With Purim around the corner, it occurs to me that many people see Donald Trump as Haman, the genocidal villain of the Purim story. That’s not quite right: He’s Ahasuerus, a different kind of danger, ...

inspired many hoaxes, nearly all of them quite harmless jokes, such as the anal analogue suggested by this jester. The textual emendation of bMegillah 12b on which this poem is based was inspired by ...

THE DEATH OF AHASUERUS (118 pp.)—Pär Lagerkvist—Random House ($3.75). Lugging his heavy cross, a convict was toiling up the steep street of Jerusalem that led to the hill of execution. He paused once, ...

Chagall depicts a scene from one of his favorite subject matters, the Old Testament. Here, Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, summons his wife to appear before him wearing only her crown. When Vashti ...