by Amichai Lau-Lavie & Julie Dorf for JTA
Queen Esther is back in the news — and it’s not good news, and it’s got very little to do with the Jewish holiday of Purim, in whose story she is the starring character.
Loved and loathed in equal measure by many, Purim celebrates Jewish survival with a festive retelling of the biblical Scroll of Esther, often accompanied by masks, costumes and revelry. Like other mid-winter holidays such as Mardi Gras, it’s about the reversal of norms, a temporary upside-down reality that lets us let loose and imagine alternative realities. One of us is a drag queen turned rabbi, and the other is an LGBTQ+ activist — we have had our fair share of Purim fun over the years. But this year we are paying attention to the many violent layers of this holiday as well as the infuriating appropriation of its heroine.
For generations, Purim provided powerless Diaspora Jews with fantasies of power and sovereignty. Esther, according to the biblical story, is a young Jewish woman who becomes the queen of Persia, risks her life and saves her people, popular even as a Purim costume. Both of us have worn her crown and dress in Purims past, and celebrated our kids and their friends, including little boys or gender-nonconforming kids, walking in her royal shoes in more recent years.
Yet this year, with the current cycle of violence between Israel and Hamas now in its second devastating year, even with a fragile ceasefire; with the rise of antisemitism worldwide; and with the growing attacks on human and civil rights and lives in the United States, it is hard and complicated to celebrate Purim with unfettered joy. It is made that much worse by the extremist right wing in the United States claiming our Esther as code for their mean-spirited agenda.
In recent months Esther’s name has seemed to pop up everywhere in conservative circles.
“An Esther Call to the Mall” brought hundreds of evangelical women to Washington, D.C. in October to support the Trump campaign and promote the fight against reproductive rights. “She’s an orphan, she’s hiding her identity, she’s a woman,” a pastor from Texas told the New York Times about why Esther resonated for her: “Not one woman is disqualified from the calling of God.”
In Texas, a public school curriculum with focus on biblical stories highlights Esther as a religious rights heroine despite outrage by local faith leaders.
And the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, released “Project Esther: A National Strategy for Combatting Antisemitism.” Even the Purim spirit of turning things upside down to release tensions and reimagine reality pales in comparison to the cynical and cruel policies proposed by the plan, which these proud former Queen Esthers read with horror.
This policy brief by the same extremist entity that wrote Project 2025 is a grotesque abuse, instrumentalizing the fight against genuine antisemitism among people of goodwill, to bring down not only the pro-Palestinian movement but all dissent and liberal civil society in the United States. It is an affront to Jews, and it is dangerous for America.
