We’ll have more poetry shortly, but Dutch Jews and conversos also portrayed the story of Esther with the visual arts—as did their Christian countrymen. Jenna Weissman Joselit reviews a new exhibit that includes the works of all three groups: The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt, at the Jewish Museum:

An arresting assemblage of paintings, prints, textiles, scrolls, archival matter, ritual artifacts, and household ones, too, depict the surprising hold Queen Esther had on the 17th-century Dutch imagination, including Rembrandt and his school. The show brings together 120 objects gathered from private collections around the world and from dozens of institutions.

There’s a lot to take in, but thanks to the nimble intelligence and keen eye of its curator, Abigail Rapoport, the exhibit doesn’t overwhelm so much as immerse its visitors in a world where Queen Esther rules. Here, the head of one female royal is crowned with ribbons of colorful fabric that look like a turban; the hearths of the well-to-do are guarded by cast-iron firebacks featuring Esther and Ahasuerus; canvases of Esther in a state of contemplation, at the banquet table, and in deep conversation with Mordechai crowd Rembrandt’s workshop.

The Dutch fascination with Shushan was a product of both their Protestant biblicism and the long reach of the Dutch East India Company.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.