Survival instincts -Larry Derfner
[T]he question of where Iran's Jewish community stands on the struggle between the regime and the reformers is unclear, because the country's Jews generally keep their political opinions to themselves.
[W]hen émigrés contact their families back in Iran, politics remains an off-limits subject because of their fear that the regime is monitoring their communications. The natural assumption is that privately, at least, Iran's Jews oppose the government and support the protesters because the country's Islamic revolution compels them to declare their enmity to Israel...
The fear of being accused of spying for Israel hangs over the Jews of Iran and keeps them in line. A dozen Jews were executed on this charge after the 1979 Islamic revolution. In 2000, 10 Jews in the city of Shiraz were convicted of spying for Israel and imprisoned for four years.
A prominent member of the Iranian immigrant community says: "Iranian Jews are free [to] go and pray in their synagogues without anyone bothering them. They have great parties, weddings, bar mitzvas - they can have music at their affairs, which isn't allowed to the Muslims."
To protect their status, they pledge allegiance to the government and publicly support its policies. This has been the community's survival strategy for 2,700 years, says Orly Rahimiyan, a lecturer on Persian Jewry at Ben-Gurion University.
The Jerusalem shopkeeper who left Iran after the revolution says: "Jews in Iran always go with the wind, with whoever's in power, even if they hate him."
Whether the reformers or the regime emerge on top, whether the mullahcracy is preserved, moderated or thrown out, Iran's ancient, survivalist Jewish community will be cheering. In public, anyway.
[Jerusalem Post]
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[W]hen émigrés contact their families back in Iran, politics remains an off-limits subject because of their fear that the regime is monitoring their communications. The natural assumption is that privately, at least, Iran's Jews oppose the government and support the protesters because the country's Islamic revolution compels them to declare their enmity to Israel...
The fear of being accused of spying for Israel hangs over the Jews of Iran and keeps them in line. A dozen Jews were executed on this charge after the 1979 Islamic revolution. In 2000, 10 Jews in the city of Shiraz were convicted of spying for Israel and imprisoned for four years.
A prominent member of the Iranian immigrant community says: "Iranian Jews are free [to] go and pray in their synagogues without anyone bothering them. They have great parties, weddings, bar mitzvas - they can have music at their affairs, which isn't allowed to the Muslims."
To protect their status, they pledge allegiance to the government and publicly support its policies. This has been the community's survival strategy for 2,700 years, says Orly Rahimiyan, a lecturer on Persian Jewry at Ben-Gurion University.
The Jerusalem shopkeeper who left Iran after the revolution says: "Jews in Iran always go with the wind, with whoever's in power, even if they hate him."
Whether the reformers or the regime emerge on top, whether the mullahcracy is preserved, moderated or thrown out, Iran's ancient, survivalist Jewish community will be cheering. In public, anyway.
[Jerusalem Post]
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