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.
The Heritage Foundation’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism is led by Christian Zionists, not by Jews with real and lived experience of antisemitism. And its plan is entirely focused on “anti-Israel and anti-Zionist Jew-haters,” while not once mentioning the actual, growing scourge of antisemitism among the far-right extremists who are openly and proudly antisemitic and who pose a growing danger in the United States.
While this is not the first instance of conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism (seen even in the Jewish community), this brazen level of deviousness is new. They are pretending to care about Jews (without consulting them) in order to advance policy measures that would stifle dissent and legally incapacitate civil society in broad strokes in the United States. This is Authoritarianism 101.
Those of us who work in the global LGBTQI+ rights movement, in the pro-peace arenas or in the reproductive rights movement work with colleagues in many repressive and authoritarian countries. We know the playbook: Limit free press, restrict civil society, imprison dissenters (or worse), control the judiciary. For those of us in non-governmental organizations, we are well aware of the many and various “anti-NGO” laws that exist around the world, which often impact LGBTQI+ groups first. In this case, if the Heritage Foundation’s plans are enacted, it will be pro-Palestinian groups that feel the heat first and have their basic rights to organize and assemble decimated. But all of U.S. civil society is directly threatened by Project Esther — which is unapologetically the goal of the plan’s authors.
We have already seen this in the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” that passed the House of Representatives in the last Congress. That bill used fears about support for Hamas as a ruse for giving the Treasury Department the power to take away nonprofit status from legitimate civil society organizations in the United States because of their alleged support for Hamas or other terrorist organizations, but without ever disclosing the sources of the information used against them or providing an opportunity for the organization to challenge those accusations in court. If enacted, it would create a huge opportunity — perhaps even an incentive — for the Trump administration to reject the nonprofit tax status of groups on ideological grounds without disclosing any evidence of terrorist connections. Pro-Palestinian groups, again, are the first targets, but certainly not the last.
Among the many executive orders by our new president in the first few weeks of this administration is one titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.” In yet another example of purporting to fight antisemitism, the order announces the federal government’s intentions to instruct universities to monitor their students and employees — toward the goal of deporting international students and staff who speak out for Palestine or in other ways the administration doesn’t approve of. It does not protect Jews or free speech. And it does not promote pro-peace solutions that will benefit Israelis and Palestinians alike, nor promote peace-building initiatives here in the United States. Many Jewish organizations immediately spoke out against it. This was just one manifestation of what Project Esther has in mind for our country.
Project Esther also coined a new, farcical concept: of the “Hamas Support Network” in the United States. It deceitfully lists many left-wing donors, foundations and organizations that do not in any way support Hamas. Let’s be clear: No one is directly supporting Hamas from the United States, where it is illegal to finance groups such as Hamas that are designated terrorist organizations and where the U.S. banking system is monitored very closely by the Treasury Department to guard against any such illegal transfers. And few Americans even have a favorable view of Hamas, according to opinion polls. But the Heritage Foundation and its extremist allies want to discredit, scare and reduce the impact of progressive political thinking in the United States. They cynically usurped the horrors of Oct. 7 to further their agenda of building a white Christian nation in place of the multiracial, pluralistic society that we are. Slapping the label of “antisemitic” on the entire left is just another tactic for their movement — and one that appears to resonate in this challenging political moment.
Regardless of where we sit on questions about Israel and Palestine, and acknowledging there is some actual antisemitism on the left, this antidemocratic, authoritarian playbook is no answer to antisemitism. It should concern all Jews and all Americans. A true democracy needs a strong civil society to hold its leaders accountable and to keep the public engaged. We cannot afford to silence and eliminate legitimate civic engagement in our country, especially at this perilous moment. Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther: A National Strategy for Combatting Antisemitism” is dangerous and needs to be understood and decried by all democracy-defending members of our society.
Perverting Queen Esther’s legacy in order to promote hatred over love and pretend to be protectors of justice is infuriating to these queer parents and insulting to all Jews.
As Purim approaches, we call upon our fellow Jews to beware of the masks, resist the lies and uphold our moral and courageous legacy of resilience and resistance. Queen Esther has been celebrated as a heroine over the ages for her defiance of tyranny, pursuit of justice and courage to speak truth to power. It is our spiritual duty and political responsibility to reclaim her.
In the true spirit of Queen Esther — it’s time to speak up.
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