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Exclusive: Talking To Teheran's Jews

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  • Exclusive: Talking To Teheran's Jews

    EXCLUSIVE: TALKING TO TEHERAN'S JEWS
    By Seth Wikas

    Jerusalem Post
    Sept 28 2006

    On my first Friday evening here, my friends took me to the large
    synagogue in Yosefabad, in the center of the city, a neighborhood
    that is home to a large Jewish population. I found the sanctuary
    packed. Inside the main gate there were ads for Hebrew lessons and
    family activities sponsored by the Jewish Association.

    There was an Iranian policeman on guard outside, but with the exception
    of the signs in Farsi, the Hebrew-Farsi prayer books and the style of
    the women's hair coverings, this could have been an Orthodox synagogue
    in America.

    Excepting Israel, Iran boasts the Middle East's largest Jewish
    community. The capital contains around 10,000 Jews as well as Jewish
    schools that serve 2,000 students. Teheran also has a Jewish retirement
    home with 50 residents, and its Jewish Association owns a number of
    buildings, including a large library used by Jews and non-Jews alike.

    Why are the Jews still here? Answers differed across the generations.

    For many older people like my host Fayzlallah Saketkhoo, the vice
    president of Teheran's Jewish Association, Iran is simply their home.

    As the owner of a successful carpet and souvenir shop, Saketkhoo has
    provided well for his three children, and devotes a good deal of time
    to Jewish Association activities. At his home on Friday night after
    services, where he showed me his collection of Kabbala books and a
    large tapestry of Moses splitting the sea, he told me about how he
    had traveled around the world only to learn that nothing was better
    than home.

    Asked about the future of the Iranian Jewish community, he replied:
    "Did you see how many children were there tonight?"

    He was right. It was hard to concentrate on praying in the synagogue,
    where at least 300 people had come, because of all the children
    running up and down the aisles and chattering outside.

    But there is a difference between children and young adults. Peyman,
    Saketkhoo's 27-year-old son, was fond of saying, "Everyone in Iran
    has a problem," meaning that everyone - Jewish and non-Jewish -
    wants to leave.

    It's not just the political situation, he said, but the fact that
    with the rise of Ahmadinejad, the economic situation has worsened
    and poverty has deepened. For college graduates, it is hard to find
    jobs in their field; Peyman is an architect by training but works in
    his father's shop. As he and other young Iranians attest, both the
    political and the economic situation are getting harder to bear.

    On the issue of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, Iranians of different
    ages, Jewish and Muslim, pointed to a unifying national idea.

    Iranian culture dates back nearly 2,500 years, to the days of Cyrus the
    Great and Darius, founders of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty mentioned
    in the Bible. Throughout Iran, citizens of all religions are proud
    of their national history, and of the various pre-Islamic leaders
    and dynasties. Many parents even name their children Darius or Cyrus.

    This pre-Islamic culture, even in the Islamic Republic of Iran,
    is still respected and unifies Iranians of different backgrounds.

    Most indicative of this tacit acceptance of religious diversity is a
    huge picture on the side of a building in north Teheran. Like many
    pictures in the capital, it commemorates Iranian soldiers who fell
    during the 1980-8 Iran-Iraq war. But this one is different. It is
    dedicated to the minorities who served their country, and depicts
    five Iranians of various religions and ethnicities. Four represent
    Assyrian and Armenian ethnicities and members of the Christian and
    Zoroastrian communities. Right in the center is an Iranian Jew,
    with his name spelled in Farsi and Hebrew.

    I found great tolerance when I told people I was Jewish. Israel,
    however, was a different matter...

    (Seth Wikas's full report from Iran will appear in the Yom Kippur
    supplement published with Sunday's Jerusalem Post.)
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