What day is Purim? Here's what you need to know about the Jewish holiday

• Purim begins at sundown on Wednesday.
• The holiday recalls the ancient story of how Queen Esther bravely saved the Jewish people.
• It is a tradition for groups of Jewish people to read from the Book of Esther aloud during Purim.

Purim begins this week, and the holiday will bring celebrations, costumes, sweet treats and other traditions to Jewish communities around the world.  

The holiday, which starts at sundown Wednesday, recalls the ancient story of how the figure of Queen Esther bravely saved the Jewish people.   

“At the last minute, the story is flipped upside down, and the Jewish people are saved through the heroic acts of a particular heroine, Queen Esther, who realizes that she's in the right place in the right moment in order to change the fate of the Jewish people,” Rabbi Benjamin Berger, vice president of Jewish education at Hillel International, explained to USA TODAY.  

How is Purim celebrated today? How will Jewish communities come together this week? Here’s what you need to know.  

What is Purim?  

Purim is a holiday centered around the biblical Book of Esther, in which Queen Esther stops a plot devised by Haman, the king's counselor, to massacre Jews.

“Jews have celebrated the holiday of Purim as a day when they triumphed over one of their most fearsome enemies named Haman,” Pamela Nadell, a professor of history at American University, told USA TODAY.  

Berger said Jewish people continue to “celebrate this day where the tables were turned, where what we thought was going to be the destruction ended up being the salvation of the Jewish people.” 

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How is Purim celebrated?  

There are four main acts that Jewish people do on the day of Purim, Berger said. The first is to read the story of Esther, called the Megillah.  

It is a tradition for groups of Jewish people to read from the Book of Esther aloud, together as a community.  

“During the reading, every time the wicked Haman’s name is mentioned, they make a lot of noise,” Nadell said, explaining that people will stomp their feet, shout and use a grogger, a kind of noisemaker.   

Other traditions include having festive meals, bringing food to loved ones and giving charitable gifts.  

“It's also very important on the holiday to also make donations, to give charity,” Nadell said. “You have this wonderful, raucous celebration, and then you also have remembering those who are less fortunate.”  

Berger added that the tradition of giving charitable gifts “is a recognition that we can't sit here in joy and in the levity of the moment if we're not also taking care of those who are in need.”  

He also pointed to commemorations that individual groups organize for Purim. For example, this year, "Hillel International is urging Jewish students and the global Jewish community to abstain from food and donate what they would have spent on meals” to relief efforts in Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country, according to a news release from the organization. The show of support comes from an ancient tradition to fast ahead of Purim. 

Some groups of Jewish people will also bake and eat hamantaschen, a cookie named after the villain Haman, among other Purim celebrations. 

Is Purim like Halloween?  

Though experts told USA TODAY some Jews don’t embrace comparing the holiday to Halloween, Purim is often likened to modern Halloween celebrations because both involve dressing up in costumes and going to carnivals and other festivities.   

“You can think of Purim as the Jewish Halloween,” Nadell said. “Jews wear all sorts of fanciful costumes, and they dress up. Little girls will dress up as Queen Esther, and boys will dress up as one of the male heroes of the story, he was Esther's uncle, his name was Mordechai.”  

But she added that children – and some adults – will “dress up in all sorts of things.”  

“Honestly, I've even seen people dress their pets up in costumes, just like they do on Halloween,” she said.