As Jews around the world marked Purim last week roughly 2,800 years after the events it commemorates, it is worth asking whether the political lesson many Jews draw from the story still holds. The uncomfortable answer is that it does not.
Purim tells the story of salvation through proximity to power. In the fifth century BCE, in what is now Iran, the Persian King Achashverosh took a Jewish woman, Esther, as his bride. Her uncle Mordechai encouraged the marriage after recognizing what it represented: access.
Esther’s presence in the palace proved decisive. When Haman, the king’s prime minister, issued a decree to exterminate the Jews, she used her influence to expose and reverse the genocidal policy. The Jewish people were saved because one of their own stood next to the throne.
The moral seems straightforward: If the Jewish community has one of its own positioned near the centre of power, that person will protect the community. Keep our heads down. Stay close to the ruler. Let the insider do the work.
For centuries, that lesson made sense. Jews were a vulnerable minority living at the pleasure of monarchs, emperors and autocrats. Access and personal influence mattered enormously. Survival often depended on a single adviser or intermediary who could whisper into the ruler’s ear at the right moment.
But Canada in 2026 is not the Persian Empire. It is not the medieval court of Louis X of France, the Republic of Venice or the palace of Tsar Alexander III. Parliamentary democracy does not operate the way the Book of Esther assumes. Yet much of the Jewish community still behaves as if it does.
There remains a persistent belief that electing Members of Parliament, appointing Jewish cabinet ministers or placing Jewish staffers in senior ranks of the civil service will somehow safeguard Jewish interests. So entrenched is this belief that some assume protection even if an elected official is merely married to someone Jewish, regardless of that official’s political commitments.
The hope is that shared identity will translate into quiet advocacy, and that “one of ours” will subtly move the needle when it matters. The companion belief is that the leaders of major Jewish organizations, backed by wealthy donors, wield decisive influence behind closed doors. This is a basic error.
The Purim model treats power as personal and assumes the ruler’s mind is malleable. In 21st-century Canada, decision-making is centralized in the Prime Minister’s Office and enforced through strict party discipline. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously described MPs as “nobodies” 50 yards from Parliament Hill and referred to backbenchers as “barking seals.” The language was harsh; the structural truth endures.
An MP, even a cabinet minister, who breaks ranks becomes isolated or removed. Personal identity offers no exemption from party discipline. Jewish MPs are no different.
Anthony Housefather represents one of the most heavily Jewish ridings in Canada. He is Jewish. Yet his Liberal Party recognized a Palestinian state, described Israel’s war against Hamas as a genocide and affirmed that Canada would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he set foot on Canadian soil. Whatever one’s view of those policies, the structural reality is undeniable: A Jewish MP does not control party doctrine.
What matters today is not who occupies a seat, but which ideas dominate a party, which coalitions are rewarded and which voting blocs are electorally decisive.
This reality is not new. The Jewish community, however, has been excruciatingly slow to break from the medieval model.
Purim’s lesson traps Jewish organizations into submission before the king out of fear of losing favour. In Canada, where the Liberal Party has governed for most of Confederation, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) is often accused of being too close to the Liberals. I was told directly by a senior leader that the organization did not want to criticize the Liberals for what many view as anti-Zionist antisemitism for fear of losing access.
That is palace politics.
After Hamas’ hideous attack on Oct. 7, numerous grassroots Jewish organizations emerged to fill what they perceived as a leadership vacuum. Among them is TAFSIK (Hebrew for “stop”), which has organized opposition to what it sees as the normalization of antisemitism and the misuse of “diversity” policies that divide rather than unite Canadians.
TAFSIK has done publicly what CIJA has hesitated to do: Call out government policies and rhetoric directly.
The reaction from segments of the legacy Jewish establishment has been telling. Dissenting organizations are marginalized. It echoes the anxiety of 18th-century court Jews who opposed broader Jewish emancipation because equality threatened their privileged access to sovereign power.
Our error has consequences. It leads the community to over-invest in access and under-invest in persuasion. To celebrate representation while policies move in the opposite direction. To assume goodwill where political calculation governs. And, to engage in self-deception by supporting diversity policies that are the cause of normalizing antisemitism.
It also places Jewish politicians in an unfair position by expecting them to act as communal guardians in a system that does not permit individual guardianship. When they fail to deliver outcomes, they do not control, and disappointment curdles into cynicism.
The deeper lesson of Purim is not proximity. Esther did not merely occupy the palace; she confronted power publicly when the moment demanded it.
In a parliamentary democracy, influence is not secured by identity or access. It is earned through coalition-building, persuasion and electoral relevance.
The age of court politics is over. If Jewish Canadians want political security in the 21st century, then we must abandon the comforting illusion that symbolic representation is protection—and learn how modern power actually works.
