Saturday morning, just over an hour after Israel and the United States began airstrikes against the Iranian regime, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israel and the world in a video statement.

In his speech, Netanyahu noted that the confrontation with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his supporters was taking place as Jews prepared to mark the anniversary of a war fought against an official from ancient Persia.

“My brothers and sisters, in two days we will celebrate the holiday of Purim,” he said. “Two and a half thousand years ago, in ancient Persia, a tyrant rose against us with the very same goal: to destroy our people completely. But Mordechai the Jew and Queen Esther, through their courage and resourcefulness, saved our people. In those days of Purim, the lot fell, and the wicked Haman fell with it.”

“Today as well, on Purim, the lot has fallen, and the evil regime’s end will also come,” he added.

Netanyahu was not the only one who mentioned Purim in his remarks.

Avigdor Liberman, the head of the opposition party Yisrael Beytenu, drew a direct comparison between the biblical figure Haman and Iran’s supreme leader, Khamenei.

Chief Rabbis Kalman Ber and David Yosef also addressed the Israeli public in a letter recommending increased prayers and fasting for a good outcome to the war.

“We witness the steadfastness of the Air Force pilots, the IDF soldiers, and all other security personnel,” they wrote. “And just as we merited in the days of Purim to be saved after fasting and crying out [to God]… so too now it is incumbent upon the public to increase fasting and prayers.”

Purim is the only rabbinically instituted festival whose story has its own volume in the biblical canon — the Book of Esther.

The story is set in Shushan, the capital of the Persian Empire, where many Jews lived after being taken into exile by the Babylonians, who destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple in 586 BCE.

Most historians identify the Persian king Ahasuerus mentioned in the Bible as Xerxes I and place the story during his reign (485-465 BCE).

In the story, Esther, a young Jewish woman, is chosen by the king as his queen while hiding her Jewish identity. Meanwhile, one of Ahasuerus’s closest officials and confidants crosses paths with Esther’s uncle Mordechai. Enraged that Mordechai does not show him what he deems sufficient deference, Haman persuades the king to order the obliteration of the Jewish people across his empire. His plot is exposed when Esther, risking her life, reveals her true identity to the king.........

© The Times of Israel