Did U know the Jewish religion & culture is respected & protected in Iran?

[oblivious]

More Jews live in Iran than any other country in the Middle East outside of Israel.

These articles aren't that up to date, but they taught me to be suspicious of the hate propaganda I see so much of these days. I know, there's some negative stuff too but it's pretty encouraging to me.

1. Knight-Ridder, Sept 30, 1997
Iran remains home to Jewish enclave
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. While Jewish communities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria have all but vanished, Iran is home to 25,000 - some here say 35,000 - Jews.

..."Sometimes I think they are kinder to the Jews than they are to themselves. ... If we are gathered in a house, and the family is having a ceremony with wine or the music is playing too loud, if they find out we are Jews, they don't bother us so much," Eliyason said. "Everywhere in the world there are people who don't like Jews. In England, they draw swastikas on Jewish graves. I don't think that Iran is more dangerous for Jews than other places."

...Not everyone in the Jewish community favors liberalization of Iranian society. Arizel Levihim, 20, a prospective Hebrew teacher, said Judaism has fared better within the confines of Iran's strictly religious society. "I believe it is good for women to keep their head covered. I think it is good to restrict relations between boys and girls,'' Levihim said. "I agree with the ideals of the Islamic republic. These are Jewish values too."
http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/iranianjews.html

2. Christian Science Monitor February 03, 1998
Jews in Iran Describe a Life of Freedom Despite Anti-Israel Actions by Tehran
...Yet, stroll a little farther along Palestine Street and you come to the Abrishami Synagogue, the biggest of 23 synagogues in Tehran. It is regularly attended by some 1,000 worshippers. It comes as a surprise to many visitors to discover that Iran, a country so hostile to Israel and with a reputation for intolerance, is home to a small but vibrant Jewish community that is an officially recognized religious minority under Iran's 1979 Islamic Constitution. " Khomeini didn't mix up our community with Israel and Zionism - he saw us as Iranians," says Haroun Yashyaei, a film producer and chairman of the Central Jewish Community in Iran. Like Iran's Armenian Christians, Jews are tolerated as "people of the book" and allowed to practice their religion freely, provided they do not proselytize. They elect their own deputy to the 270-seat Parliament and enjoy certain rights of self-administration. Jewish burial and divorce laws are accepted by Islamic courts. Jews are conscripted into the Army. "We are one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world," Mr. Yashyaei says.
http://csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/durableRedirect.pl?/durable/1998/02/03/intl/intl.3.html

3. New York Times, October 17, 1999 - re spy trial
Arrests Shake Ancient Roots of Iran's Jews

Since the Islamic revolution, Jews have been a recognized minority, with guaranteed civil rights, freedom to keep Jewish traditions and to run Jewish schools. In Teheran, there are 27 synagogues, several of them modernized with help of donations from American Jewish groups. Like Christians, Zoroastrians and other minority groups, they have a reserved seat in Parliament, currently held by Manucher Eliassi, a 58-year-old Teheran doctor who has been in the forefront of efforts to help the Shiraz Jews.

... "From the beginning of the revolution, we have never had any problems with the revolutionary Government," he said.

"We can listen to our own music, we can wear our traditional clothing, we can even have wine at our weddings and religious ceremonies. There is no problem. We are 100 percent free. "

He added: "Jews have deep, deep roots in this country, and I am very sure that there will never be an Iran without Jews."
http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/aip/press99/101799iran-jews.html

4. BBC, Thursday, 13 April, 2000 - re spy trial
Trial puts spotlight on Iran's Jews
They also have distinctly mixed feelings about all the noises made, ostensibly on their behalf, by Israel, the United States, and other outside quarters.
Manuchehr Eliasi is the Jewish member of the Iranian parliament.

"We appreciate the efforts of those who are genuinely trying to help these 13 people," he says.

"But unfortunately, there are some who are trying to use this case against Iran."
"We're absolutely opposed to this, because we are part of the Islamic Republic. We're Iranians who happen to be Jews and to be living in Iran."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/711917.stm

[AX10]

1. Iranians are not Arabs. They are (real) Aryans. A different tribe with..

a different history. The tension that exists between Jews and Arabs from 5000 B.C does not exist between most Iranians and Jews.

