In the Persian Empire of the book of Esther, the Gnostic fire ... - WBM

Zoroastrianism 

of 

A two-thousand-year-old Zoroastrian fire 

temple in Isfahan, the third-largest city in Iran 

Photo: Ivan Mlinaric 

Fire 

Faith 

The 

In the Persian Empire of the book of 

Esther, the Gnostic fire worship of the 

Zoroastrian faith reigned supreme. The 

meeting of Persian and Jewish cultures 

generated mutual influences as well as 

sparks of confrontation 

Shai Secunda 

30 February/March 2012 www.segulamag.com

The Jewish Journey through History 


Shevat/Adar 5772 31


n November 26, 2008, 

a Pakistan-based 

terrorist group 

unleashed three days 

of fatal strikes on Mumbai, 

India. People around the world 

looked on in horror as the attacks, 

primarily in the city’s high-class southern 

end, targeted economic, tourist, transportation, 

and medical centers. Beyond the obvious 

tragedy for the residents of Mumbai, the 

majority of whom are Hindu, for two small 

religious groups with communities spread 

across the globe, the Mumbai assault struck 

personally. The Parsis – a group of Zoroastrians 

who immigrated to India from Iran in the 

Middle Ages due to religious persecution – 

witnessed the attacks up close. For centuries, 

the Parsi community has been concentrated 

in South Mumbai, and some of the structures 

targeted were proud symbols of its success on 

the subcontinent. Among Jews, the focus of 

the attacks was the Chabad House – a spiritual 

and physical watering hole for Israeli and other 

Jewish tourists located in an old Zoroastrian 

landmark known as Nariman House. Three 

years on, the attacks remain a painful memory 

for Jews. In the Israeli media, discussions of 

the Mumbai tragedy are often heartbreakingly 

juxtaposed with a photo of the smiling, radiant 

young religious couple who ran the Chabad 

House, who were murdered there along with 

four others. 

A few months before the attacks, I was living 

in Manhattan’s Little India. One rainy Friday 

afternoon, I sat down with anthropologist Leila 

Vevaina of the New School, 

who was writing a thesis 

on notions of communal 

space in Mumbai’s Parsi 

neighborhood, where she 

was born. In the course of her 

research, Leila had learned of the Jewish 

concept of the eruv and was fascinated by the 

way eruvin have encouraged Orthodox Jews 

to congregate in neighborhoods delineated by 

ritual poles and strings. Leila interviewed me 

extensively. As a “native informer,” I initiated 

her into the intricate and controversial world 

of eruv building. For my part, I learned 

about the distinctively rich texture of Parsi 

life. As I listened to Leila’s descriptions of 

her family-centered community, with its 

emphasis on education, drive, and success, and 

the intertwining of ritual and food, it began 

to sound familiar. Knowing she had done 

considerable field work in South Mumbai, I 

sent her an e-mail when the attacks struck to 

check that she was safe. I was relieved to learn 

that, although shaken, she and her family had 

escaped harm. 

One or Two? 

My observations about the similarities between 

Jews and Parsis are not the product of a private 

idiosyncrasy. Indians often refer to Parsis as 

“the Jews of India” – something of a misnomer, 

since Jews have been in India longer than 

Parsis. Recent writings on Zoroastrianism 

abound with comparisons to Jews and their 

The name 

of the arch 

villain, Haman, 

seems to 

come from 

hammanah – 

“of like mind” 

– for rulers 

tend to cherish 

yes-men 

The victories of Darius I are 

depicted on a monument in 

Behistun, Iran. This section 

shows Darius, at center, facing 

his captives. The inscription 

proclaims Ahura Mazda as the 

deity who granted Darius his 

kingdom 

Photo: dynamosquito 

The Faravahar symbol has 

come to represent the 

Zoroastrian religion over the 

centuries, although opinion 

is divided as to whether it 

depicts Ahura Mazda or the 

“ancient souls” also revered 

by Zoroastrians. Wall painting 

from a fire temple in Taft, Iran 

Photo: Alan D. Coogan 


A religious minority with 

communal and family 

structures similar to those 

found within Judaism. Parsi 

children, Bombay, from India 

and Its Native Princes by 

Louis Rousselet, 1878 


exilic communities. And in certain respects, 

the Parsi story resembles the Jewish American 

one. As for the longue durée, Jewish history 

has been intertwined with its Zoroastrian 

counterpart for thousands of years. 

