Purim itself commemorates a Jewish community in exile militarily overcoming Haman and our Amalekite enemies. Amalek, the grandson of Esav, represents the most self-aware and militant minority component of the civilization our sages identify as stemming from its grandfather.
Our sages identify the progeny of Esav as the Roman Empire, the fourth kingdom to usurp Israel’s role on the international stage. From the time the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, this oppressive dogma was imposed throughout the world, eventually becoming the foundation for what’s now Western civilization. The Roman Empire, Christianity, and the modern West all stem from the same source.
Amalek is the most militant aspect of Esav, seeking the dominance of Western civilization and sensing the greatest threats to its survival. Amalek generally identifies the children of Israel as the most potent danger facing the fourth kingdom. In the early 20th century, Amalek’s most obvious appearance on the world stage was in the form of the German Nazi party.
On Purim of 1942, ten Jews were hanged by the Nazis in Zduńska Wola to “avenge” the hanging of Haman’s ten sons.
On Purim the following year, the Nazis shot ten Jews from the Piotrków ghetto. On that same night, over 100 Jewish doctors and their families were shot by the Nazis in Częstochowa.
Adolf Hitler legally banned the observance of Purim. Conscious of the connection between his Nazi regime and the Amalekite Haman, Hitler stated in a January 30, 1944 speech that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews would likely celebrate “a second Purim.”
In a speech made on November 10, 1938 (the day following Kristallnacht), Nazi Julius Streicher surmised that just as “the Jew butchered 75,000 Persians” in one night, the same fate would have befallen the German people had the Jews succeeded in inciting war against Germany. He further claimed that the “Jews would have instituted a new Purim festival in Germany.”
After being sentenced to hang at the Nuremberg trials, Streicher was heard to have sarcastically remarked “Purim-fest 1946″ as he ascended the gallows.
