Iran & the Jews

In the summer of 1975 while serving as the Executive Director of the UJF of Tidewater VA, I was asked to meet with a delegation of Iranian Jewish leaders, who came to New York to meet with the Heads of the CJFWF and the JDC seeking help in developing a Jewish Federation to serve the 80,000 Jews in Iran.

They told me that I was highly recommended by Philip Bernstein of CJFWF and Ralph Goldman of JDC, to take on the task of organizing the Community along the lines of the American experience.

At the meeting I was told that there were approximately 20,000 Israelis working in Iran and there was little interaction between them and the Jewish Community who were neither Zionists nor supporters of Israel.

When I told my family about this important mission that I was to undertake, my wife with her down-to-earth wisdom asked me if I really wanted our children to be brought up in a Muslim police state? When I tried to convince her that this mission was of cardinal importance for the survival of the Jews of Iran, she replied angrily: “they better get out of there while they can.”

It didn’t take long before the religious revolution began and Ayatollah Khomeini, aided by the French, returned to Iran to establish the most oppressive religious regime of murder and execution carried out by the fanatic Revolutionary Guards who drove Iran into Muslim fundamentalism. Their cruelty surpassed that of the infamous Sabaqe (the Shah’s secret police) and rendered their country a brutal police state. As far as viciousness was concerned, they could send the Shah back to school. The turmoil prompted many Jews to realize that there was no future for them in Iran and thousands immigrated to the USA and to Israel. Yet, a large number, reportedly 20,000, are still living primarily in the larger cities of Iran.

What can they do now when the streets turned hostile and the government is most likely to quash the uprising?

A dictatorship, once challenged, will not hesitate to employ drastic means to suppress the forces of the opposition, thus, it will not surprise me to find the Jews on the side of the Ayatollahs’ corrupt regime, siding with the enemies of Israel.

Unless the USA offers tangible support to the people of Iran, the revolt will end the same way the uprising ended in Hungary (1967) and Czechoslovakia.

Ever since 1979, following Jimmy Carter’s fiasco, the Iranians believe the US to be nothing more than a paper tiger which will do nothing to support a weak democratic movement for fear that the uprising will fail.

Congress and the President need to remember that the Iranians will blame the US regardless of the facts. Thus, they might as well announce their unending support for democracy, so that those who are willing to fight in the streets will know they are not alone.