Experts to Share Literary, Political and Sociological Insights on Purim Story at February 28 Revel Event On Tuesday, February 28, 2017, at 7:15 p.m, the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University, in partnership with Lincoln Square Synagogue at 180 Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, will present “Exploring Esther: Literary, Political and Sociological Reflections on the Megillah.” Offering their thoughts and insights will be three academics who have all written about Esther and her story. Dr. Aaron Koller, associate professor of Near Eastern and Jewish Studies at Revel and Yeshiva College, is the author of Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, which places Esther, and its many interpretations, within the intellectual and political contexts of Ancient Judaism. "If we can better understand the context within which Esther was written, the better we can understand the points the author was trying to make,” Koller noted. “And as a book about living as Jews in the Diaspora in times of uncertain leadership, Esther has lessons that are worth considering today." Dr. Orit Avnery, lecturer in Bible at Shalem College and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought, has written Liminal Women: Belonging and Otherness in the Books of Ruth and Esther, which explores the cross-section of foreignness, difference, gender, society and nationalism in the two books. Rabbi David Silber, founder and dean of Drisha, offers For Such a Time as This: Biblical Reflections in the Book of Esther, published this year in Hebrew by Koren Publishers. Reservations are requested. Please RSVP at revelevents@yu.edu.