Call it the “Esther/Vashti Complex” — the perennial Purim impulse to define Esther and Vashti against each other as foils, opposites, rivals, or enemies. They were none of these. This false dichotomy ...

Chagall depicts a scene from one of his favorite subject matters, the Old Testament. Here, Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, summons his wife to appear before him wearing only her crown. When Vashti ...

“Vashti’s the only one in the Purim story who should be congratulated,” my son Danny, 12, says. You may recall that King Ahasuerus, who had been sumptuously drinking and feasting with his Shushan ...

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Purim, which commemorates the Jewish people’s deliverance from near destruction in ancient Persia, is celebrated from sundown Feb. 25 to sundown on the 26th. It’s a joyous holiday celebrated with ...

“Is Vashti the evil queen of the Purim story?” my daughter asked me after a recent Hebrew school class. Vashti, of course, was the erstwhile queen of Persia, according to the Bible’s Book of Esther.

Every time a scandal erupts around the sexual behavior of a powerful man, someone seems to ask, “Well, why didn’t she say no?” It so happens that the Book of Esther begins with the story of a woman ...

This weekend, Jews around the world will come together to celebrate the holiday of Purim, recounting the miracles that occurred in ancient Persia leading to a reversal of fate when the Jewish ...