Haman is the classic Jew-hater. Zeresh is the modern "I'm not an antisemite!" antisemite. ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, March 14, 2025

Haman is the classic Jew-hater. Zeresh is the modern "I'm not an antisemite!" antisemite.

Haman's wife Zeresh is a fascinating figure in the Megillah. When Haman says how much he hates Mordechai the Jew, she jumps in and says exactly what should be done: execute Mordechai, publicly, as a spectacle in front of the entire kingdom, and teach all his people a lesson.

As soon as Haman's fortune starts to fade, Zeresh suddenly has a different insight, seeming to say that the Jews are going to win and Haman will lose.

Zeresh is a skilled opportunist, sensing which way the wind is blowing and trying to take advantage.

But while Haman was not shy about his hatred of Jews and his desire to wipe them out, Zeresh hides her opinion behind plausible deniability. She hates the Jews as much as her husband, but she lets him appear to take the lead. She can frame the gallows as only to punish a man for not following a royal decree, not as an act against all Jews. She can then say that she supported the Jews all along. You can just hear her cry, "No guilt by association! I had nothing to do with Haman's plans!"

It is the sort of hair-splitting justifications we hear today: "Just because the only country I am obsessed with demonizing happens to be filled with Jews doesn't mean I'm an antisemite!"

But history judges Zeresh as just another Jew hater. The Shoshanat Yaakov poem sung after the Megillah is unequivocal: Cursed is Zeresh. Her equivocations and explanations and excuses don't stand up to the facts.

Just like today's "anti-Zionist" antisemites.