Still, from a theological perspective, 

Jews and Zoroastrians could not be more 

different. Judaism is the classic expression of 

monotheism; Jews believe in a single, exclusive 

divine power, who is worshipped though 

the performance of commandments and the 

avoidance of sin. Zoroastrianism, on the other 

hand, is quintessentially dualistic. Two powers, 

the good Ahura Mazda (“Lord Wisdom”) and 


the evil Angra Mainyu (“Evil Spirit”), face off 

in a millennia-long cosmic battle. The duty 

of good Mazdayasnians – or worshippers of 

Mazda, as Zoroastrians are also known – is to 

fight for goodness and oppose evil in its many 

permutations, including falsehood, impurity, 

and insects. 

If we take a closer look, however, this apparent 

dichotomy is not nearly so stark. 

Jews and Zoroastrians met in the wake 

of Cyrus the Great’s conquests of Judea 

and Mesopotamia in the mid-sixth century 

BCE. As the first Persian emperor, Cyrus had 

a pragmatic, even pluralistic approach to the 

many religious communities and temples 

dotting his vast new empire. Cyrus’ own 

religious convictions seem to have included 

worship of Ahura Mazda as well as fire – a 

central Zoroastrian precept. Two generations 

later, Darius I had an inscription carved in a 

rock not far from Kermanshah, in Western 

Iran. There, in Old Persian, the king declared 

his allegiance to Ahura Mazda, to whom he felt 

he owed his kingdom. In typical Zoroastrian 

fashion, Darius’ archenemy is presented as 

none other than The Lie – the conceptual 

counterpart of Angra Mainyu. 

The earliest source relating to the Jewish- 

Zoroastrian encounter depicts it as a clash 

between monotheism and dualism. In 

addressing Cyrus’ conquests of the Near East, 

Shevat/Adar 5772 33


Good vs. Bad 

Zoroastrians live in a world divided 

The Superpowers: The force of good, Ahura Mazda (Lord Wisdom), and the 

force of evil, Angra Mainyu (the Evil Spirit) are locked in eternal conflict 

Head over Heels: The upper part of the body is ruled by positive powers, 

while the lower half is controlled by negative forces. The two halves should be 

separated by a belt or girdle 

Fighting the Fight: A good Zoroastrian fights on the side of good and 

opposes evil in its various forms, which include lies, impurity, and insects 

the prophet Isaiah has this to say: 

Thus said the Lord to Cyrus, His 

anointed one, whose right hand He has 

grasped, treading down nations before 

him.... I am the Lord, and there is none 

else; beside Me, there is no god; I engird 

you, though you have not known Me.... I 

form light and create darkness. I make weal 

and create woe – I, the Lord, do all these 

things. (Isaiah 45:1, 5, 7) 

According to the famous Cyrus Cylinder, the 

chief Babylonian god Marduk chose Cyrus to 

bring peace to the Babylonians. Similarly, as 

reflected in the biblical passage above, Judaism 

viewed the Persian destruction of Babylonia as 

an opportunity to reconstruct what had been 

destroyed. Cyrus had the power to bring the 

Jews back to the Land of Israel and, as he did 

for Marduk, to help rebuild their Temple. From 

the prophet’s perspective, however, there was 

a problem. Since Cyrus did not recognize the 

Jewish God, nor did he understand the cosmic 

significance of his conquests, he required 

a lesson in Monotheism 101. Isaiah 40–48 

presents itself as a kind of theological primer 

addressed to Cyrus, and it does not mince 

words: The Jewish God is exclusive and allpowerful. 

He is the Creator of heaven and earth 

and everything therein. Most important, this 

God is responsible not only for all that is light 

and good, but for darkness and misfortune 

as well. When the verses from Isaiah are 

juxtaposed with 

parallels from the Avesta 

– the Zoroastrian sacred texts, 

which were transmitted orally from as early 

as the second millennium BCE – a fascinating 

mirror effect emerges. The attributes associated 

with Ahura Mazda in the Avesta are defiantly 

attributed to Isaiah’s God, but while the Avesta 

does not hold Ahura Mazda responsible for 

misfortune, the God of Isaiah 45 proudly 

associates His name with “woe.” This early 

intersection was to set the tone for future 

interactions between Jews and Zoroastrians. 

