04/02/2025
Illustrated Megillat Esther
First illustration: "Vatichtov Esther - And Esther Wrote" Linocut on parchment.
Here is Queen Esther, writing. What is she writing?
Perhaps she is writing the Purim story, as in Esther 9:29: ותכתב אסתר המלכה בת אביחיל ומרדכי היהודי את כל תקף לקים את אגרת הפרים הזאת השנית.
Perhaps she is corresponding with the sages, entreating them to canonize her book, as in Bavli Megilla 7a, 'שלחה להם אסתר לחכמים: כתבוני לדורות'.
Second illustration: Self portrait. Pen and ink and watercolor.
Here I am at my writing table, scribing Megillat Esther. On the table are some of my tools, and a book of laws about scribing. The seashells and vase of cattails hint to the Seaside Jewish Community in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, who commissioned this megillah.
" Esther needs many acts of writing. She needs the copying of centuries of scribes to keep her alive."
"Like Esther herself, [female scribes] enact their gendered agency in a way that preserves and transforms Jewish life—but also in a way that is not immediately apparent, and at times is hidden. The scribal work of these female scribes is a hidden form of agency, like Esther’s acts of writing in the megillah itself. But hidden agency is still a valid form of agency, and still carries the power to transform communities and situations."
- Homrigausen, Joanna “Then Queen Esther Daughter of Abihail Wrote”: Gendered Agency and Ritualized Writing in Jewish Scriptural Practice
