Persian Girl Podcast
Sharing voices from the Persian diaspora and beyond. Originally founded in 2019 by Millie Efraim and Natalie Sanandaji, with the intention to share the experience of Persian-American life. The podcast has now expanded to exploring the historical and cultural background of Jews and other minorities of Iran.
Persian Girl Podcast
Reflections on Queen Esther with Maxine Divon
In this episode, Maxine (from episode 3 Ancestral Healing) returns to reflect on the lessons from the Book of Esther/Purim from the Torah, which revolves around a Jewish woman in Persia named Esther who becomes Queen in the Persian Empire (5th BCE) and hides her Jewishness in order to survive. When Esther's uncle Mordecai, discovers that an official in court, Haman, has a plan to establish a decree to slay all the Jews in the empire, Esther throws a series of feasts for the King and eventually wins him over and not only embraces her Jewishness but saves the entire population of Jews from persecution in the Persian empire (this is a very brief summary you can find the full text linked below).
We explore how Queen Esther embodies what it means to integrate our Jewish and Persian backgrounds, mind-body connection practices, and divinity: the feminine divine and divine timing.
Full text of Esther:
https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/85468
Music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTnvCgvuLl0&ab_channel=KamranNeydavoud