THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE
By Seth Wikas
Jerusalem POst
Oct 2 2006
"Do you want a bracha?" I’ve been asked this question before, at the
various synagogues I have attended in the United States and Europe.
The shamash comes around and asks if someone would like an honor
during the Torah service.
But this time was different; I was in a synagogue in northern Teheran.
It was a bright Shabbat morning, and about 50 people had gathered in
the small synagogue to pray. I had been invited by the vice president
of Teheran’s Jewish Association.
As I looked around the auditorium, sparsely decorated aside from a
large Magen David at the front and the bima in the middle, my host
Fayzlallah Saketkhoo asked again if I wanted to say a blessing over
the Torah reading. After numerous pleas I went up to the bima, where
the Sephardi-style Torah scroll stood upright, and said the prayer
before and after the Torah reading with my American Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Men and women were seated on opposite sites of the room. There was
no mehitza (partition separating men and women), but all the women
had their hair covered.
As an honor to his American guest, Saketkhoo next asked if I wanted
to read the haftara, and I assented. Following the service, he asked
me to recite kiddush for the congregation.
When I grew up in the 1980s, Teheran was synonymous with violence and
terror. Having been born just before the Islamic Revolution in 1979,
I knew Iran only as America and Israel’s great foe. It was not until
I was in college that I learned it had not always been this way.
As a kid, it seemed that not a day went by without some news about
the evil regime that kidnapped American civilians and preached hatred
against the United States, the Great Satan. Things certainly haven’t
improved since, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad preaching hatred
against Israel and the Jews via a relentless campaign of Holocaust
denial.
So it was a great surprise when, on my first Friday evening in Teheran,
my friends took me to the large synagogue in Yosefabad, in central
Teheran, a neighborhood that is home to a large Jewish population,
and 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. While there are no accurate numbers, 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 Saketkhoo, 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.
"Don’t you want to leave?" I asked.
"Of course, but I have a problem," he said.
His particular problem is that he did not serve in the military.
Before Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005, Iranians could pay money
rather than perform military service, and Peyman paid for such an
exemption. But now this practice has been canceled, and only those
who have completed military service can travel abroad.
"So why don’t you just serve in the army?" I asked.
Peyman demurred, saying that two years – the service requirement –
is a long time, and he makes a decent living working for his father;
leaving his normal life for two years is out of the question.
"But is there any social life here? Don’t you want to marry someone
Jewish?" I asked.
Social life in Iran is limited, as bars, dance clubs and other
non-Islamic establishments are illegal. Peyman talked about meeting
people – including women – through friends, and noted that there
are social activities arranged through the Jewish Association and
the synagogue.
WHAT WAS most interesting about our conversation was that Peyman’s
friend Arash, a Muslim and a member of Teheran’s police force, was in
the room as we spoke. When I asked Arash about friendships between
Jews and non-Jews in Iran, he considered it a non-issue, preferring
instead to lambaste the regime.
"With Ahmadinejad," he said, "the police force has become political
and corrupt. Many people who have joined are more concerned with
politics and religion than with protecting the people."
As Arash saw it, there were no problems between Iranians on a religious
basis. On the issue of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, other 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 (ca.
600 BCE) 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.
Following the advent of Islam in the seventh century, the Persian
language adopted Arabic characters but remained distinct from Arabic.
National holidays that existed before Islam are celebrated by the
Jewish community as well. This past spring, Iranians celebrated Norouz
(New Day), the Persian New Year, which begins on March 21, and the
rabbi in Yosefabad spoke about Norouz in his sermon.
The Jewish Association’s calendar begins not on January 1, but on
March 21. 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. My friend’s uncle, a mullah and
professor of theology, said "We like Jews, but we hate Zionists."
My tour guide in Shiraz, in southern Iran, compared the Israelis
to the Arabs, recalling the Arab conquests of the seventh century,
saying the two peoples were invaders and occupiers.
Hajar, a university graduate with perfect English, asked, "Do you
think Israel is a real country?"
Most of the Iranians with whom I spoke, when asked about Israel,
saw it as an occupying entity that had displaced the Palestinians
and did whatever it wanted with American consent.
Iranians, especially in the capital, are constantly reminded of this
narrative. Pictures on the sides of buildings encourage martyrdom, and
downtown, near the old Israeli Embassy (now the Palestinian Embassy),
is Palestine Square. At the center is a large sculpture of Israel,
flanked by masked men throwing rocks while crushing a Star of David
under their feet, and a mother holding her fallen, martyred son.
