What better time to talk about Iran then at Purim, the commemoration of the heroism of Esther, who, with her cousin Mordecai, saved the Jews from a plot to destroy them entirely in ancient Persia, modern Iran? The villain in Esther’s story is Haman, an…
adviser to the king. Haman hated Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman, so Haman plotted to destroy the Jewish people. In a speech that is all too familiar to Jews, Haman told the king, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from those of every other people’s, and they do not observe the king’s laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them.” Esther 3:8. The king gave the fate of the Jewish people to Haman, to do as he pleased to them. Haman planned to exterminate all of the Jews.
The villain in the current Jewish drama (Iran and the bomb versus Jews and their instance on living) depends on your point of view. If you agree with the United Nations General assembly, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Hillary Clinton, then Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel are to blame for this region’s problems; the Arabs have no choice but to blow up things and dedicate themselves to he destruction of the “cancerous” Jewish state because…well, the Jews are here, they are thriving in the land, they defend themselves and they are building all those homes.
But Jews fighting to survive as a people is the same old stuff.
