Hammering Haman: The Legend of the Fearsome Ottoman Tyrant and Purim

As the fearless warlord entered the synagogue, the congregation fell silent, not knowing why he was there or what he was about to demand. They didn’t know it then, but the incident would soon be etched into the ancient community’s collective memory.

Many are familiar with the Jewish custom of using a “grogger” or making noise in other ways when Haman, the evil antagonist of the Purim story, is mentioned during the traditional reading of the Scroll of Esther (the Megillah) on the festive holiday.

Some have taken this raucous practice to the next level, like the Jews of Ioannina, located in modern-day Greece. It has been claimed that Jews have lived in Ioannina since the destruction of the First Temple some 2,500 years ago. While scholars believe that timeline to be exaggerated, they agree that there have been Jews in the city for well over a thousand years, though only a small handful have remained after the community was all but wiped out during the Holocaust.

The Jews of Ioannina took their Purim noise-making very seriously and would literally hammer the floor whenever the name of the evil Haman was mentioned during the Megillah reading.

According to local legend, once recounted by Ioannina native Isaac Batish, one Purim eve some 200 years ago, the local Ottoman ruler, a man named Ali Pasha Tepelini, known as “the Lion of Ioannina”, was passing by one of the local synagogues with his entourage.

When he heard the tumult coming from within the synagogue, he decided it would be prudent to check what was going on. After all, it’s not common to hear scores of hammers banging in unison at seemingly random intervals in the night, and if you’re a local governor constantly vigilant to the possibility of an uprising, such sounds would be cause for concern.

When Ali Pasha and his trusted adviser entered the synagogue, the fear of death fell over the congregants.

Depiction of Ali Pasha Tepelini

Although the man who’s been referred to as “Balkan Napoleon” was sometimes known for his relative tolerance and decent relations with minority groups, nicknames like “the Lion of Ioannina” are generally well-earned. Indeed, Ali Pasha Tepelini began his career as an infamous Albanian mountain bandit and was known for ruthlessly crushing his opponents, as well as imposing oppressively high taxation rates at will.

The ruler approached one of the congregation members and asked him to explain what was going on. “A long time ago…” the man began, going on to chronicle the story of Purim and the ancient tradition of disparaging Haman by making noise every time the antagonist’s name is read from the Scroll of Esther.

“A long time ago?” the Lion of Ioannina questioned. “How long ago was it?”

When he was told that the Purim story happened thousands of years prior, the Ottoman governor reportedly responded, “The Jews have a strong memory; they do not forget. One must be careful with them, lest harm also come to us.”

A similar, better known story is told of Napoleon passing a synagogue on Tisha B’Av, the day on which Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple and other national calamities that have befallen them on that date over the centuries. Upon seeing the Jews mourn events from so long ago, the French emperor reportedly said, “Certainly a people who has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!”

Regardless of the historicity of his Purim story, Ali Pasha Tepelini was a very real person who oversaw “the most important period of Ottoman rule in Ioannina,” according to scholar Annette B. Fromm, author of “Why is it important? The Jewish Community of Ioannina”.

Though he is remembered rather fondly in local Jewish lore thanks to his appearance in their Purim story, overall he was actually quite bad for many of the local Jews, rescinding previous economic freedoms granted to the region’s non-Muslim populations and heavily taxing wealthy Jews so much that many of them simply left, preferring to relocate to areas where they’d enjoy lower rates of taxation like Corfu, Zante, Tripolis, Larissa, Volos, and Salonica, according to Fromm. Nonetheless, Ali Pasha actually showed certain leniencies towards poor Jews, and there was apparently even an influx of less well-to-do Jews from neighboring areas because of this.

Ali Pasha may not be remembered as a Haman-like villain even by Ioannina’s exiled affluent Jewish community, yet he met an end similar to the infamous antagonist of the original Purim story. After irking the central authorities in Istanbul through various land grabs and other overly aggressive decisions he made, Ottoman forces were sent to subdue the Lion of Ioannina. While the exact circumstances around his 1822 death remain unclear, with multiple versions circulating over the centuries, at least one fact is undisputed: he was ultimately decapitated. His head was sent to Istanbul, where – somewhat similar to Haman’s demise – it was displayed to the public on the gates of the Sultan’s palace alongside the heads of his sons.

His body was buried in a mausoleum adjacent to the Fethiye Mosque in Ioannina, not far from the synagogue he had reportedly once entered after hearing the mysterious sound of hammers banging one Purim night.

Featured image by eduartinehistorise

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