Haman on a Tree - Kids projects

Supermom#1

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:21 pm

amother OP wrote:

Does it bother anyone when kids come home with a project of Haman hanging on a tree?

Am I the only one who finds it disturbing?

nope. BH it was Haman and not Mordechai!

amother

Blueberry

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:37 pm

pinkpeonies wrote:

This is a conversation between haman and mordechai in the medrash. Haman asks mordechai, doesn’t it say “ בנפל אויביך אל תשמח” in the Torah?
Mordechai answered him that it only applies when the אויבים are Jews, and we are actually supposed to step on their high places, hence mordechai stepping on haman a back deliberately when he climbed on the horse.

Stop taking modern day PC culture and applying it to Torah

I do t tho k this is a modern or woke concept.
Sorry, I am a chasidish old fashioned woman.
I find kids coming home with avraham in a big fire or haman on a tree Borge disturbing. Same wi to eliporni’s head on a stick. Kids that age don’t understand it and it can be frightening and disturbing to them. I find all of it disturbing too- just because it’s a bit much- although. I obviously can process and understand it so I can value it.

amother

Scarlet

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:40 pm

After a major trauma, watching the perpetrator be killed/ rendered harmless is so crucial, and allows for fully rejoicing and feeling safe, and giving thanks to Hashem.
Are we so far removed from Purim that we don’t need this?
Would we not specify to survivors of Oct 7 that their torturer was bombed?
It is a crucial part here that what was supposed to happen to Mordechai happened to Haman.
Would we not tell our children that the tree was originally for Mordechai?

amother

Blueberry

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:43 pm

Please note also that my issue with it is not to protect our dear haman. It’s to keep my kids pure. I know Torah is pure but a 3 year old has a hard time processing all this

amother

Bergamot

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:46 pm

amother Scarlet wrote:

There's a difference between telling and making a coloring book out of it. Are you saying making a coloring book of dead Hamas members would be therapeutic for children affected by Oct. 7?

amother

Jean

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 9:09 pm

I hear the OP. I have no compunctions about the way Hitler went out. I wouldn't need my kids coming home from school with a picture of him with his brains blown out.

giftedmom

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 9:17 pm

amother Blueberry wrote:

Please note also that my issue with it is not to protect our dear haman. It’s to keep my kids pure. I know Torah is pure but a 3 year old has a hard time processing all this

I think you as a mother have a hard time. Never met a 3 year old who has a hard time processing this.

giftedmom

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 10:56 pm

I will add that I only started grasping the trauma of hanging when I was in elementary school and read a Yiddish Holocaust book that had pictures of actual dead Nazis hanging on the gallows. Fake Haman hanging at my kindergarten play didn’t faze me.

Goldie613

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 12:02 am

This is really a thing???

I know megillahs and gragers are pretty standard little kid projects, but this seems a bit much. I can understand that maybe this is to emphasize the fact that the good guys won and the bad guys lost, but you're basically making a kid project about people dying. I can see a sensitive little kid not being too sure about this project. Why go there?

amother

Ebony

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 1:01 am

I think this is probably cultural. In some communities making a project like that would be seen as tacky and inappropriate for preschoolers, in some it’s woke and inconceivable to not make such projects.

amother

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 1:32 am

It doesnt bother me that he learned about it but it bothers me that he made a gragger of haman swinging from a tree. It's very graphic in my opinion

There's a coloring book that has really graphic images of the makkos like a tiger ripping a man to shreds by makkas arov. Even though we always loved the part of the makkos I will not be buying that for my kids. I would've been traumatized.

amother

Mintgreen

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 3:14 am

giftedmom wrote:

When you go to the haulacaust museum and learn about the grotesque ways the Jews were murdered , is that better? Any holocaust book is scary. Tanach includes a lot about people being hung , stoned, killed. The Navi is full of war. This is our history. It’s important to be aware of it.

How about the cross symbol that Christians walk around wearing? Isn’t that the same idea?

amother

Strawberry

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 6:26 am

I feel that the sanitization of stories of good and evil to be damaging to our children's sense of moral justice. I feel it contributes to a false notion of moral relativism. It's especially noticable in this environment, where war is not tolerated at all. Where, even when pure evil is on full display, people don't have the stomach to be ok with the Israelis to do what is necessary to root out the evil. It's important for children to understand that fighting evil is messy and bad people die, and it's a necessary and good thing.

amother

DarkPurple

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 6:52 am

amother Strawberry wrote:

By that logic, it makes no sense to do a project of Haman hanging. Instead they should do one of all the bodies on the battlefield.

amother

Strawberry

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 7:20 am

amother DarkPurple wrote:

By that logic, it makes no sense to do a project of Haman hanging. Instead they should do one of all the bodies on the battlefield.

Why? Haman is the villain in the Purim story, and there is no reason to downplay his comeuppance. Even to have satisfaction that justice is done.

amother

Scarlet

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 7:28 am

amother Strawberry wrote:

This exactly.

amother

DarkPurple

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 7:39 am

amother Strawberry wrote:

Why? Haman is the villain in the Purim story, and there is no reason to downplay his comeuppance. Even to have satisfaction that justice is done.

Haman isn't the only villain. All those people who were ready and willing to kill Jews as soon as they were given legal permission are almost as bad.