of many more Purims, many more celebrations of collective resistance. We dance and sing, and dress up, and drink, as is written, so that there is no world without this freedom.

Families often get creative in teaching their children, and communities, the importance of Purim, by making decorative masks to communicate the importance of identity, or dressing up in fun costumes inspired by strong characters, wether from the Purim story or just fictional worlds. Art is an incredible and important way to communicate, so if you want to get creative and make your own mask, costume or simply create artwork inspired by the story of Purim— tapping into your creative liberty is a wonderful ritual to add to your own traditions.

You can also show your gratitude to people, such as friends, family, service workers, activists, with gifts and letters to celebrate them and their bravery, their selflessness. Do you have anybody you’re greatful for, who’s inspired you to be more selfless, to give back?

What can I reflect on for Purim?

Think about how you show your Jewish pride, how you express your Jewish joy. Do you want to be more loud, more unapologetic, more open? How can you show up for others in need, who are in need for their voices to be uplifted? How can you do your part in building a future that celebrates total liberation from what tries to destroy us? Purim is about celebration, about joy, so as you join in on the festivities however you celebrate, remember that this full expression of your Jewish self is an act of resistance against a history of Jew hatred, a history of antisemitism, and that our existence will outlive the powers that pretend to be on our side.

How can I incorporate Palestine into my Purim celebrations?

Following traditions of donating and tzedekah, you can donate funds to GoFundMes of Palestinian families seeking refuge outside of Gaza, to ensure these families can make it to safety and eat well. We’ll be reposting and sharing GoFundMes and other calls for aid all day on Purim, if you’re looking to do some tzedekah.

As millions of Palestinians in Gaza are imminently facing starvation, you could aim to organise protests and rallies with your communities to demand action to be taken for immediate food distribution into Gaza. Be vocal on Purim, we’ll try to update you with any anti-Zionist events that may be happening across the world.

If you live near a Mosque/Masjid or Islamic community centre, you coulf drop off some Halal-safe food packages for Ramadan celebrations; sweets, pre-packaged/cooked foods and pastries. Your local Islamic food stores can definitely offer more guidance, and be sure to look out for the Halal logo! But, importantly, it’s always good to contact the Mosque or Community centre beforehand to see what donations they’re accepting!

If you’re visiting Shul, now more than ever is your time to challenge the narrative. Why must we turn away blind eye to a genocide whilst we celebrate our survival? Why must we allow the pain we have felt, pass to another, in the name of our survival? If you feel it is safe to do so, it is so irrevocably important to challenge the Zionist narratives that use our history, our holidays, our peoplehood to inflict harm that we once felt. As Queen Esther did, we must speak, and we must not be afraid to do so.

Further Purim readings:

The History of Purim

Laws and Customs of Purim

History of Purim costumes

We’re wishing everyone a happy, safe, healthy and beautiful Purim— please share with us how you’ll be celebrating this year, and keep an eye out for tzedekah posts to donate to Palestinians in need!

[jewishicequeen]

🍷🍾Purim asks!🎭🎉

(Reblog and I'll drop one in your askbox)

1. What's your costume this year?

2. Favorite costume you ever did?

3. Favorite kind of alcohol?

4. Ever attended a Purimshpiel(a theater play of the Megila story)?

5. What're you like when drunk(if you know)?

6. Tell a story of something that went upside-down

7. Any "vort" for purim?

8. The ideal Mishloach Manot for you?

9. Ever wore a mask for a costume?(covid masks count if they're an integral part of the costume)

10. Name all the sons of Haman, without checking!

11. Do you ever cosplay outside of Purim?

12. Best hamentachen filling?

13. Tell us of a character you headcanon as Jewish and how you think they'd celebrate!

14. Give us the bare-bones for a role-swap AU for one of your fandoms!

*15(bonus question)* Any plans for Shushan-Purim?

[totallyhussein-blog]

Iraqi Jewish confectionery are a window into a bygone era

Five days a week, 78-year-old Tzvi (Sabah) David rises at 4:35 a.m. and dons an all-white baker’s outfit before heading out to open up Konditorei David, the last-of-its-kind Iraqi pastry shop in Petah Tikva that was opened by his father David Tsalah.

Three days before the Purim holiday, David is getting ready for one of the busiest times of the year as multiple generations of Iraqi customers will soon stop by to purchase sweets that have been synonymous with Purim for Iraqi Jews for centuries, if not millennia.

