Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Life of Jews in Iran

Barbara Demick, writes for the Saphardic Community foundation:

It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran that this most virulent anti-Israeli country supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country.

...
Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues, many of them with Hebrew schools. It has two kosher restaurants, and a Jewish hospital, an old-age home and a cemetery. There is a Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament. There is a Jewish library with 20,000 titles, its reading room decorated with a photograph of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
...
The wave of anti-Israeli sentiment that swept Iran during the revolution, as well as large-scale confiscations of private wealth, sent thousands of the more affluent Jews [and many non-jew affluent ones] fleeing to the United States or Israel. Those remaining lived in fear of pogroms, or massacres.

But Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a ''fatwa'' decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Similar edicts also protect Iran's tiny Christian minority. more

More about Persian Jews.

The Jewish member of Iranian Parliament
Also read on the Jewish Daily: Iranian Jews Reject Outside Calls to Leave.

... and here's a BBC report about the life and times of the Iranian Jews that may answer the concerns of those hwo think Iranians Jews cannot visit their family members in Israel.

14 comments:

Id it is said...

This was very informative. Who would imagine this to be a fact in the present day perspective that many people have on Iran. Commendable indeed.

nunya said...

I wouldn't want to live in a country where my religion was scruitinized. In other words, an non-secular country.

Naj said...

I am an a-religious person myself. But I think people who want to practice a religion should not have to apologize for it.

In Iran, with the exception of Bahai's, no one's religion is scruitinized.

Naj said...

Nunya,

Wouuld you be so kind to provide concrete examples about your statement? For example, how many Iranian immigrants you know? And what exactly did muslims DO about their practicing religion and etc.

While I am no fan of the Islamic republicanism, I do not subscribe to the blanket statement you just produced, not so politely.

I like to hear what exactly you think is bulshit here!

nunya said...

Have you ever lived in the US? People come here for all kinds of reasons. The most common complaint is discrimination in their country of origin.
The Iranians I know are B'hai, Sunni & Kurd, Grigorian (Christian), and Sufi. As much as they don't agree with most US foreign policies, they do NOT want to go back to Iran. None of them are wealthy here. Everyone in the US pays the same amount of taxes and in general, the wealthy pay someone to make sure they don't pay a lot in taxes. There are only special restrictions put on people who's health may affect the general public, like hepatitis infected foodservice workers, for instance.

Granted, Iran is more protective of their Jews, but they are isolated according to the article you posted. They can't visit family in Israel.

In the US you can choose to associate with whoever you want to. If you are isolated, it's not because you are different, because EVERYONE is different. I can count numerous countries of origin, languages, and religions just in my apartment complex. I like that. San Diego is a multi-national destination. People from all over the world visit, and many stay. The curse of nice weather, I guess.
However, I do not believe that the neocons have any right to try to change life in the Middle East. That is part of their grand (deluded) design. I don't believe you can deliver democracy at the end of a gun barrel. I do believe the Iranian people want democracy, and I believe they will achieve it, without any more "help" from Western countries.

In all honesty I may have some predjudice (caution with, anyway) Muslim men. I dated three of them, and they all dismissed my opinions as unimportant, and they all got "grabby" with me. There seemed to be some assumption among Muslim men that American women were sluts if they are not married and supporting themselves financially.

Who needs that?

Naj said...

Dear Nunya,

I too hate fundamentalism; and I too don't think divinity should be legislating us! If certain traditions from judaism, christianity, budhism, zoroasterianism, Baabism, Islam, "make common sense", within their own specific temporal/ cultural context, I can tolerate and have understanding for them.

Yes the course America is taking is worrying me; it is worrying me because America (whether we like it or not) is what aspires "freedom".

I think we need to take a look within and seek in us the traces of that which we hate most in the other.

I don't think the world will be coming to an end anytime soon. I believe in man's ability to change the course of history. If I try HARD to find that which is common between me and the fundamentalist, and I have to ask myself a question: What did I do in the position of power to drive people to religious radicalism?

You see, religious radicalism is not only Islam's problem nowadays. As you said, you can see how it is surging in the secular America as well. I hesitate to call people who think differently than me idiots. I think people have a REASON for believing/doing what they do. It roots in one's personal experience as you said, it roots on one's access to knowledge in another case.

I think it is more constrctive to tell people about what I know, than to beat them down about what they don't know. (the only people I do beat down for stpidity, are those who have every mmaterial, spiritual, financial, educational, intellectual means of KNOWING, but do not even bother to have an opinion)

Anyways, we agree on far more similar points than we disagree!

Sophia said...

I read yesterday somewhere, sorry I don't rememebr but if you do a search you will find it easily, that Persian Jews who emigrated to Israel are unhappy in Israel and worry the most about an attack on iran !

Naj said...

Maybe you read about it here?

Naj said...

Agree Sophia! Also, not to forget the stem cell research, th eparticipation of women in the government and tha parliament, the higher ratio of women with higher education, the birth control, the nationalized Oil industry, the industrail advancement in spite of 30 years of sanctions, and ...

nunya said...

My daughther's environmental science class doesn't teach that there is going to be an end to the world, but the planet, and especially the oceans are distressed. It is a direct result of human activity. If it's not in some ancient religous text (no description of the industrial revolution, which is feeding the massive amount of people on the planet) fundamentalists won't believe it.

Stupidity kills. Look at W. That dern Ivy League edumacacion dint do him no good, now did it? :)


Overpopulation kills, or starves kids that never should have been born.


I do think we agree more than we disagree.

Peace out.

Anonymous said...

Hello Naj,

Mr. Maurice Motamed (member of the Iranian Parliament, representing the Jewish community) has also confirmed in a couple of interviews that Iranian Jews can indeed legally and freely travel to the Holy Land for visiting with the family, pilgrimage, doing business, seeking medical help, etc ...

This, despite of Iranian government (like many other governments in the Middle East) not having any official ties with the government of Israel.

mikewinsc said...

Want to read more on the subject, here is an interesting article about Why Striking Tehran is not the answer

Anonymous said...

This piece is informative but not accurate. The Jews living in Iran are not free to say what they believe...I know because I was one of them. Iran's Jews say whatever the regime tells them.

You should read this blog, it has lot of great articles about Iranian Jews in the U.S. and Iran:

http://www.iranianamericanjews.blogspot.com/

peace,

Hamid Davoodi

Navid Ebrahimi said...

http://www.iranianamericanjews.blogspot.com/
^
^
^
many of the articles there are written by iranian american EXILE jews who haven't been to their country for 3 decades
(i would know, because i've lived among them)
in reality their opinions arent much different from the rest of the iranian exiles in the west. wheter they be monarchist, mojahedin, or communist their info are mostly inaccurate and out of touch with the realities inside iran.
i guess thats the result of decades of exile in the west.