The holiday of Purim starts in a little less than two weeks. At the end of the book of Esther that is read during it, the wicked Haman’s plan to slaughter all the Jews of Persia—including “small children and women, in a single day”—is foiled and, with permission from King Ahasuerus, the Jews instead rise up and kill those who wished to take part of in their extermination. The scriptural account of the Jews slaughtering over 75,000 of their enemies has disturbed the moral sensibilities of some modern readers.
Haim Jachter, by contrast, puts the events of the book in proper context. He points out that the text states that Ahasuerus gave the Jews of Persia permission “to stand up for their lives” against “those that would assault them” (8:11) and also “to avenge themselves on their enemies” (8:13). Yet, the next chapter, which describes the events themselves, does not say that the Jews took revenge, only that they “lay hand on such as sought to hurt them” and killed “their enemies.” Moreover, Jachter explains, the text emphasizes that the Jews were granted royal permission to kill women and children and to take their property—but refrained from doing either. The Jew, in short, were not engaged in massacre but in self-defense.
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