A Purim Potpourri – Humanistic Resources for Purim

It’s mid-February, and time to start thinking about Purim! Purim starts March 4, 2015. (Don’t worry–if you’re here for Jewish Disability Awareness Month resources, I’ll be posting later this week about Purim in particular!)

If you’re a secular or humanistic Jew, what’s in it (and out there) for you?

As always–see if you can’t find a community to celebrate with. The Society for Humanistic Judaism and Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations both have pages on their websites to help you find communities that might be near you. Many of these groups hold Megillah readings, Purim carnivals, costume parties, and other events, which are for many the most fun Jewish celebrations of the year.

Both organizations maintain pages about the holidays and, again, Purim is no exception. Here’s SHJ’s page; this is CSJO’s page.

But wait–there’s more! 

More Humanistic Hanukkah

There’s been a decent amount of traffic coming here from searches about how secular Jews celebrate Hanukkah. So as not to leave you empty-handed, new visitor, here’s a short list of resources (and pardon my laziness–but why reinvent the wheel?):

• The Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ) has a page dedicated to Hanukkah from a secular perspective. SHJ also has a YouTube channel with videos on all manner of secular and humanistic Jewish topics.
• You could also check to see if there’s a secular or humanistic Jewish group near you affiliated with either SHJ or the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations; go ahead, be a joiner–a people-person, even!
• SHJ affiliate, the City Congregation in New York, has resources for celebrating Hanukkah
• SHJ affiliate Kol Hadash in the Chicago area has a home Hanukkah service you can download
• SHJ affiliate Machar in the Washington, D.C., area has information, including a set of readings for lighting the menorah

(If I didn’t mention a resource you know of, please let me know and I’ll add it to the list!)