Interestingly, unlike the polemics against 

other cults found in the Later Prophets, which 

include parodies of icon production and idol 

worship, the Jewish-Zoroastrian encounter 

took place primarily in the intellectual and 

theological spheres. 

From the Scroll of Esther 

to the Dead Sea Scrolls 

Cyrus did not finish building the Second 

Temple, but the process was indeed completed 

under Persian auspices, as we read in the biblical 

books of Ezra and Nehemiah. One might have 

expected the dispatches between Persia and 

One of the 

great Jewish 

intellectual 

mysteries is 

how Second 

Temple sects 

engaged in 

a protracted 

dialogue 

with Iranian 

ideas 

Fire altars. Left: a coin from 

the Persian Sasanian era, 

contemporaneous to the 

talmudic period 

Courtesy of the Oriental Institute 

Museum, Chicago 

Right: Coin of the Sasanian 

emperor Hormazd II, fourth 

century 

Classical Numismatic Group 


Yehud – the Persian designation for the Land 

of Israel at that time – to provide a fascinating 

window into Jewish-Zoroastrian relations, yet 

this is not the case. Just as we find in the Cyrus 

Cylinder, Persian pragmatism and “secular” 

bureaucracy ruled the day. On the other hand, 

despite its many historical problems and the 

total absence of references to divinity, the book 

of Esther preserves some intriguing fragments of 

the Jewish-Zoroastrian encounter. 

Zoroastrianism is to be found first and foremost 

in the theophoric names (i.e., those including 

the name of a god) of some of the book’s main 

characters. Typical of Zoroastrianism, many of 

these appellations express concepts deified in 

the Avesta. For example, the name Mehuman 

derives from Vohu Manah, which means 

“Good Mind.” Fascinatingly, in the Zoroastrian 

pantheon, Vohu Mana is one of the seven 

Amesha Spentas, or beneficent immortals. 

This parallels Mehuman’s position as one of 

Ahasuerus’ seven eunuchs. Another reference 

to the Mind can be found in the name of the 

arch villain, Haman, which seems to come from 

hammanah – “of like mind.” As Harvard scholar 

James Russel has put it, rulers in all times and 

places tend to cherish yes-men. Haman’s father, 

similarly, is Hammedatha, which means “of the 

same dat,” or law. Indeed, it seems that the use 

of the word dat (source of the Hebrew term dat 

– religion) throughout the book of Esther subtly 

critiques the seemingly arbitrary rule of law in 

Persian and Zoroastrian culture. 

Once we reach the Second Temple era, Jewish 

literature and thought shifts dramatically. 

Emphasis is placed on the afterlife, eschatology, 

and the soul – now a battleground of 

good versus evil. These ideas dominate 

Zoroastrianism and how Zoroastrians perceived 

reality. Nowhere in ancient Judaism is this new 

dualism stronger than at Qumran, where the 

sect responsible for composing the Dead Sea 

Scrolls contemplated the end of history and 

the ultimate war between good and evil. In 

numerous Second Temple texts – including the 

scrolls – evil is seen as separate from God, and 

opposing Him. Satan and his cohorts develop 

into a full-blown maleficent force. The demon 

Ashmedai debuts in Jewish tradition in the 

book of Tobit, written in the second century BCE. 

Unlike his more playful talmudic counterpart, 

this character is lustful and dangerous. In the 

literature of the Second Temple period, Jewish 

monotheism veers closer to dualism than ever 

before. 

Surprisingly, this trend takes place at a point 

when there was little direct contact between 

Jews and Zoroastrians. Alexander the Great 

had already defeated the Persian armies during 

the fourth century BCE; subsequently, Hellenist 

forces ruled Judea as well as most Iranian lands. 

In fact, one of the greatest mysteries of ancient 

Jewish intellectual history is how Second Temple 

Jews, and particularly sects living in relative 

isolation, seem to have engaged in a protracted 

dialogue with Iranian ideas. However this 

encounter came about, its far-reaching effects on 

the development of Judaism are indisputable. 

The Sasanian Talmud 

Not long after its completion in the fifth or 

sixth century, the Babylonian Talmud became 

the most influential text in Judaism besides the 

Bible. Its authority was of course assumed in 

Babylonia, but in time the Talmud’s influence 

spread to North Africa and Europe as well. 

