This feast is still observed and is a time of great

rance, the Jews instituted the feast of Purim. This feast is still
observed and is a time of great joy among Jews;
h ) A description of Mordecai’s greatness (Esther  ): -
history.com/oldtestament/bookofesther.html).
There is plot and counterplot and counter-counterplot... But only
the attempt to exterminate the Jews is ideologically motivated, this
way (Esther  ):
 . And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus: There is a certain people scattered
abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom;
and their laws are diverse from those of every people; neither keep they the
king’s laws; therefore it profiteth not the king to su ff er them.  . If it please
the king, let it be written that they be destroyed.
This is the Hebrew text. It is worth considering the longer Septua-
ginta version (  :  b-  g), which is clearer
Whereas I reigned over many nations, and had brought all the world under
my dominion, I was not willing to abuse the greatness of my power, but
to govern my subjects with clemency and lenity,[...]. But when I asked
my counsellors how this might be accomplished, one [...], Aman by name,
Told me that there was a people scattered through the whole world, which
used new laws, and acted against the customs of all nations, despised the
commandments of kings, and violated by their opposition the concord of all
nations. Wherefore having learned this, and seeing one nation in opposition
to all mankind using perverse laws, and going against our commandments,
and disturbing the peace and concord of the provinces subject to us, We
have commanded that all whom Aman shall mark out,[...] shall be utterly
destroyed by their enemies, with their wives and children, and that none
shall have pity on them. [...] That these wicked men going down to hell in
one day, may restore to our empire the peace which they had disturbed.

Anti-Semitism as protype of conspiracy theories 
The point is the same of the Exodus. Those to be exterminated are
attributed an evil plot against the kingdom and the whole mankind.
The conspiracy presents itself as a counter-conspiracy. But, for one
reason or the other, it fails and what prevails is the counter-counter-
conspiracy led by Mordechai (or in the Exodus by Moshe), which in
fact gives freedom and life to the oppressed.
But why do they have to be exterminated? Because they are “a
people scattered through the whole world, which used new laws, and
acted against the customs of all nations, despised the commandments
of kings, and violated by their opposition the concord of all nations”
(Esther). Because they are “too many and too mighty for us” (Exo-
dus). Well, not as many and as powerful as “we” are, but enough to
become a possible antisubject in a possible future story. The same
pattern will be repeated many times in history, up to Hitler and to the
current charges against the Jewish finance and Israel. But then there
is another charge. In a mythical past they were, refusing to recognize
our laws, our Prophet, our Messiah, our Party. From a semiotic point
of view, we should remark that in these conspiracy theories, the first