Soltes-Images and the Book of Esther

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159TES

Images and the Book olEsther

Figure la West Wall

and

Torah Niche Dura Europos)

Photograph by he author)

Figure lb

Mordecai on White Horse,

ed by

Haman Dura Europos)

Photograph

by

the author)



160 The Book ofEsther n Modern Research

Figure 2 Esther Megillah Germany, c 1300)

Courtesy ofth Spertus Museum, Chicago)

Figure 3

Esther Megillah Southern France, Sixteenth Century)

Courtesy ofth Cecil Roth Collection, Ox ord)



6OLTES

Images and the Book

o f

E ther

Figure 4 Esther Megillah (Arye Loeb ben Daniel, Venice, 1748)

(Courtesy althe Spertus Museum, Chicago)

Figure 5 Esther Megillah (Salam ftalja{?], ftaly,

pre-f64f

(Courtesy olthe Spertus Museum, Chicago)



162

The Book

of sther

in Modern Research

Figure 6a

'Washington Megillah' (ftaly,

S e v e n t e e n t h ~ i g h t e e n t h

Century)

(Courtesy

ofthe

Library ofCongress, Hebraica Section)

Figure 6b

'Washington Megil/ah' (ftaly,

S e v e n t e e n t h ~ i g h t e e n t h

Century)

(Courte y

ofthe

Library ofCongress. Hebraica Section)



163

T S Images and the Book

0/

Esther

Figure 7

~ t h e r

Megillah Franceso Griselini, 1743)

Courtesy ofthe Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC)

Figure 8 ther Megillah Germany, 1680)

Courtesy

ofthe

Spertus Museum, Chicago)



164

The Book 0/Esther in Modern Research

Figure 9a Esther MegiIlah Germany, 1760, on parchment)

Courtesy of the Spertus Museum, Chicago)

Figure 9b Esther Megillah Germany, 1760, onparchment)

Courtesy

ofth




65OLT S

Images

nd

the Book olEsther

Figure 10 Esther Megillah (Alsace. Eighteenth Centwy)

(Courtesy

ofthe

Spertus Museum. Chicago)

Figure 11 ~ t h e r \4egillah (Alsace. 1730)

(Courtesy

ofthe




66


12.

Esther Megillah Morocco, Nineteenth Century)

Courtesy

ofth


Figure

13a

Esther Megillah Kai Fung Fu China, Nineteenth Century)

Photograph by the author)



167

TES Images nd the Book

of

Esther

Figure 13b

Esther Megil/ah Kai Fung Fu China, Nineteenth Century)

Photograph by the author)

Figure

14 Esther Megillah

nd

Case Galicia, Poland, Eighteenth Century)

Courtesy

of

the Spertus Museum, Chicago)



68

The Book ofEsther in Modern Research

Figure

15 Esther Megillah and Case Venice, SeventeenthlEighteenth Century)

Courtesy ofthe Spertus Museum, Chicago)

Figure

16

Esther Megil/ah

and

Case Bezalel

ns

School, Jerusalem, 1927)

Courtesy orthe Spertlls Museum, Chicago)



69TES

Images and the Book ofEsther

Figure 17a Esther Megillah (Ze ev Raban, Bezalel Arts School, Jerusalem)

(Photograph by the author)

Figure 17b

Esther Megillah (Ze ev Raban. Bezalel Arts School, Jerusalem)




170 The Book 0/Esther n Modern Research

Figure 17c

Esther Megillah (Ze 'ev Raban, Bezalel Art School, Jerusalem)

(Photograph by the authOl)

Figure

18 Esther Megillah (Anonymous, Twentieth Century)




171

OLT S Images

nd

the Book ofEsther

igure 19

Wall Hanging Sara Eydel Weissberg, Nineteenth Century)

Courtesy of the Collecfion of fh Jewish Museum, NY)



172

The

Book ofEsther in Modern Research

Figure 20. Micrograph (Hirsch I(va Schlimowitz, Russia, 1870)

(Courtesy

ofth

Library

ofth

Jewish Theological Seminary ofAmerica, NY)

Figure 21.

