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uaekid · Sep 08, 2011

I don't know is it due to my poor culture knowledge or like the rest of the world being drawn to the media and politics but I really got shocked knowing that over 600,000 Iranian- Jewish are living freely to their practices in the city of Sheraz and have a long history over there.

event horizon · Sep 08, 2011

I'm sure the same people would also say Christians are treated just fine in Iran.

Reality begs to differ:

Iranian authorities began to systematically seize and destroy Bibles after a Shiite cleric issued an urgent warning about the spread of Christianity.

Authorities in northwestern Iran seized 6,500 Bibles, according to the Iranian Christian news organization Mohabat News, which quotes an official as saying of the seizure that “all religions are strengthening their power to confront Islam; otherwise, what does this huge number of Bibles mean?” The agency has reported several other recent incidents of Bibles and other Christian literature being seized and sometimes publicly burned.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/iran-b ... /id/408824

Rhetoric has turned increasingly anti-Christian in recent months, with one official saying Christians are like the Taliban and "parasites".

Mr Johnston said the latest arrests and hostile rhetoric were "extremely concerning".

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/m ... /28492.htm

shafique · Sep 08, 2011

Uaekid - the fact that there are so many Iranians who follow Judaism is a well known fact for all those who have looked beyond the headlines and hype about Iran. Sym and Mel have confirmed this is the case - and the Iranians who are Jewish are apparently proud to be Iranian and their culture etc.

The resident loons aren't happy with these facts, so will always try and distract with smoke and mirrors. Such as posting loon snippets which have nothing to do with Iranian Jews. :roll:

It is an inconvenient fact for loons who like to believe that European anti-semitism is actually a 'Muslim/Arab' problem. They mix the opposition to the Military Occupation of Palestine with the virulent Anti-semitism that Europeans invented and practiced. The relatively few examples of violence against Jews in the Muslim world pale into insignificance when compared to European, Christian and secular attacks and slaughter of Jews in Europe. Those facts are inconvenient.

Indeed, much of the problem of colonials in Palestine stem from anti-Semitism driving Eastern European Jews out of Europe in the late 19th and 20th century.

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Sep 08, 2011

It's too bad the Soviet Union broke up.

I'm sure they could have used a propagandist of your caliber to reassure the world stage that human rights abuses are only a Yanqui conspiracy.

Anyways, here's another perspective from Jews themselves. Of course shafique would be more inclined to quote Jews when they appear on Iranian state TV, so I'm sure he'll claim what Jews secretly say among themselves is Zionist spin.

Wikileaks

Morris Motamed, a former two-term MP for Iran's Jewish community, told IRPO that four Jewish youths were arrested by Basij militiamen while participating in the June 20 street demonstrations in Tehran. The four teenagers spent one night herded into a parking lot with dozens of other detained demonstrators. According to their families, the whole group was badly beaten with batons and stun guns throughout the night before being moved to a police station, where the physical abuse continued. Two of the young men were released after "two or three days" but the other two were transferred to Evin Prison and held 18 days. According to Motamed, who said he maintains ties with many former and current IRIG officials from his days as an MP, the two young men were released after he spoke with Hossein Ali Amiri, who is the deputy to Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Shahroudi. The two were re-arrested in their homes on July 18 by "IRGC security."...Motamed said that at least one of the young men picked up July 18, Yeghoutiel Shaoolian, was among the detainees prosecuted in the August 1 show trial. He said that Shaoolian's mother told him that at some point during his incarceration her son made a taped statement in which he confessed to spying for Israel. Motamed believes that Shaoolian's confession may be linked to the testimony of the "unnamed spy" referenced in the six-part indictment released by the government in advance of the trial. Motamed, who was an MP during the trial of the 13 Jewish Iranians arrested in 1999 in Shiraz and Esfahan on espionage charges, fears a repeat of that ordeal, which he says had far-reaching repercussions for Iran's Jewish community.

