Don’t see the connection? Check out my essay on the topic at PoliticsDaily. The lede:
So why does it seem as though every prominent shiksa wants to be a Jewish queen? As in Queen Esther, a favorite heroine of the Hebrew Bible who used her feminine wiles — and risked her life — to save the Jews of Persia from a plot to exterminate them.
The latest Christian gal fitted for Esther’s crown was Miss California USA, a.k.a. Carrie Prejean. As soon as Prejean was dissed for publicly objecting to gay marriage on the basis of her Christian beliefs, she was held up by Focus on the Family and other evangelicals as a “modern Queen Esther,” who uses her good looks to witness for her faith and rescue God’s people.
So what’s up?
Above all, the story of Esther allows conservatives to mediate-or accommodate-conflicting feelings about sex and purity, women and power. “I think in many ways she is a dubious role model,” says Anne Lapidus Lerner, director of the Program in Jewish Women’s Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. “But she does offer beauty and power together-and subservience. So it’s a good mix, it would seem to me, for people who are interested in seeing women as subservient but not totally powerless, and to see their beauty as something that carries them to whatever modicum of power they achieve.”
Then again, Esther may be the only thing Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have in common.
Read on, if only to get the real story of the real Esther. Oh, and Vashti. And check out Rabbi Brad Hirschfield’s take.
posted May 27, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Esther Shmester here.
Even assuming that we’re comfortable using the word shiksa, which is problematic in its own right, Queen Esther of Persia was not a non-Jew. She was a Jewess, encouraged (or instructed) to enter the beauty contest for queen and pose as a non-Jew. This enabled her to save her own people – the Jewish people, for which I am very glad, because it has enabled me to 1) exist, and 2) bear her name.
posted May 27, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Esther, he’s talking about Miss Prejean, who aspires to be compared to the original Persian Queen – and who is definitely not Jewish.
posted May 28, 2009 at 9:47 am
Queen Esther figures into the salvation history of the people of God. Her beauty and courage brought honour to God and to Esther’s people. Miss Prejean, though not the queen of a nation, was just as courageous. Her beauty placed her in front of millions of viewers worldwide. She brought honour to God and to His people by simply declaring what the Church has taught all along; marriage is between a man and a woman. I can only imagine the incredible Amen that reverberated around the world as she spoke those words. She effectivly evangelized more people at one time than Billy Graham or the Pope! This is what we call a God moment.
posted May 28, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Carrie may aspire to be much like Queen Esther, but Carrie is a Gentile. I find it interesting that Carrie Prejean is very hung up on the Old Testament laws regarding homosexuality when Carrie is a Christian. Christians adhere to teaching of the New Testament. Homeosexuality si not mentioned in the New Testament and there is no documented comment on the subject by Christ or his apostles.
I could never perceive Carrie Prejean as being so incredibly wise and diplamatic as Queen Esther was. I think a large number of women would love to be like Queen Esther. She was an amazing woman.
posted July 4, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Wanda, you need to read your bible and the new testament. As Paul very clearly states there is no place for homosexuality in the Kingdom of Heaven. And one other thing christians follow the bible old and new testament. Christ said I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
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