Esther (Leonard Baskin,

c. 1975

(Courtesy ofGehenna Prints)



73

OLT S images and the Book 1Esther

Figure 22a

Anguish (Kirsten Coca, /998-99)

(Caurtesy

lthe

artist)



74


Figure 22b Epiphany (Kirsten Coca, 1998-99)

(Courtesy ofth artist)



175

TES Images and the Book o fEsther

Figure 22c

Messenger(rom God (Kirsten Coco. 1998-99)

(Courtesy

o the

artist)



178 The Book 0/Esther in Modern Research

Figure

I Sassanian silver dish showing lshtar, Lady

o{

Heaven. seated on

aleline

throne, holding the sun and the crescent moon

(Courtesy Bison Books)

Also confonning to Esther s tale type, the royal concubine Phaidime

appears in the Histories

of

Herodotus (3.67-79), in connection with the

court at Susa. In this similarly genocidal palace intrigue, the throne is

secretly taken by a murdering imposter, a Magus once wounded by

Phaidime s father, Otanes. Otanes knew the Magus weIl, having cut off

the villain s ears

in

an earlier confrontation. Just as Mordecai called upon

Esther to touch the royal scepter, Otanes called upon Phaidime to touch

the king s ears when he came to her bed. Like Esther, Phaidime knew her

life was at stake, for ifthe

king was indeed the earless Magus and she was

caught feeling for the evidence, he would surely kill her. Nevertheless, she

mustered the courage to follow through and managed without incident,

thereby exposing the villain and saving her people from certain extinction.

As was the case with Ishtar s triumph in BabyIon, the anniversary

of

Phaidime s triumph became a red-letter day on the Persian calendar and

was marked by an important festival. One or both of these celebrations

perhaps contributed to the Hebrew variant.

Whatever the origins

ofthe

Babylonian, Persian and Jewish traditions,

and whatever their influence on one another, it

appears that Iranians, Iraqis

and Jews alike comprised a local population that adopted items ofbro d

regional popularity into their own narrower traditions, each personalizing

them in ways that helped to retain and fortify their own ethnic boundaries.



88

The Book eif E lther in Modern Research

The best known and fullest description of the event was recounted in

1984 by Clemente Carmona (Nidel 1984: 253-54), a lifelong particiant

whom I interviewed in 1992. His account was consistent

in

both inter

views and, whether his experience was recalled or invented, his narrative

demonstrates knowledge ofCatholic customs only;

it

lacks any evidence

of

contact with, or knowledge of, the crypto-Jewish tradition it is pur

ported to be. Thus, as he had done previously for at least one other

researcher, Carmona described

springtime

holiday that reinforced

women s traditional roles, where women

Ht

candles to Santa Ester and

other saints (Nidel 1984: 253-54), after which celebrants formed an out

door procession in which a bulto, or wooden statue, of Santa Ester was

carried. According to Carmona, the Esther

bulto

held a hanging-rope

in

one hand and a crown

in

the other, weighing the danger

of

execution

against the safety ofroyal immunity. I was not able to find any such image

anywhere in New Mexico, but to preserve it, a retablo (the image of a

saint painted on a wooden panel) was made at my request by Adam Alire,

a young santero from Rito, who in 1992 followed a pencil sketch ofthe

Ester

bulto

made by Carmona

in

that same year.

Figure 3. Retablo

ofNew

Mexican Santa Ester, by santero

dam

Alire (1992)




189

EULANDER

The Ecumenical Esther

Having thus described the festivities, Cannona repeated his former claim

that they culminated in an outdoor picnic the fe ast consisting of tradi

tional holiday empanadas, or savory meat pies (Nidel 1984: 253-54).

Therefore, Cannona s firsthand description confinns that the festive,

outdoor feast observed by Hispano Catholics is categorically unrelated to

the solemn, indoor fast observed by crypto-Jews. Rather, his memory

of

the fiesta is consistent with Marian festivals native to Spain and carried to

the Spanish Catholic colonies by Spanish Catholic colonists.

The Living Santa Ester: Survivals in Catholic Spain

igure 4a Flanked by Salome (tambourine) nd children carrying the

anchor nd crosses 0/Faith, Hope nd Charity, a little Queen Esther

appears in the Holy Week Procession, Valencia. /999

(Photograph by Fernanda Barnuevo, Madrid)

Today, the Catholic Queen Esther

no Ion

ger persists in New Mexico, but

three strands ofher past tradition endure on the Spanish Peninsula. n the

newest strand, she is one of numerous Marian figures who survived the

negative infiuence of Francisco Franco (dictator of Spain 1939-72), and

the anti-Mari an pressures brought by Vatican

I

in the 1960s. Thus, an

adult Esther appears annually as part of Ahasuerus court in Lorca s or

nate Easter procession, while during Holy Week in 1999 a child Esther



190 The Book

0/

Esther in Modern Research

marched with four other girls in the maritime procession ofthe Hermandad

deI Santisimo Cristo dei Salvador ( The Brotherhood ofthe Most Sacred

Christ of the Savior ) in Valencia. According to the festival s printed

program, Semana Santa

arinem

de Valencia (Anonymous 1999b: 31),

the tambourine carried by one girl is a symbol for Salome, while three

other girls carried the crosses and anchor that locally symbolize Faith,

Hope and Charity.