“I love the work. It is a very tiring and difficult job and I am not 18 anymore, but I feel young in the morning when I get up,” David tells Eliyahu Freedman of The Times of Israel on a recent visit to the small shop, which doubles as a window into the pre-modern world of Middle-Eastern pastries.

His first item of business today is making a fresh batch of baba qadrasi, also known in Arabic as “mann el-sama” or “manna from heaven,” named after the legendary food that God miraculously delivered from the sky to feed the Israelites in the Exodus story.

If not truly the biblical food itself, an early recipe for baba qadrasi was found in a 10th-century Abbasid cookbook.

[butchfeygela]

thinking a lot about wht Purim means this year and what the command to 'Drink until you cannot tell the difference between good and evil' means for a community where so many have become drunk on idolatry and the power of white supremacy. Of course im not the only antizionist critiquing the story that ends with a decree for jews to kill all those who had plotted to harm them and how that story has been used explicitly to justify the genocide of Palestinians. and it wouldnt be Judaism if there wasnt expanisve midrash and reinterpretations of the Book of Esther but im focused on the Purim celebration specifically

like what evils have we all become too drunk to recognize? evils we have been tolerant of in our own homes? in our own temples? are we brave enough to be like Esther, isolated from her community, vulnerable but in a position where exposing herself to more danger, refusing to be a silent witness to the genocidal depravity of others [even and especially those with the most power over our lives] saves a whole peoplehood?

This Purim, do not become so drunk [on alcohol yes but moreso on fear/power/self victimization] you cannot see the Hamans in our community

May zionism be blotted out and disgraced in the coming years as we have done with Haman's memory. Chag Purim Sameach!

[girlactionfigure]

Purim in the Golan Heights when Hezbollah fires rockets at you and you can't get to a bomb shelter. 

Reality in Israel, unbelievable.

[fromgoy2joy]

My Purim outfit- because everyone asked and this is very important

[is-the-fire-real]

Best costume at my first Purim is the guy who dressed as a Catholic priest

[bill-the-dog-for-the-check]

I'm gonna end my brief moratorium on using Tumblr, this antisemitic shithole that I like venting to, with this photo of Hannah Senesh dressed up as a Hungarian Army officer for Purim. Because there's something beautiful and humanizing about it. I try to hold on the fact that our ancestors have been being Jewish for an unimaginably long time. The earliest evidence of Purim being celebrated goes back to the 5th century BCE. We are literally the descendants of the Israelites who originated in the Bronze Age. We were contemporaries with virtually every ancient Near Eastern empire. Our most important words--Yerushalayim, Yisrael, Tzion--have been spoken by our people for thousands of years. We are a people of the ancient world who have, unlike the Philistines and the Nuragics and the Moabites or the Ammonites and so on, have managed to preserve our identity and culture through the millennia, dispersion, and colonization. Almost every native peoples has lost their identity once they lost their land... but we held on. We are a people who were founded in the Bronze Age, and now regularly use modern technologies like laptops and cameras. Through every era of history, we have persisted.

All this is to say, Purim is a holiday which celebrates our survival and joy, above all else. It isn't just 'they tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat', it's also 'we are alive, and that's worthy of celebration!' Remember today that we aren't just celebrating Purim in isolation, but the Jews through history have done this act and we do it with them, together. Jewish angst and suffering is something that gets a lot of attention, as it should, but I think we should focus on our happiness too.

Because far more than misery, Judaism is about the joy of community.

[lawbreaker13]

Happy Purim guys. Guess what I am.

I’m actually so funny that’s what I am

[pastelgothbigirl]

I’m gonna be a ‘sexy lobster’ for Purim and I’m so excited…gonna make out with bf and then tell him that he’s kissing treyf

hehehehehehehehehe 🦞

[yz]

Purim. Bnei Brak. March 2023.

[berl-balagula]

פורים שמח. היד של בעלתי לקנה מידה.

Happy Purim. Wife's hand for scale.

[simplysiriuslyjoking]

Purim Samech everyone!

As we read the Megila, I want you to make extra noise at Haman/Hamas, make the world hear about another man before Hitler who tried to kill us Jews, and how we are still here, this time with a country of our own, our own army, our own rights to exist and live our lives and tradition.

Remember to laugh, because if we don't, they win.

Remember our hostages as well and hug your loved ones.

They tried to kill us, we survived. Let's eat!

[endorsprophecy]

I was making hamantaschen and accidentally made one that looked like the Virgin Mary (Oops wrong religion)