“Is Vashti the evil queen of the Purim story?” my daughter asked me after a recent Hebrew school class. Vashti, of course, was the erstwhile queen of Persia, according to the Bible’s Book of Esther.

In the Purim story as told in the Book of Esther, Vashti was ordered to show off her beauty to the king and his drunken pals (meaning, apparently, that she would be naked). She refused. The king’s ...

The holiday of Purim is popular among the Jewish community for various reasons — delicious feasting and hamantaschen, bright and colorful costumes, and festive songs and spiels abound. This night of ...

Consider the book of Esther in the Bible’s Old Testament where the story of two women is expounded in the early chapters: Queen Vashti and Esther. Vashti was a queen married to King Xerxes, and as a ...

The Biblical Book of Esther tells of Queen Vashti, wife of King Xerxes of Persia. At the height of a grand banquet filled with drunken nobles and courtiers, the king ordered Vashti to appear before ...

When it comes to the story of Purim, Queen Esther has received lots of attention. All the little girls want to play her in the Purim spiel. She’s brave, beautiful, loving and heroic: the ...

How do I love Vashti? Let me count the ways. In case you aren’t familiar with this woman of the Bible, Vashti makes only a brief appearance at the beginning of the Book of Esther, in which we read the ...