Suzanna Murawski on “The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt,” at the Jewish Museum, New York.

What the queen means to Jewish tradition and to resisting tyranny and persecution—in the seventeenth century and today.

The story begins with King Ahasuerus’s search for a new queen. One of the women he abducted to his harem was a Jewish girl named Hadassah, or Esther, who was being raised by her cousin Mordechai.

As the Book of Esther unfolds, we find a series of events that today would be (sadly) unthinkable. We find a young Jewish woman becoming the queen of the Persian Empire.

An etching of an 1865 painting by Edward Armitage (1817-1896) showing queen Esther condemning Haman. Etching from a 1877 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Ken Wiedemann/Getty Images) The ...

The Book of Esther reminds us that individuals really can make a difference. Mordecai and Esther saved their people. The Ukrainians are fighting every day to save their people.

Sarah Halperin, 3, listens Sunday, March 16, 2014, as her father, Rabbi Yaacov Halperin, reads from the Book of Esther during the Jewish Festival of Purim at Chabad of the Lehigh Valley in South ...

Purim, the Jewish holiday based on the Book of Esther, starts today at sundown. The Purim celebration recounts the story of Queen Esther and how she saved the Jewish people from annihilation. The ...