We are living through extraordinary days. For the first time in a
long time, alongside anxiety, there is something else: relief —
and even a measure of awe.
Two and a half thousand years ago, in the Book of Esther,
Haman sought to destroy an entire people because their
existence offended his ego. He built the gallows for Mordechai
— and was hanged on it himself. History does not repeat, but it
rhymes. A modern regime that defined itself by its hatred of
sovereign Jews, that invested colossal resources in a nuclear
ambition aimed at Israel’s destruction, now finds that same
ambition hastening its own unravelling.
The Book of Proverbs cautions: “Do not rejoice at the fall of
your enemy.” That remains wise counsel. But relief is not
rejoicing. To feel gratitude for those defending us, to marvel at
the hubris of those who overreached, and to recognise a
measure of poetic justice — that is human. We remain on
shpilkes for family and friends in Israel. Much can still go
wrong. But it is possible to be cautiously optimistic that a great
evil is being dismantled — and hopeful that the immense
cultural and human potential of the Iranian people will yet be
free to shine.
There has also been a strange clarity in recent weeks. Some of
the loudest moral voices of the past two years — relentless in
their condemnation of Israel — have struggled to utter even
mild criticism of a regime that subjugates millions of women,
crushes dissent, and has spilled rivers of innocent blood. It is a
revealing silence.
The great essayist Ahad Ha’am once suggested that even the
medieval blood libel had a perverse silver lining. When Jews
left the ghettos and were confronted with endless accusations,
Many did not know how to respond. But when they heard the
blood libel — something they knew with absolute certainty was
false — it clarified everything. If that was being said in bad faith,
perhaps everything else was too.
So too today. When those who speak most passionately of
human rights cannot bring themselves to condemn a brutal
theocracy, it tells us something important. Not about them
alone, but about the moral fog of our age.
This year Purim felt less like memory and more like lived
experience. The story of Haman is not only about survival. It is
about the exposure of hatred, the collapse of hubris, and the
stubborn endurance of a small people who refuse to disappear.
May we see the day when Iran is free, when its people flourish,
and when ancient civilisations — Persian and Jewish — can
meet again not as enemies in a story, but as partners in
building something better.