Shushan Purim cities?

Mrs Bissli

Mon, Mar 17 2014, 5:40 pm

My kid got a "geography" homework today about listing possible cities where Shushan Purim could be celebrated ASIDE from Jerusalem. Is there one? Most European walled cities probably don't go all the way back to Yehoshua (wasn't that the criteria)? Or do they permit cities that are walled at the time of Esther and Mordechai?

I can only think of Rhodes, Aleppo, Mosul, Baghdad and possibly Cairo and Sanaa? Has anyone done similar projects for children's HW?

doctorima

Mon, Mar 17 2014, 6:21 pm

I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but I once saw the following list in a sheet of Divrei Torah for Purim as cities where some residents read on both days due to doubt: Tiveria, Chevron, Tzefas, Sh’chem, Haifa, Akko, Gush Chalav, Yaffo, Lod, Ramallah, Azah, Yericho, and Beit She’an. I realize there may not be Jews today in some of these places, so I guess this is more a list of where there have been doubts discussed about their walled status in early generations. I could be wrong, but I think the only city that reads today only on Shushan Purim is Yerushalayim.

spring13

Mon, Mar 17 2014, 8:51 pm

I guess one would need to nail down the criteria for what constitutes a walled city from the correct period and how much of the ancient wall needs to exist today. But looking at the list below, there might be a few contenders, at least in terms of when the original cities were founded - these articles don't necessarily say when the walls were built. All of the ones I'm listing below were founded around the time of the Purim story, most of them much earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....walls

X'ian, China
Cyrene, Libya
Tangier, Morocco
Balkh, Afghanistan
Qufu, China
Isfahan, Iran
Yazd, Iran
Shiraz, Iran
Tabriz, Iran
Batroun, Lebanon
Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Nesebar, Bulgaria
Corfu, Greece
Nafplio, Greece
Bari, Italy
Siena, Italy
Brasov, Romania
Novi Sad, Serbia
Tarragona, Spain
Diyarbakir, Turkey
Alanya, Turkey
Edirne, Turkey

I didn't look at every city on that page. I bet there were others in the Middle East, North Africa, and southern Europe though. Maybe even in the Americas.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 12:20 am

doctorima wrote:

I know people in shilo keep two because it is a safek.

Also, where is gush chalav? And the places that you mentioned, most of these keep the first day, not shushan purim.

chanchy123

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 1:22 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

I know people in shilo keep two because it is a safek.

Also, where is gush chalav? And the places that you mentioned, most of these keep the first day, not shushan purim.

Lod, Tzfat, Shilo, Kiryat Arba/Chevron, all keep two days, I don't remember about Haifa or Yaffo I think also Teverya. There used to be a tradition of reading megillah in the ancient synagogue in Gaza city on Shushan Purim.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 1:26 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Interesting. I didnt know that.

DO you know where gush chalav is? I never heard of such a place.

chanchy123

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 1:35 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Interesting. I didnt know that.

DO you know where gush chalav is? I never heard of such a place.

Gush Chalav was the capitol of the Gallillee during the time of the end of the Second Temple and the exile.

ally

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 2:03 am

chanchy123 wrote:

spring13

Tue, Mar 18 2014, 9:56 am

Isramom8 wrote:

What is the modern name for Shushan itself? One of the Iranian cities listed above?

Shushan is known as Susa to a lot of scholars. There's a modern town called Shush in Iran which is located near/on the ancient site.

ETA: I found an article with a lot of information, but it doesn't really list cities outside of E"Y: it just mentions that there are a lot of places in the area (Turkey, Greece, Iran, Iraq, etc.) that could very well qualify and have a history of reading on both days.
Go to http://www.yutorah.org/togo/purim/ and download the article by R' Jonathan Cohen from the 5771 issue.

self-actualization

Wed, Mar 19 2014, 10:30 am

I've met a number of Iranian Jews from Hamedan and they have told me that Hamedan is the ancient Shushan. (I've actually met 2 families with the last name Hamedani).