5 Feet of Fury

‘For an Orthodox preteen, Tonya Harding was a hero—and a Purim inspiration’

Dvora Meyers writes:

His costume was classier than the one I wore for Purim in 1994, when I went to synagogue as Tonya Harding, the disgraced bad girl of figure skating.

It was hardly an obvious costume choice for an Orthodox girl in Brooklyn. (…)

I became so infatuated with the sport and Tonya that I threw a tantrum on the eve of the 1992 Winter Olympics because the ladies’ short program was to be broadcast on a Friday night, Shabbat, which meant I wouldn’t be able to watch the competition.

My mother preferred the possibility of divine wrath to the certainty of a preteen meltdown and decided to set the black-and-white TV in her bedroom on a timer. We agreed not to tell anyone at school or synagogue about our indiscretion.