Walk into any synagogue on Purim and your ears are assaulted by the sound of groggers blotting out the name of Haman in storms of metallic grinding. Imagine seeing, in gentle counterpoint, the names of Esther and Vashti being greeted by a sea of gently waving flags with small bells attached, twinkling in triumph each time the heroines are mentioned.

It may not be long before that vision comes true

Purim flags are the newest addition to the new and burgeoning field of Jewish feminist ritual objects, which has recently burst onto the Judaica scene.

It was only five years ago, in 1997, that Miriam's Cups were shown in an exhibit mounted at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion by the Jewish feminist center Ma'yan. Though Miriam's Cups had been used at feminist seders for a few years, that was the first time that many people saw decorative and ritually useful Miriam's Cups, and was also the year The Jewish Museum first added one to its collections.

Yet today the cups have become nearly ubiquitous, found on tables at communal feminist seders and those held at home on the first two nights of the holiday. The cups are available in nearly every Judaica-selling store, Web site and synagogue gift shop, and are now being crafted by men as well as women.

They are part of a whole new genre of Judaica in which artists and craftspeople are making ritual objects to create places for women in traditionally male-focused observances.

Along with the Purim flags and Miriam's Cups, recently created objects include an ushpizot poster of female religious ancestors to hang in the Sukkah alongside the traditional ushpizin posters of great Jewish men, which is being sold by Ma'yan; a feminist Omer Counter, created by the Reconstructionist feminist group Kolot to mark the passage of the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot; painted tambourines created by artist Betsy Platkin Teutsch to use at the Passover seder table as a way to honor the Prophetess Miriam; and special chairs, dresses and prayer shawls used in a growing number of welcoming ceremonies for Jewish baby girls.

"The whole of Judaism is about the tension between keeping things as they are and constantly reshaping them," said Ori Soltes, who teaches theology and fine arts at Georgetown University, and curated the show "Jewish Artists: On the Edge," which is currently on view at Yeshiva University Museum.

"Formulating new objects is in keeping with the flow of the tradition itself. The reason Judaism isn't a fossil is that we've always wrestled with stasis and motion."

The development comes at a time when women's perspectives are also being applied to traditionally "masculine" objects, such as tallitot, kipot and even the undergarment with fringes, or tzitzit, which are worn by observant men.

All of it is happening within the context of a rich dialogue and literature being produced by educated Jewish women's confrontation with religious texts and traditions.

It also emerges from a long Jewish practice of beautifying the objects required to observe mitzvot. Hundreds of years ago craftsmen produced illuminated Haggadahs and finely wrought amulets. Today artists make their living by creating ornate wedding canopies and lavish wedding contracts, and every imaginable style of mezuzah case, dreidel, charity box, Chanukah menorah and seder plate.

The best new ritual objects are rooted in Judaism's stories, said Lori Hope Lefkovitz, academic director of Kolot: The Center for Jewish Women's and Gender Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

"One of the contributions of Jewish feminism has been the insight that it doesn't work to create innovations to accommodate women's experiences, but what does work is recovering the experiences, the objects, the literature, and the prayers that were unrecorded or neglected.

"Miriam's Cup works because there is such a thing as Miriam's Well, because she is associated with miracles connected to water through every stage of her life, and because we already have the cups" in so many Jewish rituals, Lefkovitz said. "Miriam's Cup is a response, taking something that speaks in a Jewish idiom."

Recently Ma'yan invited 50 artists to create flags celebrating the roles of Esther and Vashti in the Purim story. The results are startling, creative and diverse.

One, titled "Queens' Flag," by Beth Shepherd Peters, shows the same photograph of her adolescent daughter on both sides of a velvet flag -- one of the photos is adorned as Esther, and the other, as Vashti. The girl pictured is on the cusp of womanhood, at once innocent and sexual.

Another, "Recipe for Liberation" by Beth Grossman, subverts traditional "women's work": a white eyelet "hostess" apron is affixed to a large rolling pin. Silver metal measuring spoons, to make noise, are fastened at the top of the rolling pin with a big white bow.

The concept of Purim flags isn't brand new: some people recall waving paper flags with Mordechai and Esther's names in their synagogues as children. But Rabbi Milgrom, who leads Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, N.Y., and an adult student recast the idea when they studied Purim several years ago.

They noticed that "despite the fact that women are so central to the story, the protagonist and antagonist are again men, Mordechai and Haman," said Rabbi Milgrom. Together they decided that "It's time to bring the women back up."

Two years ago, with Ma'yan, they organized a feminist Purim event titled "Unmasking Esther: A Woman's Purim," and distributed purple flags to wave every time the names of Esther and Vashti were read from the Megillah. "We wanted to have it be something to use during the Megillah reading in synagogue in a public space, making a statement," said Rabbi Milgrom.

Vashti has been reconceived by feminist Jews not so much as a victim of a despotic husband-king, but as a heroine for her refusal to bow to his demand that she dance naked at his party.

Last year, when the feminist Purim event was held again, bells were added to the flags. "We wanted to make it a pleasing sound in contrast to the jarring sound of the grogger," said Rabbi Milgrom.

Scholars and artists have been central players in the development of this category of Jewish feminist ritual objects.

"The work of feminist scholars has made these images more visible," said Kolot's Lefkovitz.

Then artists take the newly rediscovered images and turn them into things people can use.

"Artists have an influence on traditional ritual and liturgy, and in translating it and making it accessible to the community," said Ruth Silverman, curator of the Ma'yan Purim Flags show.

"The artist creates an impact, an environment in which different rituals become respected and can enter into the canon of Jewish moments," said Jean Bloch Rosensaft, formerly an educator and curator at the Museum of Modern Art and The Jewish Museum, and now exhibitions director at Hebrew Union College.

Many feminist pieces -- such as a "presentation throne of Deborah" to be used at a baby girl's welcoming ceremony, and feminine, reconceived tefillin boxes -- are in "Living in the Moment," the exhibit of Jewish ritual objects currently on view at HUC.

But it is the marketplace that really makes an item a success, some say.

These items "become mainstream by being in our synagogue gift shops," said Lefkovitz. "Every Pesach you have to take a gift to the host of the seder you're going to -- that's one of the reasons that Miriam's Cups have taken off."

Betsy Platkin Teutsch, a Philadelphia-based ketubah artist, started painting tambourines in 1993 thinking that they would be used in Rosh Chodesh celebrations. As feminist seders started taking root, they began to sell there and at Jewish conferences. To date she's sold 5,000 of four different designs, and has a new Purim Tambourine with an image playing off of Rosie the Riveter, which will soon hit the marketplace.

"Women just love the idea of having women's images on these ritual objects," she said. "How many pictures of chasidic dancing rabbis do you have to see in your lifetime?"

What was created by people who felt on the margins of Jewish life is now being welcomed by the institutional establishment as well.

"We're very interested in this genre," said Scott Ruby, assistant Judaica curator at The Jewish Museum. "It starts a discussion about how ritual objects are relevant today, and how people can be animated by these new traditions. I'm going to make a concerted effort to get some of the Vashti and Esther flags."

These objects may feel new, and a little self-conscious now, but not for much longer, said Lefkovitz.

"I still have to remember to put the Miriam's Cup on our seder table. But my daughters won't have to be reminded when they grow up," she said. "They would miss it if they didn't see it because they've seen it as long as they can remember. It takes only one generation to make this a fact of the way we observe Judaism," she said.

"Once it's in your kishkes that way, it may just as well have been ordained on Mount Sinai."