Fastest Point And Shoot

A look at the Iranian Jewish community

Freely adapted from the site Medarabnews.com

L’Iran è una realtà complessa, fatta di numerose etnie e minoranze religiose, che hanno vissuto storie di convivenza accanto ad episodi di brutale repressione. La realtà contemporanea degli ebrei iraniani, una comunità antichissima e tuttora vitale in Iran, fra millenaria tolleranza ed ostilità recenti, viene raccontata da Roger Cohen , noto commentatore del New York Times e dell'International Herald Tribune.

In Piazza Palestina, dal lato opposto della moschea chiamata Al-Aqsa, vi è una sinagoga dove gli ebrei di questa antica città si riuniscono all’alba. Sopra l’ingresso vi è a banner that says: " Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Isfahan . The Jews of Iran
take off their shoes, leather straps wrapped around the arms to tie phylacteries and take their places. Soon the sound of Jewish prayers winding through the crowded synagogue, with its exquisite carpets and its dismal plants. Sedighpoor Soleiman, a former trader with a shop full of treasures, directs the operation from the podium beneath the chandelier.
Sedighpoor I had been to find a man of sixty-one bright-eyed, the day before in his dusty little shop. I had sold, with a little 'reluctance, un braccialetto di madreperla ornato con miniature persiane. “ Il padre compra, il figlio vende ”, aveva borbottato prima di invitarmi alla funzione.
Accettando, gli avevo chiesto cosa pensasse dei cori “morte a Israele” – “Marg Bar Esraeel”- che accompagnano la vita in Iran. “ Lasciategli dire ‘morte a Israele’”, ha detto, “ sono in questo negozio da 43 anni e non ho mai avuto un problema . Ho visitato i miei parenti in Israele, ma quando vedo cose come l’attacco a Gaza, anche io manifesto come un iraniano ”.

Il Medio Oriente è un quartiere scomodo per minorities, people whose very existence is a rebuke to the conflicting definitions of national and religious identities. Yet are perhaps 25,000 Jews living in Iran , a country which hosts the largest community, together with Turkey in the Muslim Middle East. There are more than a dozen synagogues in Tehran ; here at Esfahan a handful of them will receive about 1,200 Jews, survivors of a community more than 3,000 years old. Over the decades, including the birth of Israel in 1948 and the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the number of Iranian Jews has declined by about 100,000 people. The exodus, however, was far less complete than that from the Arab states, where More than 800,000 Jews lived at the time of the birth of Israel.

In Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Iraq - countries where more than 485,000 Jews lived before 1948 - it remains less than 2,000. The Arab jew has disappeared. The jew lost if the past is better. Certainly, the cycle of war (apparently not yet ended) of Israel was the case with the Arabs, not Persians, and this explains some of the discrepancies.
Still, there is a mystery that still lingers about the Jews of Iran. It is important to decide what is more significant: the annihilation of anti-Israel invective, Holocaust denial Iranian and other provocations - or the presence of a Jewish community that live, work and practice their religion in relative peace.

Maybe I have a preference for facts in relation to words, but I think the reality of Iranian civilization to the Jews tell us more about Iran - its culture and sophistication - than they do all the recent incendiary rhetoric. This could be because I am a jew and have never been treated so warmly as in Iran. Or maybe I was impressed by the fact that all the fury over Gaza , trumpeted from the rooftops on billboards and on Iranian television, has never degenerated into insults and violence toward Jews . Or perhaps because I am convinced that the caricature of "mad mullahs" in Iran that is done, and done to compare any compromise with Tehran to Monaco in 1938, [which led to the annexation of the Sudetenland to Hitler's Germany belonging Czechoslovakia, under the so-called 'policy appeasment', condescending policy adopted by France and Germany against the Nazi regime during the 30s ( NdT )] - a stance popular in American Jewish circles - are misleading and dangerous.
I know that if many Jews have left Iran, that happened for a reason. The hostility exists. Accusations of spying for Israel invented against a group of Jews from Shiraz in 1999 showed the worst side of the regime. Jews elect a representative in parliament, but can vote for a Muslim if they prefer. A Muslim, however, can not vote for a jew. Among minorities, the treatment of the Bahai - seven of which were recently arrested on charges of spying for Israel - is brutal.
I asked Morris Motamed, jew who was a member of the Majlis [Iranian parliament ( NdT )], if he felt used - Iran is a quisling. " No," he said. "Actually I feel a deep tolerance here, toward Jews." He told me that the chorus of "Death to Israel" annoy, but then continued criticizing "two weights and two measures" that allow Israel, Pakistan and India have a nuclear bomb, but not Iran.

This double standard no longer works , the Middle East has become too complex. The vulgar anti-Israeli tirades of Iran can be seen as a provocation to focus people's attention on nuclear warheads Israel, its occupation of the West Bank that has continued for 41 years, its rejection of Hamas, its continuous use of force. The language of Iran can be obnoxious, but every attempt at peace in the Middle East - and any involvement of Tehran - will have to consider these points. The complex of "Green Zone" (green zoneism ) - the insistence of basing policy on the Middle East construction of imaginary worlds - did not lead anywhere.
realism against Iran should take account of ecumenism Palestine Square in Esfahan. At the synagogue, Benhur Shemian, 22, said that Gaza shows that the government Israel is "criminal," but that he hopes for peace. At Al-Aqsa Mosque, Morteza Foroughi, 72, has indicated the synagogue and said, "they their prophet, we have our . And that's okay. "

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