[From article]
The story relates that the King Ahasuerus (perhaps Xerxes 1), after executing his wife Queen Vashti, married Esther who did not mention she was Jewish. Haman, the king’s vizier (chief adviser), was annoyed that Mordechai, her cousin, had refused to bow to him. As a result, Haman convinced the king to issue a decree ordering the extermination of all Jews. This genocide was to be implemented on one day, the 13th of the Hebrew month of Adar, a date chose by lot (in Persian, pur)
Haman’s behavior was a harbinger of both Nazi ideology and the paranoia of Joseph Stalin. His words echo those of Adolf Hitler: “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 law; therefore it is not fitting to tolerate them.”
[. . .]
Queen Esther, with Mordechai, changed Jewish history by preventing the genocide from happening. She revealed her Jewish identity to the king, while Mordechai, who had saved the king’s life in an earlier plot to assassinate him, told him of the evil plan of Haman. They convinced the king to arrest Haman and to issue a second decree. By this the Jews were permitted to defend themselves and kill those who were preparing to annihilate them. They did so on 13th Adar and celebrated the next day on 14th Adar. This day of deliverance is now commemorated as the Jewish festival of Purim, a day of rejoicing. It is a carnival-like festival when gifts are exchanged.
[. . .]
By coincidence, Prime Minister Netanyahu is due to speak before the Joint Session of Congress on 13th Adar, which is March 3, 2015, the eve of Purim, on the subject of Iran, the modern state that was originally the Persian Empire.
[. . .]
Queen Esther was forbidden to speak to the king without being summoned. Netanyahu was not summoned by the U.S. head of state, who is unwilling to meet him, but only by the Speaker of the House, John Boehner.
[. . .]
It is difficult to understand why some elected members of Congress are peevishly unwilling to listen to all views about the Iranian nuclear ambition. Perhaps they have not heard the demonstrations in the streets of Iran on February 11, 2015, commemorating the 36th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with the shouts of “Down with America,” and “Death to Israel.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/purim_in_persia_and_iran_.html
February 23, 2015
Purim in Persia and Iran
By Michael Curtis
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