Iran’s Jews
Roger Cohen wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last week that certainly echoed my experience in Iran, noting that Iranian people are welcoming and friendly and that Jews worship and live openly in the Islamic Republic, with limitations, as they are are religious minority in a religious country.
The web exploded with angry comments, the most astute (though no less outraged) coming from the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, in which he noted that personal warmth and political hatred often live happily side by side in a society, even in individuals. Others simply called Cohen a fool, duped by the Iranian regime into thinking the Jews were doing perfectly fine. Some said he would have been fooled by the Nazis (a common comparison made between Ahamedinejad and Hitler came up too)
Cohen responded, noting that Iran was not Nazi Germany and that many Jews there dislike being used as a political hot button issue. As I found during my time in Iran, speaking with community leaders and youth, average Iranian Jews on the street, and pious worshipers at synagogues, they recognize that theirs is a complex community in a complex society, suffering from some real anti-Jewish discrimination, some cruelty resulting from ignorance, and some political point-scoring at their expense, but that reducing their 3,000 year history to the status of a cowed and oppressed entity, is insulting. They have just as broad a spectrum of beliefs as the American Jewish community here. Some are fiercly anti-Zionist, some quietly long to go to Israel (which they are allowed to do, unlike other Iranians), and some openly speak of admiration for Israel, as long as they also speak for justice for the Palestinians. The Jews of Iran are as free to express dissent as any Iranian, which is, not very, but no less so.
The current member of parliament and president of Dr. Sapir Hospital in Tehran explained to me that yes, indeed, they had problems, but that they were Iranians and that they were working “with the other religious minorities” to address the problems, including the limits on employment and the sometimes anti-Jewish programming on television. They did not regard outside interference as helpful. The young people I spoke with were emphatic that they had no real problems as Jews, but their problems were those faced by all young people in Islamic Iran, the limitations of a society controlled by religious fundamentalism.
Both Cohen and Goldberg are right. The Jews in Iran live safely and openly (unlike the B’hai), AND Iran provides political, financial, and ideological support to organizations that seek to destory Israel and the Jews. The Jews of Iran seek to work inside their system to change it, as Jews have done throughout their history (in America too!). The international community (rightly) seeks to pressure an extremist regime to change its behavior. But shrill accusations and comparisons to Nazi Germany won’t fix things. The only approach that can possibly work is dialogue, and the first step is to recognize that maybe, just maybe, all the Jews still in Iran are not fools or cowards, but actually believe what they say in public and in private–that their 3,000 year history of coexistence means something, that they, as someone told me, “speak English, pray in Hebrew, but dream in Persian.”
We can acknowledge that there have been some real troubles in Iran–for all Iranians, including Jews. Jews are often under suspicion because of the assumed connection with Israel, many have lost their homes and businesses and were separated from their families after the Revolution. There are a lot of bad experiences, which are just as valid as the good ones that Cohen and I encountered on our separate trips. But sometimes, it seems, only the bad experiences get pride of place in this discussion, and I applaud Cohen for voicing this other side.
Rabbi David Wolpe has extended an invitation to Cohen to meet with the Iranian exiles at his Congregation in Los Angeles, an invitation Cohen should certainly take up. It is the Iranians themselves–those still in Iran and those living abroad–who are stakeholders in this, and all of us in the media can comment up a storm, but it is up to them to work it out. They have a lot more history at it than we do. Perhaps we should spend more time listening to them. If Cohen doesn’t show up in LA, I’d be happy to.
