They are culturally assimilated: (Mordecai = Marduk, Esther =Ishtar) and have little connection to Israel except that Haman is an
Agagite, a bloodthirsty descendant of evil Amalek, and Mordecai is a Benjaminite, like King Saul, in whose presence Samuel hacked Agag, king of the Amalekites, to pieces (1 Sam.
The Book of Esther tells of how Xerxes I saved Jews from a plot hatched by Haman the
Agagite, which is marked on this very day; again, during the time of Cyrus the Great, an Iranian king saved the Jews -- this time from captivity in Babylon; and during the Second World War, when Jews were being slaughtered in Europe, Iran gladly took them in."
In the Esther story, Haman is an
Agagite or Amalekite, one of the ancient enemies of the Jewish people since the time of Moses a millennium before.
"
Agagite" (3:1), implying his descent from Agag, King of
Meanwhile, Haman, who is a descendant of the
Agagite queen who escaped Saul, is intent on killing all the Jews.
Because Haman the son of Hamdata, the
Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them;
But no, says the Megillah, for Haman is first introduced as "son of Hammedatha the
Agagite." The eradication of Amalek was apparently incomplete.
They are culturally assimilated (Mordecai --Marduk, Esther = Ishtar) and have little connection to Israel (except that Hainan is an
Agagite, a bloodthirsty descendant of evil Amalek, and Mordecai is a Benjaminite, like King Saul, in whose presence Samuel hacked Agag, king of the Amalekites, to pieces (1 Sam.
Arendt maintains that Hausner's attempts to present Eichmann as a monstrous offspring of the ancient antisemitic dynasty of Pharaoh in Egypt and Haman the
Agagite were not only pathetic but also judicially flawed:
Earlier, in 8:3, 4, the author records the following: "Esther spoke to the king again, falling at his feet and weeping, and beseeching him to avert the evil plotted by Haman the
Agagite against the Jews.