Three Aramaic Piyyutim for Purim: Text, Context, and Interpretation

Abstract

This article presents a critical edition of three Aramaic piyyutim for Purim. The piyyutim are unique in that they were not written in Hebrew, the overwhelmingly dominant language of classical piyyutim, but in a biblicizing register of Aramaic. This puts these piyyutim in conversation with other forms of Jewish Aramaic poetry, namely poems written in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA). The article includes a detailed analysis of the relation between the JPA poems for Purim and the piyyutim presented herein, and it argues that overt anti-Christian polemics are common to both. The Aramaic piyyutim presented here thus provide a unique nexus between JPA poetry and classical piyyut.