Masks change, script rarely does

Hello, dear reader. 

It has been a year since we last gathered beneath the vaulted ceilings of Queen Esther’s court, where velvet concealed daggers and smiles concealed decrees. The Festival of Queen Esther, Purim, approaches once more. Children will wear crowns and eat hamantaschen. Adults will raise their glasses. An ancient royal drama will be read aloud with theatrical flair. 

But this isn’t a children’s story. It’s a study in political intrigue. Especially in 2026. 

In the Persian court – Iran today, not incidentally either – villainy didn’t roar. It leaned in close. It spoke persuasively. It drafted whispered language. “There is a certain people,” began the argument. Different. Separate. Disagreeable. Not violent. Not rebellious. Simply inconvenient. 

Haman didn’t accuse with hysteria. He advised with sinister calculation. He understood something timeless. Isolate a small minority and repeat the accusation often enough, and the court grows comfortable with the idea of their removal. It is presented as administrative necessity, never as hatred. 

The king, for his part, wasn’t bloodthirsty. He was simply inattentive. Preoccupied. Willing to trust the confident voice at his elbow. And so, a decree was signed. Not in fury, but in formality. 

Now the story turns. 

Esther didn’t storm the throne room. She didn’t shout. She waited. She understood timing. She approached power with composure, not panic. And when the moment came, she revealed the plot calmly and precisely. The mask slipped. The intrigue collapsed. The decree reversed. 

History doesn’t remember Haman as a strategist. It remembers him as a cautionary tale. An evil intent that lurks within an unsuspecting society. 

It’s difficult not to notice how modern this feels. 

Today’s Hamans don’t carry scrolls. They carry microphones. They speak not of annihilation, but equity. Not of exclusion, but policy. Not of prejudice, but principle. The phrases are always measured. “There’s a certain community.” “There are concerns.” “There must be a review.” 

All terribly reasonable. All impeccably procedural. 

One sees it in curious hesitations. In tennis matches reconsidered. In Holocaust museum visits quietly withdrawn. In narratives revised under the guise of sensitivity. No raised voices. No burning torches. Just the soft reshaping of permission. Of quiet othering. 

It’s remarkable how easily a people comprising barely a fraction of humanity – 0.2% as it happens – can be discussed as though they were a global menace. Remarkable how often the smallest minority, or country, is framed as the largest threat. One might expect such imbalance to inspire humility. Instead, it often breeds confidence in the crowd. 

And here is where Queen Esther’s story speaks most clearly. 

The king today isn’t a monarch on a throne. It’s the ordinary person. The decent but sadly silent majority. The citizen who grows weary of selective outrage. The parent who senses that fairness has become fashionable rather than principled. The observer who notices that the rules bend curiously in one particular direction. 

Esther’s courage wasn’t fury. It was revelation. She trusted that once the truth was spoken plainly, ordinary judgement would prevail. And it did. The intrigue dissolved under scrutiny. Power recoiled from manipulation once it saw it clearly. 

That’s the enduring lesson of the Festival of Queen Esther. 

Plots rely on concealment. Bias thrives in ambiguity. When exposed calmly and confidently, they lose their theatre. 

Jewish history didn’t begin in exile. It began in sovereignty. Kings Saul, David, Solomon, and queens like Esther, long before the fashionable empires of Europe. 

Law before law schools. Ethics before think tanks. Commandments before Constitutions. The idea that such a people can be casually reduced to caricature would be laughable were it not so persistent. So well-rewarded by hate-fuelled and well paid podcasters, surfing the algorithmic wave of faux outrage. 

Persistence, however, is something Jews understand rather well. We have endured every court, every decree, every whispered campaign dressed as prudence. The masks change. The script rarely does. 

So this Purim, as we recount Queen Esther’s poise and Haman’s overreach, let’s resist both panic and naivety. Let’s observe carefully. Speak precisely. Trust that when intrigue is revealed for what it is, most people, the true kings of our time, prefer fairness to fanaticism. 

Empires pass. Court fashions fade. The Jewish story continues. Troubled, deeply painful, but always enduring. 

Hopefully, when I pen my missive this time next year, this unfortunate period of court cunning and viral intrigue will have burnt itself out. 

Yours observantly, 

Lord Whistle-Blower 

• Lord Whistle-Blower is Mike Abel’s Purim costume for this year.