Gerami read the Megillah at a nearby synagogue, where he and his students also broke the Fast of Esther. They then returned to pray at the tomb.
According to Iranian Jewish tradition, the burial site of Queen Esther and Mordechai is in Hamadan, in northwestern Iran. The tomb was first mentioned in the writings of Benjamin of Tudela around 1170. Tradition holds that the two were buried in an ancient cave containing two large wooden gravestones draped in ceremonial cloths, with a sign nearby reading, “Mausoleum of Mordechai and Esther.”
Dr. Yosef Bukhiri, a Hamadan native who made aliyah to Israel after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, said his family had never heard of the tomb being located anywhere else. His grandfather, a longtime rabbi in Hamadan, was once responsible for the site, though it is now under Iranian government supervision.