I asked the leaders of the Jewish community what they thought of
Ahmadinejad’s relentless proclamations that the Holocaust was a myth
and that he wanted to "wipe Israel off the map."
The president of the Jewish Association, a successful businessman, told
me he had written a letter to Ahmadinejad denouncing the president’s
statements and retorting that if the Holocaust was a myth, then the
Israeli killing of Palestinians must also be a myth.
Nourani, a Jewish shop owner in Shiraz, says this of Ahmadinejad’s
statements: "It’s all just talk. It’s just propaganda to make people
forget about their problems."
Nourani sells kitchen appliances in the town, which is home to Iran’s
second-largest community of Jews, numbering between 6,000 and 8,000.
Shiraz was Persia’s capital 250 years ago, and is famous for its
wide avenues and beautiful gardens. Many Jews own shops in Shiraz’s
commercial district, and conduct business undisturbed. Some even have
Hebrew prayers or pictures of rabbis tacked up behind their registers.
Nourani and I talked about Jewish observance, but when I asked him
if he celebrated the festivals, he looked at me as if insulted.
"The Jews of Shiraz are very religious – much more religious than
the Jews of Teheran," he said.
"On Pessah, what do you do for matza?" I asked.
"Would you like to see?" he answered. We left his shop and went for a
15-minute walk across town. On the way, Nourani said he had actually
lived in Israel in the 1970s, but came back because he didn’t like
it there. "The Israelis don’t appreciate what they have. Iran is a
better place to be an observant Jew," he asserted.
We walked down a number of alleys and finally reached what looked
to be an abandoned ranch house on a barren plot of land. As we got
closer, I saw a sight one might have expected in Monsey, New York, or
Deal, New Jersey, but definitely not in Shiraz. I saw men and boys in
kippot, boxes printed with Farsi and Hebrew, and heard the machinery,
but couldn’t believe it. Shiraz has a matza bakery.
I couldn’t actually comprehend what I was seeing, but it was there:
One room contained the mixers needed to combine the flour and water,
and the other contained the oven and conveyor belt. The prayer said
when ritually removing a piece of dough from the mix was written on
the wall in Hebrew and Farsi. One of the older men there, Qudrat,
spoke fluent Hebrew. He had learned it in Iran, in religious school,
and since I didn’t speak Farsi and he didn’t speak English, we spoke
in Hebrew.
LATER IN the day Qudrat invited my friend and me for a picnic with
his family. The 10 of us all went to a public park and ate a feast
of Iranian stew, vegetables, Iranian sweets and tea. Perhaps most
amazing was that Qudrat wore his kippa in a public park, where dozens
of religious Muslim families – including women covered head-to-toe
in black – were also picnicking.
Everyone at our picnic asked if I was Orthodox, if I kept kosher and
if I observed Shabbat. Qudrat’s children and grandchildren had been
to Israel. His 12-year-old granddaughter, Sepideh, said she liked
Eilat best but added, surprisingly, that Jerusalem was "too religious."
Qudrat’s son-in-law Farshid, who was looking to leave Iran for the
United States to find work, was also very interested in my level
of Jewish observance. He, like many other potential migr s, hopes
to move to Los Angeles which, with its large Iranian population,
is well-known as Teherangeles.
Following our picnic, Qudrat took me to one of Shiraz’s 13 synagogues
to pray. We came to a large courtyard in the neighborhood of
Rabiazadeh, and there were about 40 men assembled, ready for the
afternoon service. I wonder how many cities there are in the world
where a community of fewer than 10,000 Jews have a synagogue and can
assemble 10 men for daily afternoon prayers.
Even more incredible was the fact that after we left, another group
of worshipers came in. I was told that there are at least three shifts
that come every morning and four or five every afternoon.
"Do you like it here?" someone asked me as I walked out.
"It’s a very nice country, and it’s nice to see so many Jews," I said.
"Well, you know, I was one of the 13 Jews put in jail," he said.
N. (to protect his privacy), along with 12 other Jews from Shiraz,
had been arrested in 1988 on charges of being Israeli spies. Despite
international pressure, 10 of the 13 were sentenced to prison terms
of up to 13 years.
N. still doesn’t know why he was put in jail.
"We’ll never know," he said. "I was a government employee and
was honest. I never took a bribe. I spent 17 months in solitary
confinement, yet at one point all 13 of us shared a cell."
N. was finally released in 2002, but still can’t leave the
country and was reticent about the circumstances of his arrest and
imprisonment. The government, he said, has limited what he can say
to foreigners.
All he would say was: "You never know what will happen. In Iran,
you never know what will happen."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