Because of this profound impact, a proper 

understanding of the Talmud is essential not 

only for historians of Babylonian Jewry, but also 

for scholars of subsequent periods of Jewish 

history. The question of how to define the 

voluminous tome that graces the Jewish 

bookshelf to this day affects 

how Jewish practice, 

theology, and culture – 

which derive largely from 

the Talmud – are to be 

understood. 

This basic definitional 

problem has puzzled 

Talmud scholars and 

historians for centuries. 

On the one hand, despite 

its name, the Babylonian 

Talmud is preoccupied 

with the Land of Israel 

and is a commentary 

on and repository of 

Palestinian rabbinic texts. 

It explains the Mishna, 

compares it to the Tosefta 

and other early rabbinic 

works, and transmits the 

opinions of the Sages, 

many of whom dwelt in 

Palestine. Yet a perusal 

of its pages 

indicates 

that it was 

firmly 


The Cube of Zoroaster, from 

the Achaemenid period 

in Naqsh-e Rustam, Iran. 

For centuries, this stone 

structure was assumed to 

be a Zoroastrian fire temple, 

but this supposition has been 

discredited 

Photo: dynamosquito 

The Jewish Journey through History Shevat/Adar 5772 35


Burial 

Instead of burying the dead in the sacred earth, 

Zoroastrians lay corpses on a high, exposed 

platform, to be consumed by birds of prey. There 

were periods when Zoroastrian priests exhumed 

Jews and Christians from their graves to prevent 

them from defiling the earth. 

Animal Slaughter 

Zoroastrians kill animals by strangulation. 

The Jewish method of cutting the windpipe 

is unacceptable to them, as is the practice of 

allowing the blood to flow onto the ground, as 

required by Jewish law. 

grounded in Babylonia. The 

talmudic rabbis are fiercely 

loyal to Babylonia, even 

boasting of their particular 

towns and villages. The 

challenges of living under 

the Roman Empire – which 

had destroyed the Temple 

and persecuted the Jews 

– are mentioned, but only 

from a distance. 

Babylonian Jewry 

and the Babylonian 

Talmud were first 

and foremost 

citizens and 

products of 

the Sasanian 

Empire – 

named for the 

Persian dynasty 

that ruled a vast 

expanse of territory 

from Mesopotamia in 

the west as far as the 

Indus region in the east between the third and 

seventh centuries CE. Zoroastrianism was an 

important facet of Sasanian identity. The coins 

minted by this empire typically depicted, on 

the flip side of a bust of the emperor, a fire altar 

administered by Zoroastrian priests. Many of 

the officials in charge of day-to-day legal and 

financial affairs were also Zoroastrian priests. 

Along with Christians, Mandaeans, and 

Manichaeans, Zoroastrian laymen made up a 

sizable religious community in Mesopotamia. 

Thus, understanding the Babylonian 

Talmud requires a deeper appreciation of the 

Zoroastrian-Jewish encounter in Babylonia. 

There is evidence that Jews living under 

the Sasanians were harassed on occasion, but 

in comparison with other eras and cultures, 

this mistreatment was mild. The Jews were 

also not the only community occasionally 

persecuted by zealous Zoroastrian priests. A 

third-century inscription by the Zoroastrian 

high priest Kirder boasts of the various religious 

communities made to suffer under his tenure. 

These included Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, 

and Manichaeans – adherents of a new dualistic 

Highly Flammable 

Various elements and beings are sacred to the Zoroastrian faith: fire, water, 

earth, plants, cattle, and the priest or holy man. This resulted in a number of 

areas of tension between Jewish law and its Zoroastrian counterpart: 

Immersion 

Menstruating women are ruled by the forces 

of evil, according to Zoroastrian belief, and 

are therefore expected to keep a distance 

from their families. Their purification process 

involves rubbing their bodies with bull urine. By 

submerging herself in water, an unpurified woman 

would transfer her impurity to the sacred liquid, 

so the immersion of Jewish women in a mikve is 

anathema to Zoroastrians. 

Ritual Fire 

Fire plays a vital part in Zoroastrian ritual. 

Therefore Zoroastrians opposed the use of fire in 

private rituals performed by non-believers, such as 

lighting candles at the beginning of the Sabbath, 

or kindling Hanukkah lamps. 

36 February/March 2012 

www.segulamag.com

eligion founded by a Babylonian named Mani. 

For most of the Sasanian period, Manichaeans 

were deemed a major threat to Zoroastrianism. 

