Esther
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Esther, born Hadassah, was a Jewish queen of the Persian Empire in the Hebrew Bible and biblical prophet, the queen of Ahasuerus (traditionally identified with Xerxes I), and heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther which is named after her. The name Esther comes from the Persian word "star".
As a result of Esther's intervention and influence, Jews lived in the Persian Empire for 2400 years thereafter. Esther's husband Ahasuerus followed in the footsteps of Cyrus the Great, in showing mercy to the Jews of Persia: Cyrus had decreed an end to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews upon his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.
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Modern retelling
- The Italian Renaissance poet Lucrezia Tornabuoni chose Esther as one of biblical figures on which she wrote poetry.
- In 1689, Jean Baptiste Racine wrote Esther, a tragedy, at the request of Louis XIV's wife, Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon.
- In 1718, Handel wrote the oratorio Esther based on Racine's play.
- In 1958, a book entitled "Behold Your Queen!", was written by Gladys Malvern, and illustrated by her sister, Corinne Malvern. It was chosen as a selection of the Junior Literary Guild.
- The play entitled Esther (1960), written by Welsh dramatist Saunders Lewis, is a retelling of the story in Welsh.
- A movie about the story, Esther and the King
- 1962 musical entitled Swan Esther was written by J. Edward Oliver and Nick Munns and has been performed by the Young Vic and some amateur groups.
- A 1978 miniseries entitled The Greatest Heroes of the Bible starred Victoria Principal as Esther, Robert Mandan as Xerxes, and Michael Ansara as Haman.
- Episode 25 of the 1981 anime series Superbook involves this story.
- The novel 'Hadassah' by J. Francis Hudson (Lion Publishing 1996) integrates the Biblical narrative with ancient Greek accounts of the reign of Xerxes (Ahasuerus).
- A 1986 Israeli film directed by Amos Gitai entitled Esther.
- A 1999 TV movie from the Bible Collection that follows the biblical account very closely, Esther, starred Louise Lombard in the title role and F. Murray Abraham as Mordecai.
- In 2000, VeggieTales, a company that uses CGI vegetables to teach children lessons from the Bible in a comical way, released Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen.
- In May 2005 the musical Luv Esther was first shown. It is written by Ray Goudie.
- A 2006 movie about Esther and Ahasuerus, entitled One Night with the King, stars Tiffany Dupont and Luke Goss. It was based on the novel Hadassah: One Night with the King by Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen.
- In the 2006 Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Backyard Bard toured a Biblical Storytelling production of 'Esther', featuring four women storytellers telling the story word-for-word from the Biblical account.
- In the anime Trinity Blood Esther is the main character, a nun with a star on her side. She is prophesied to be "the morning star" who will lead the people to peace.
- In the 2008 HBO television movie Recount, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (portrayed by Laura Dern) compares herself to Queen Esther, of whom she says "was willing to sacrifice herself to save the lovely Jewish people."
- Esther is one of the five heroines of the Order of the Eastern Star.
- Esther (opera) was composed by Hugo Weisgall.
- Debra Spark's 2009 Novel, Good for the Jews is a modern day retelling of Esther set in Madison, Wisconsin.
- On March 8, 2011, The Maccabeats released a music video called "Purim Song"
- "A Reluctant Queen" by Joan Wolf is a fictionalized re-telling of Esther's story.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Esther" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
