Beginning on the evening of March 2, Jewish communities around the world observed the holiday of Purim. The occasion marks the demise of the wicked Persian vizier Haman, who sought, some 2,500 years ago, to exterminate Jews throughout the vast Persian Empire. Only the impassioned importuning of the Jewish Queen Esther persuaded her husband, the hapless King Ahaseurus, to thwart Haman’s plans and eliminate the threat to the Jewish people.