Christianity, too, was seen as problematic, 

especially after the Roman Empire accepted 

it as the official religion in the fourth century 

CE. Sasanian Christians, rightly or wrongly, 

became associated with the Roman enemy. 

Descriptions of the resulting mass persecutions 

have been preserved in a substantial library 

of martyrologies that recount the suffering of 

Christians dying for their religion. 

Playing with Fire 

From what we can gather from the Talmud, the 

harassment of the Jews was neither systematic 

nor directed at Jews for being Jews. Instead, 

the authorities occasionally took aim at rituals 

that offended Zoroastrian sensibilities. For 

instance, Hanukkah lamps were confiscated 

by Zoroastrian fire worshippers lest Jews treat 

the sacred flames with insufficient respect. 

The custom of lighting Hannukah lamps on 

the table rather than in the window, observed 

in some circles, is a product of this clash with 

Zoroastrianism. 

One talmudic source lists three decrees 

enacted by Zoroastrian priests against the Jews: 

They decreed against three things on 

account of three things. They decreed 

against meat because of [the priestly] gifts; 

they decreed against bathhouses because 

of ritual immersion; they exhume the dead 

because they rejoice on the day of their 

festivals. (Yevamot 63b) 

The passage searches for a theologically 

“measure for measure” explanation for these 

decrees. Why had God allowed the Zoroastrians 

to ban ritual slaughter (shehita)? Because Jews 

had not donated the cuts designated for their 

own priests, the Kohanim. Why were the 

bathhouses and mikva’ot shut down? Because 

Jews had neglected the laws of ritual immersion. 

Based on our knowledge of Zoroastrianism, 

however, each of the activities banned would 

have offended Zoroastrians. Jewish ritual 

slaughter is diametrically opposed to the 

Zoroastrian practice of strangulation. (The flow 

of blood onto the ground is problematic, since 

Zoroastrians consider the earth sacred.) Indeed, 

a Zoroastrian work known as the Dēnkard 

complains about Jewish slaughter of calves. As 

for immersion, Jewish law requires that married 

Ateshgah (“Seat of Fire”) fire temple, built 

in the 17th and 18th centuries in a suburb 

of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. It is 

unclear whether this place of worship was 

originally Zoroastrian or Hindu 

Photo: Nick Taylor 

Facing page: mythological scene from an 

ancient Persian manuscript 

Silver drachma issued by Ardashir III, 

one of the last monarchs of the Sasanian 

dynasty, c. 630 

Photo: Robert DeRose 


The Jewish Journey through History Shevat/Adar 5772 37


women immerse in the mikve – water from 

a natural source – following their menstrual 

period, thus defiling water, another element 

revered by the Persian faith. Fascinatingly, a 

midrashic Aramaic translation of the book of 

Esther known as Targum Sheni claims that this 

was one of Haman’s complaints to Ahasuerus! 

Finally, interring the dead also violated the 

sacred status of the earth. Additional talmudic 

passages and Christian parallels reflect 

Zoroastrian efforts to remove corpse impurity 

from the earth. Zoroastrian law prescribed a 

ritual wherein the body was placed high on a 

bier and consumed by birds. To this day, one can 

see such a place on the outskirts of Mumbai. It is 

known as the Tower of Silence. 

A Source for the Gartel 

As significant as these anti-Judaic decrees may 

have been, they were only one aspect of the 

Jewish-Zoroastrian encounter during talmudic 

times. There were periods in which curious 

Sasanian rulers organized “interfaith activities,” 

including their Jewish subjects as well. These 

meetings were held in a structure known as the 

Bei Abedan. The Talmud records that many 

rabbis invented excuses to avoid such gatherings, 

although Shmuel, a major talmudic personality, 

was said to have put in an appearance. 

We do not know what was discussed in the Bei 

Abedan, but some brief theological exchanges 

preserved in the Talmud may give us a clue. Not 

surprisingly, one such passage returns to the old 

monotheism-dualism debate: 

A magus said to Amemar [a talmudic 

sage]: From your waist upward belongs 

to Ohrmazd [Ahura Mazda, the Force of 

Good]. From your waist downward belongs 

to Ahrimen [Angra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit]. 

