What is Gal Gadot’s ‘favourite holiday’ Purim and why did she make Hamantash cookies?

Purim begins at sundown on Wednesday 16 March

What is Purim and what are hamantaschen? (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Gal Gadot shared that she is celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim, which she described as one of her “favourite holidays,” by making Hamantash cookies with her daughters.

On Monday, the Wonder Woman star, 36, posted a series of photos to Instagram, with the first showing her and two of her daughters, Alma, 10, and Maya, four, rolling out the dough to make the traditional cookies, while another sees the Israeli actor posing for the camera with her arms around her children.

The album also included a shot of the triangle-shaped jelly- and chocolate-filled cookies the family had made for the holiday.

“Purim is one of my favourite holidays and making Hamantash with my girls is definitely one of my favourite things about it,” Gadot, who also shares daughter Daniella, eight months, with husband Jaron Varsano, captioned the album.

This year, the Jewish festival of Purim begins at sundown on 16 March and ends in the evening of 17 March. The holiday, which is celebrated by Jewish people around the world, is centered around the biblical Book of Esther, which tells how the Jewish people were saved from the king’s advisor, Haman, by Queen Esther in the ancient Persian empire.

According to the story, King Ahasuerus married Esther after executing his first wife for failing to follow his orders. When Haman found himself angry with the Jewish people because of the actions of Esther’s cousin Mordecai, the king’s advisor convinced the king to have all the Jews in the empire murdered.

Mordecai called on his cousin to stop the planned massacre, with Queen Esther revealing her Jewish heritage to the king and asking for her people to be spared.

The holiday, which sees Jewish people dress in costumes and attend festivals and parties with dancing and singing, is celebrated through four observances, according to Chabad.org, which notes that the first is through readings of the Book of Esther.

“This is done once on the eve of Purim and then again on the following day,” the website states.

Purim is also celebrated through giving, with the holiday marked by donations to those in need, and through the gifting of gift baskets to loved ones.

The final observance takes place in the form of a Purim feast.

Hamantaschen, the triangular-shaped cookies made by Gadot, are one of the most recognisable Purim snacks.

The cookies, which are typically filled with a sweet filling such as jam or chocolate, are made in the shape of a triangle to depict Haman’s triangular hat or ears.

Gadot previously opened up about her religion during an 2020 interview with Vanity Fair, where she revealed that she says a prayer each morning to give thanks.

“I am lucky. I say thank you every morning. In the Jewish culture there’s a prayer that you’re supposed to say every time you wake up in the morning to thank God for, you know, keeping you alive and dadadada,” she said. “You say ‘modeh ani,’ which means ‘I give thanks’. So every morning I wake up and step out of bed and I say: ‘Thank you for everything, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.’

“Nothing is to be taken for granted.”