Purim celebrates how Haman’s hatred of the Jewish people was miraculously turned on its head through the intercession of Mordechai and Esther as well as divine intervention. Jews banded together to defeat their enemy. Working as one, Jews triumphed over their adversaries.

Sometimes, however, it seems that persistent Jewish hatred and intolerance of other Jews are almost as serious a problem as Haman’s hatred for the Jewish people. Nor is Jewish hatred and intolerance toward other Jews abating, neither in Israel nor in galut (the Diaspora).

Seventeen months after he led the Gaza disengagement, the Israeli official in charge of the program was virtually banished from his kibbutz. Sde Eliyahu is an old religious kibbutz in northern Israel, one of whose founders included Yonatan Bassi’s family when it came from Italy. Bassi was made to feel so uncomfortable by fellow kibbutzniks there that he and his family moved away. The religious Zionist kibbutzniks could not tolerate in their midst someone from their ranks who had undertaken the responsibility to evacuate the settlers from Gaza. The ostracizing of Bassi by the kibbutz occurred despite the fact that he had accomplished the actual physical disengagement with amazing speed, great sensitivity, and remarkable character. When members of the synagogue reportedly walked out when Bassi was called to the Torah, it apparently was the final straw.

By the same token, the prominent head of an Israeli yeshiva recently told me that he found himself stunned by the reaction of some other guests at a recent Shabbat dinner in a New York-area suburb. When asked about the yeshiva’s stance on the Gaza disengagement, he indicated that the yeshiva does not engage in politics and never takes positions on political issues. Most of the guests found it beyond their ken that the yeshiva could not have opposed the disengagement.

The United Kingdom has a Jewish population of less than 300,000. It has an intermarriage rate that is approaching that of the United States. Yet it continues to fight and compete among itself as if scoring a goal is more important than winning the game. On a main thoroughfare in a Jewish section of London there are shops displaying kashrut certification from no less than four different authorities — a waste of resources that might better be spent on trying to expand the observance of Jewish dietary laws.

Similarly, after battling for almost 13 years, observant Jews established an eruv in a large area of London. The fight to establish this legal construct permitting religious Jews to carry objects on Shabbat had been opposed by, among others, significant segments of the non-observant Jewish community. In a scenario similiar to battles that were fought in New Jersey, they finally accomplished their goal. Efforts to extend the eruv, however, are now encountering precisely the same arguments that appeared to have been resolved only a few years ago in the adjacent area.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, anti-Semitism is rife all over the world. In Poland, France, Turkey, and throughout the Arab world, Haman’s successors are alive and kicking. There is hatred of Jews today in some places where the Jewish population is almost nonexistent. Iran (Persia) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Haman) are only the tip of the iceberg.

Purim, therefore, should be a reminder that the Jewish people have been threatened before and have persevered. It should tell Jews that as they came together to fight an enemy in ancient Persia, they must find ways to do so today by accommodating the differences and/or treating one another with respect. Jews must be ever more cognizant of the need to find ways to accept differences and diversity, and to eradicate hatred among brothers and sisters.