Revealing her Christian identity, Esther carried a royal scepter, topped

with a stylized crucifix not only a Christi n cultural marker, but a tradi-

tional emblem

ofthe

Spanish Catholic monarchy (Child and Colles 1971:

39).

Figure 4b.

Costumed as the biblical Queen Esther. a Spanish child carries a scepter

topped by a crucifix n the Ho(v Week Procession, Valencia. 1999

(Photograph by Fernanda Barnuevo, Madrid)

Santa Ester also persists as she once did

on

the village stage, played by a

man and paired with Ahasuerus in the early auto tradition. Thus, the

traditional male Esther, clad in gown, wig and mask, can still be seen in



9EULANDER The Ecumenical Esther

the Easter Week procession at Puente GeniI, where the Queen s radiant

beauty is symbolized by a hand-held mirror in a frame representing the

rays of

the sun.

Figure

5 The historical male Esther/rom the Holy Week Procession,

Puente Genil, Spain, 1999

(Photograph by Fernanda Barnuevo)

The third and perhaps the most popular strand ofSpanish Esther tradi

tions does not occur at Easter, but pairs Santa Ester with Santa Susana.

The two were apparently Iinked in the mid-seventeenth century, based on

the Roman legend

of

a Christian martyr named

La

Susana , not to be

confused with the apocryphal Susanna who was leered at by the infamous

elders. Spelled Susanna in English, the Latin Susana

ofRoman

legend

is assigned the saint s day

of

11 August, and the Roman variant

ofhertale

is found on this date in most hagiologies. But in Spanish Catholic tradition



193

EULANDER

he

Ecumenical Esther

'priests, prophets, kings, apostIes, evangelists and so on, going on to say

(Arazo and Jarque 1980: 210,212):

The procession overwhelms the senses. The streamers, the lütle First Com

munion girls, the biblical personages ... beautiful women symbolizing

ludith, Esther and Susana.

~ t h e r

in

American Jewish M o d e r n i ~ v

Similarly pleasing to the eye and often tickling to the funny-bone, the

German Jewish Purimspiele ('Purim play') first appeared in the late six

teenth century. The burlesque folk play gained wide admission among the

Ashkenazim, or Western and Eastern European, Jews. But this was not

simply an outgrowth of popular street theater, or of Esther's popularity

on the Christian stage. Rather, the custom may have gained a ready Jew

1sh embrace because staged performances permit what James Scott calls

a 'subtle use of codes', inserting into patterns of dress, dance, speech,

gesture, song and story, politically subversive meanings that can be made

intentionally transparent to an oppressed people and intentionally opaque

to

its oppressors (1990: 158).

Figure

6

Purim Players , Holland, 1657

(Courtesy of rown Publishers)



194

The ook

0/

Esther in Modern Research

t is therefore noteworthy that most Christians in late sixteenth/early

seventeenth century Europe belonged to the lower c1asses and were them

selves socially and politically disenfranchised. Given these circumstances,

the continent was predictably rife with popular rhetoric and public dis

plays reversing fate and fortune, gender and species, status and rank,

propriety and privilege. Such themes were found in broadside caricatures

ofThe World Upside Down (or The Topsy Turvy World), also celebratedin

satirical songs, millennial visions, street fairs, carnivals and folk plays.

Under such conditions, incorporation of a subtly coded burlesque into the

Purim celebration refers us back to the original appropriation of Meso

potamian carnival as Purim s celebratory format (Craig 1995: 162-63;

Gaster 1950: 12-13; Schauss 1938: 268). That is, like the ancient camival,

approved of and sheltered by the dominant Mesopotamian culture, the

staged burlesque would have given Europe s oppressed Jewish community

a safe means to animate a day

of

Jewish triumph a means

t

turn the

world upside down, but this time using the cultural raw materials approved

of and sheltered by Christendom itself.

Figure 7. An

American Jewish Esther withface paint, crown andfairy wand',

BJoomington,

IN,

/999

(Photograph

by

the author)



198


Figure 9

'Pink

nd

white candles on the altar

ofthe

Queen Esther Divine Temple'

(Photograph by Michael P Smith, New Orleans fe-mail: [email protected]))

As in Jewish and Catholic contexts, costuming

is

used. Presiding church-

women dress in pink rohes, while the minister who animates Esther s

spirit wears a regal tiara and an ornate pink and white gown, carrying a

scepter when leading the service (Estes 1993: 162).

Figure

10 'Presiding Churchwomen robed

in

pink

in

the Queen

~ t h e r

Divine Temple'

(photo by Michael P Smith, New Orleans fe-mail: [email protected]))

mailto:[email protected]




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Soltes-Images and the Book of Esther