Sarojini Nadar is a long-time supporter of the Shiloh Project. Her important new book is available from this Wednesday and ready for pre-order right now (see here). The book’s title, Gender, Genocide, Gaza and the Book of Esther: Engaging Texts of Terrorism (Routledge 2025) already points to its acute timeliness.
Tell us about yourself, Sarojini.
I’m a feminist scholar of religion based in South Africa, working at the intersections of gender, race, and religion. I hold the Desmond Tutu South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Religion and Social Justice, at the University of the Western Cape. My work is shaped by the historical legacies of apartheid and Indian colonial indentured labour. It is grounded in a decolonial feminist approach that interrogates how systems of power—colonial, patriarchal, racial, and religious—intersect. Much of my scholarship focuses on how religious beliefs and sacred texts are implicated in both the legitimation of systemic violence, and in movements of resistance.
How did this book come about, and how does it relate to your broader work?
The initial research intention for the book was to conduct an intersectional feminist analysis of sexual violence in the Book of Esther—particularly in relation to the harem as a space of imperial power and sexual exploitation. I was interested in how beauty, silence, and submission function as survival strategies for women within oppressive contexts.
But while I was contemplating the book proposal, in October 2023, everything shifted. A full-scale genocidal assault on Gaza was underway. Then, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked a chilling biblical command in a public speech justifying the invasion of Gaza: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you—and we remember.” Suddenly, the book of Esther took on an urgent, horrifying resonance. Amalek is not only a figure in Deuteronomy or 1 Samuel; he is also in Esther. Haman—the book’s primary antagonist—is a descendant of Agag, the Amalekite king. The ancient enemy of Israel, whose complete annihilation is divinely commanded when the Israelites enter the so-called Promised Land, is embedded in the book of Esther!
When South Africa brought its genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice in January 2024, it cited several biblical references used by Israeli officials, arguing that they revealed genocidal intent—framing Palestinians as Amalekites to be wiped out. Since then, the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other global organisations have echoed this analysis. This was not just retaliation. These were acts of genocide.
And so the focus of the book began to shift. Or perhaps more accurately, it began to expand. From the harem to the herem. What had started as a feminist reading of sexual violence in the harem could no longer ignore the parallel structure of ethnic violence in the herem. Herem, refers to a form of sacred ban or divine command that designates certain enemies for destruction, effectively setting them apart as sacred, and as “devoted to destruction.”
My earlier readings of Esther were profoundly shaped by the pioneering work of Phyllis Trible, whose book, ‘Texts of Terror’ invited us to read the Bible with feminist suspicion—to notice the sexual violence hidden in plain sight, and to lament what the text will not, and did not. Trible taught us to attend to the silences, to read against the grain, and to grieve the unnamed and the unremembered. But as a decolonial feminist scholar shaped by intersectional ethics, I read for more than gendered violence. I read for empire. I read for ethnic terror. I read for how sacred texts encode and sacralise violence—across registers of gender, race, and power. The subjugation of women’s bodies and the annihilation of ethnic others are entangled in what I call “sacred economies of violence.”
Sacred economies of violence is a conceptual framework I developed for the book, by drawing on Patricia Hill Collins’ matrices of domination, Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of the political economy of religion, and David Chidester’s expansion of Bourdieu’s idea into the political economy of the sacred. It describes an interlocking system in which violence functions as a currency—authorised through sacred sanction—to uphold patriarchal, racialised, and religious hierarchies. Within this economy, religion does not merely reflect existing structures of power; it actively legitimises and perpetuates them, embedding violence into the symbolic and material fabric of society. In the book, I trace how the book of Esther participates in these sacred economies of violence.
What are the key arguments of your book?
This book contends that in the book of Esther the two sites of violence—harem and herem—are not mutually exclusive. They are co-constitutive. I argue that the book of Esther is a politically and theologically charged narrative that legitimises violence by those who deem themselves “divinely chosen.” Building on Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics, I propose the framework of gendered theological necropolitics to analyse how the narrative constructs hierarchies of life and death. The text signals whose lives are valued and whose deaths are acceptable, all through the intersecting lenses of gender and ethnicity.