[Amemar] said to [the magus]: If so, how 

does Ahrimen let Ohrmazd pass urine 

through his land? (Sanhedrin 39a) 

At stake here is not only the concept of 

dualism, but also the way it might be mapped 

onto this world. Does the body, including the 

half that produces waste, represent one unified 

organism, as Amemar saw it? Or are the upper 

and lower regions divided and ruled by positive 

and negative forces, as the magus claimed? 

Although the passage presents the two sides of 

the debate as irreconcilable, the Zoroastrian 

approach seems to have left an impact. 

Elsewhere in the Talmud (Zevahim 19a), the 

Sasanian king Yazdegerd encourages Huna son 

of Nathan to adjust his belt. In Zoroastrianism, 

this article of clothing is highly symbolic: by 

dividing the upper and lower parts of the body, 

the belt keeps evil at bay, as it were. To this day, 

some Jews don a special belt, or gartel, when 

they pray, echoing a similar conception of the 

body. 

The encounter with Zoroastrianism seems 

to have influenced other aspects of Jewish 

thought as well, including essential questions 

such as the role of destiny in man’s lot. There is 

also evidence that Sasanian legal notions were 

utilized – including the Talmud’s claim that a 

temporary gift constitutes a gift. Furthermore, 

Zoroastrian mythology and narrative motifs 

had a major effect on talmudic storytelling. 

These topics are all related to a relatively new 

area of academic research, known as Irano- 

Ridding the earth of 

impurity. The Tower 

of Silence, Mumbai. 

Traditionally, bodies were 

left here to be consumed 

by birds of prey. Engraving 

from True Stories of the 

Reign of Queen Victoria, by 

Cornelius Brown, 1886 


Judaica. 

In the seventh century, the Sasanian 

Empire fell to a conquering Arab army. Over 

the following centuries, many Zoroastrians 

converted to Islam, and in the 1800s, a large 

number of committed Zoroastrians immigrated 

to India. At that time, the Babylonian Jewish 

community intersected most interestingly and 

productively not with Zoroastrianism, but rather 

with Islam. For Jews and Zoroastrians alike, 

the influence of Islamic philosophy – with its 

roots in Greek thought – was profound. Gaonic 

and post-Sasanian Zoroastrian works both bear 

unmistakable traces of this new encounter. 

One Persian source worth mentioning depicts 

a disputation between a Zoroastrian priest and 

a Zoroastrian convert to Islam, held in front of 

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, evil 

is seen as separate from God, 

and opposing Him, much as in 


the caliph al-Ma’amun (ruled 813–33). One of 

their debates concerns the anatomical dualism 

discussed by Amemar and the magus centuries 

earlier. The terms of the new debate are almost 

identical to those appearing in the Talmud, but 

the introduction of philosophical concepts and 

argumentation adds color. 

While the encounter between Judaism and 

Zoroastrianism mostly disappeared from the 

public sphere after the Islamic conquest, in 

communities where Jews and Zoroastrians 

lived side by side it continued, particularly in 

the domestic context. Iranian Jews, like their 

Muslim neighbors, continued to celebrate 

Nowruz, the (pre-Islamic) Persian New Year, 

with colorful spreads of symbolic foods. To this 

day, the traditional seven dishes are laid out 

on a carpet, and the family gathers around to 

share in the spring feast. What is more, some 

families burns esphand, or wild rue, in a golden 

brazier while everyone dines. Ritual fire has 

thus come full circle, returning to the Jewish 

home through an appropriated Zoroastrian 

ritual. In its own way, the esphand encapsulates 

the Jewish encounter with Zoroastrianism, 

which continues to burn brightly. n 


Well-Known 

Zoroastrians 

Zubin Mehta, 

the world-famous 

conductor from 

Mumbai, is also 

musical director of the 

Israel Philharmonic 

Orchestra 

Photo courtesy of Zubin Mehta 

Freddie Mercury, 

(born Farrokh Bulsara, 

1946–1991) was the lead 

singer and songwriter for 

the British rock-group 

Queen 

Photo: Carl Lander 

Homi K. Bhabha, 

a sociologist, research 

fellow, and author, was 

born in Mumbai and 

lives in America. He 

is a well-known postcolonialist 

thinker 

Photo: Jean-Baptiste Lebrun 


Rohinton Mistry, 

an Indian-born 

Canadian author, writes 

in English. His books, 

widely translated, 

include A Fine Balance 

and Family Matters 

Shevat/Adar 5772 39

In the Persian Empire of the book of Esther, the Gnostic fire ... - WBM

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