[Botany]

2. they existed in Iraq too

Before we got in there.

[rockymountaindem]

3. No, they didn't.

Iraqi Jews were all gone, driven out, by 1952.

[Botany]

8. I might be wrong but I remember hearing something on NPR

about them. It went on to say that they (a very small amount of people) had to leave after
the fall of Saddam because of the power vacuum made it unsafe for them.

[rockymountaindem]

11. I remember that too

I think there were like, 200 left out of a pre-WWII population of an estimated 150k. Hardly a blossoming community in 2003, though.

[Botany]

12. but still that was an other 200 people that ...

.... President Asscrap's war whose lives were ruined.

Not to mention the 100,000 + dead Iraqis & Americans killed & wounded & those with out water & .......

Gee, i wish that little shit (bush) was put on a plane and sent to Iraq tonight.

[sabra]

13. JPost: 'Roots' trip planned for Israel's Iraqi Jews

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1135696351719&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

'Roots' trip planned for Israel's Iraqi Jews


"On the Tigris River: A Trip to North Iraq," read the large pink sign at the entrance to the sixth annual academic conference of the Mosul Jewry Heritage Center in Haifa.

Indeed, Iraqi-Israeli Jews who were born in the now violence-plagued city of Mosul will make a trip to Iraq to "return to their roots" this spring.

This trip, promises the sign, will include
visits to the grave of Jonah the Prophet, in Mosul, the grave of Rabbi Nahum al-Kushi of Mt. Sinai, the cave of Abraham, and the grave of Noah.

The first trip was limited to 12 people, but many more had expressed interest, said Gideon Oved, 59, a member of the MJHC board, which is organizing the trip, headed by Aharon Efroni, the center's chairman.

...

Over 120,000 Jews left Iraq during the early 1950s and those still alive are yearning to return to the sights, sounds and scents of the place they loved and left before it is too late.

[rockymountaindem]

4. I sure did. It's an interesting paradox.

But I also heard a lot of Iranian Jews now live in LA.

[driver8]

7. That's the truth! I live in Los Angeles and know quite a few

Iranian Jews. Westwood used to be called "Little Tehran" -- at least 50% of the businesses are owned by Iranians (or Persians, as they prefer to be called.)

I know one thing -- Persian Food rocks!!:headbang:

[kineneb]

5. Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from captivity in Babylon,

ordered the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the building of the Second Temple.
Also, many Jew moved into the Persian empire to live and stayed there.

[Boojatta]

6. "Iran is home to 25,000 - some here say 35,000 - Jews."

Maybe ten million Iranians secretly converted to Judaism. There could be ten million Jews in Iran!

On a more serious note, the Korean population in Los Angeles (one city in one state in the United States) is about 90,000. That's a lot more than the total number of Jews in Iran.

Also, I suspect that few Jews in Iran are recent immigrants.

[Boojatta]

9. "Jews are conscripted into the (Iranian) Army"-- that's a good thing????

[Ian David]

10. See also: " THE SILENT EXODUS"

Silent Exodus was selected at the International Human Rights Film Festival of Paris (2004) and presented at the UN Geneva Human Rights Annual Convention (2004)

In 1948 nearly one million Jews lived in Arab lands. But In barely twenty years, they have become forgotten fugitives, expelled from their native lands, forgotten by history and where the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a cloak of silence.

A people whom legend have always associated with "wandering" many of these Jews from Arab lands had lived there for thousands of years and accepted their fate, through good times and bad times.

But 1948, the beginning of their exodus, also saw the birth of the State of Israel.

And, while the Arab armies were preparing to invade the young refugee-country, the survivors of the Shoah were piling up in rickety boats. Meanwhile a few hundred thousand Arabs from Palestine were getting ready to flee their homes, convinced that they would return as winners and conquerors.

Soon - by a terrible twist of fate they, as well, began to fill up refugee camps and passed on their refugee status to new generations.

The Jews, however, did not receive refugee status.

They had just rediscovered the land of their birthright.

And if they came from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq or from Yemen, if they had lost everything, even their relatives and their cemeteries, they were ready to rebuild their lives in the West and for many - in Israel - and try to forget their past.

Without ever asking for compensation or the right of return, or even wishing that their story be told...

More:
http://www.pierrerehov.com/exodus.htm