Crucially, I argue that these dynamics are not frozen in the past but are reactivated in our present moment—particularly in how the text is interpreted and mobilised in political discourse today. Hence, the book also focuses on how this ancient text is read and used far beyond the academy—in sermons, speeches, blogposts, and everyday religious practice. These “afterlives” of scripture are central to how texts function in the world.
What do you hope readers will take from this book?
I hope readers develop a sharper critical awareness of how sacred texts and their receptions can participate in the legitimation of violence—sometimes through overt endorsement, other times through subtle theological or narrative cues. The assumption that biblical texts are neutral or benign must be challenged. My goal is to expose how these texts continue to shape moral and political imaginaries in deeply consequential ways.
I also hope to prompt a broader conversation among biblical scholars about the political and pastoral uses of scripture in our time. Esther is a living text with potent—and often dangerous—afterlives. The widely quoted phrase “for such a time as this” is frequently used to inspire women’s empowerment, but in contexts like Gaza, it has also been weaponised to justify ethnic violence. What does “such a time” mean when it becomes a rallying cry for war?
Ultimately, I hope the book models a method of reading that is both ethically accountable and politically alert—one that refuses the comforts of simplicity, and instead embraces complexity in the service of justice.
What insight does the book provide into the relationship between religion and public life?
One of the central claims of this book—and indeed, of my broader scholarly work—is that religion does not reside neatly within private belief or institutional ritual. It is deeply entangled with public life, shaping social norms and popular moral discourse. This entanglement becomes particularly visible when we examine how sacred texts are interpreted and mobilised in everyday and political contexts.
The book of Esther offers a compelling case study for how normalisation of violence and theological instrumentalisation are perpetuated through popular Christian interpretations, where the text is often read through redemptive lenses that obscure its imperial and ethnic violence. This is why I take seriously both scholarly and popular religious interpretations. Non-academic readings from general public life, are central to understanding how sacred texts structure lived realities and legitimise or contest power. Popular media and discourse are therefore, legitimate and necessary sites of scholarly inquiry for those of us committed to tracing the effects of sacred texts in the world.
It is no accident, for example, that in 2024 a Donald Trump-aligned initiative emerged in the United States under the name Project Esther. This campaign—promoted by the Heritage Foundation as a “National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism”—appropriates the figure of Esther for Christian nationalist ends. As the Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Advisory Council has revealed, Project Esther in fact weaponises antisemitic conspiracy theories under the guise of Jewish protection, while disproportionately targeting Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants. It seeks to dismantle the broader Palestine solidarity movement, casting dissenting voices as threats to divine or national order. In this context, the figure of Esther becomes a rhetorical shield for repression—her story is invoked to sanctify silencing and justify surveillance.
This is precisely why intersectional feminist biblical scholars must interrogate both academic and popular uses of scripture. The question is not only what a text says, but what it is made to do in the world. When religious stories are used to authorise violence or shut down critique, our task is to expose and challenge those uses, while offering more just and accountable ways of reading.
Give us one quotation from the book that you think will make a reader go and read the rest.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 5:
“Initially portrayed as vulnerable, Esther strategically leverages her gendered position to gain access to power. Once she achieves that power, the narrative shifts towards an aggressive assertion of ethnic dominance. The extermination of Haman and his supporters, along with the deaths of 75,000 “others,” is rationalised through Esther’s Jewish identity, reflecting the historical violence inflicted upon Israel’s enemies within the framework of herem. Thus, the narrative complicates the portrayal of Esther as solely a victim; she operates within a structure of divine chosen-ness that legitimises her violent actions. Her body becomes a battleground for both imperial desire and divine selection, as she is first chosen for the king’s harem and later for God’s herem.”
