Perhaps more than any other biblical book, Jews have time and again throughout history seen their own experiences through the prism of the book of Esther. Stuart Halpern presents the example of Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, a Dutch-born, Amsterdam-raised and -educated rabbi who in 1642 took a position in the city of Recife in northeastern Brazil. Dutch Jews flocked to this colony after the Netherlands won it from Portugal, and were joined by local descendants of conversos who seized the opportunity to return to Judaism:

Unfortunately for the rabbi and his flock, in 1645 the Portuguese sought to take the city from the Dutch and set a naval blockade. Starvation became rampant. So too was the fear among the local Jews that under Portuguese rule their newfound religious freedom would be forgotten. The dire situation stretched for years.

[Da Fonseca] composed a poem in the early 1650s, “Zekher asiti l’nifla’ot El” (“I made a memorial to the wonders of God”). In it, he encouraged his coreligionists to repent and seek the mercy of God. And he lambasted the villainous actions of João Fernandes Vieira, a local military leader supportive of the Portuguese, as being like that of a modern-day version of the conniving vizier Haman.

[He] structured the poem’s format on the medieval poet Judah HaLevi’s “Mi Kamokha,” itself a lengthy retelling of the Purim tale. Whereas his predecessor had lyrics like “Immediately after all these things, Ahasuerus lifted Haman up, and exalted him over all the princes,” da Fonseca wrote of “Remember, O God, the king of Portugal. . . . From the dung heap he elevated [João Fernandes Vieira] to protect and strengthen him.”

Portugal in the end reclaimed Recife and the region around it, forcing the Jews either to revert to Catholicism or to flee. While Aboab returned to Amsterdam, others left for the Caribbean or New Amsterdam, and were among the founders of American Jewry.

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.