Who was the historical Persian king in the Purim story — and does it matter?

Is it Xerxes the First, Ataxexes the First or perhaps it was really Ataxerxes the Second? This is the question that many rabbis and scholars would argue is on the lips of Jews across the world.

As Purim approaches, who was the historical Ahasuerus? It could be that you are situated in an intellectually impoverished milieu in which such questions have little traction. Worry not. There is another opportunity of squeezing the events of the Bible into unyielding historical cracks. Now I am as sympathetic as the next person at the need to escape the neurotic chaos which is Pesach-cleaning but the custom of some Jews who traipse around the British Museum in the week before Seder, wisely intoning that this is the mummy of the Pharaoh Afikoman the Great, is surely an exodus too far.

My scepticism as to the need to underpin our holy texts with fanciful historical conjecture is rooted not only my curmudgeonly disposition but it is in fact supported by the final paragraph of the Book of Esther. Having recounted the twists and turns of their story, the authors of the Megillah inform us that this can all be found in “the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Medea”.

Dayan Yechezel Abramsky, head of the London Beth Din from 1934-51, explained this strange verse in the following way: “After we have read the entire scroll — it may occur to someone that we have just read a history, a historical story (geschichte), and this is why the verse says: ‘And every act of theirs, and the story of the greatness of Mordechai can be found in the Chronicles of the Kings of Persia.’”