Motamed said that the consensus of the community is that only about 20,000 Jews now remain in Iran and noted that emigration has increased over the past two years following President Ahmadinejad's increasingly strident rhetoric against Israel and his public questioning of the Holocaust. Though Jewish Iranians "continue to love Iran" they are being compelled to leave, mostly out of fear that they will become targets of a government backlash should Israel confront Iran militarily. Motamed said he lives in fear of an Israeli strike because the Jewish community has no ability to protect itself from what he believes would be a wide-scale attack on Jews and Jewish interests. He said that while economic opportunity and the chance to live somewhere as a "first-class citizen" do factor into decisions to leave, the uptick in departures is driven mostly by fear of the future. Motamed noted that as a community leader, he has been asked for many years his opinion by Jews weighing their options. Until two years ago, he told people they had to make the decision themselves. Now, he said, he recommends moving out of Iran to every Jew who asks his opinion. He estimated that 80 percent of Jews emigrate to the United States, while the rest relocate to Israel or Europe. (Note: Motamed's wife is emigrating to the U.S. and he is considering his options.)

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -from.html

shafique · Sep 08, 2011

Now, what did I say about loons and them believing their own spin. :roll:

Mel and Sym are hardly fans of the current Iranian leadership - and even your loon snippet confirms that Iranian Jews are proud to be Iranian.

Nothing in the article contradicts the fact that anti-semitism in Europe has left vast regions with no Jews, and yet there are big communities of Jews still in Iran.

The Eastern European anti-semitic attacks resulted in migrations to Palestine before the Russian revolution. The increased influx since the 90s has made the issue worse, but that is not what I was referring to - the 90's mass immigration was more economic and not because of the anti-Semitism in Europe.

Loon snippets and hype can't really disguise the reality on the ground - but 10/10 for effort.

Cheers,
Shafique

event horizon · Sep 08, 2011

Nothing in the article contradicts the fact that anti-semitism in Europe has left vast regions with no Jews

I was under the impression that the Jewish population in Europe has historically been far greater than in the Middle East.

Do you disagree?

When loons quote statistics, you know they are easily disproved. So the claim that there are only 20,000 Jews in Iran is one the loons should back up with some evidence.

The 'loon' you're referring to is an Iranian Jewish father whose son was arrested after he 'confessed' to spying for Israel.

Is your mind total mush that you need to re-use loon where ever possible due to your decreasing vocabulary?

The Eastern European anti-semitic attacks resulted in migrations to Palestine before the Russian revolution.

And anti-Christian attacks/persecution in the Muslim world have seen increased migration of Middle Eastern Christians to the West.

Hey, I'm not complaining. They're great people who recognize the true dangers of Islamic extremism. Middle Eastern Christians are the most vocal opponents of Islamism in the West. They know what it's like to live under Muslim majority states, after all.

Oh, and a quick search on google says there are ~ 25,000 Jews left in Iran.

I wonder what Iranian Jews would say about their situation in Iran if the cameras aren't rolling. Oh wait, the Wiki cable does reveal what they say. But good work comrade. The revolution needs you to paralyze the masses with misinformation.

Chocoholic · Sep 08, 2011

Why is it such a shock? There are Palestinian Jews etc, there's even a small hidden synagogue in Dubai.

shafique · Sep 08, 2011

Eh - anti-Semitism is a European disease, historically and by numbers. The latter day examples of violence against Jews in Muslim countries are bad, but are not on the same scale or violence as the Christian and secular attacks on Jews.

By contrast, Iranian Jews are constitutionally equal to Iranian Muslims - explicitly.

As for the numbers of Jews in Iran, I concede - Uaekid's figures are probably out by a factor of 100 (Google says Shiraz's population is around 6000 Jews) - so I concede that the numbers in Iran are in the tens of thousands and not hundreds of thousands. When you're wrong, you're wrong - I should have checked.

That aside, the fact still remains - anti-Semitism in Europe has no equal in the Muslim world, and the Eastern European emigrants to Palestine are a large part of the problem there - before and after WWII. Many of the virulent far-right leaders are Eastern European. Terrorist leader and later PM Menachem Begin was Polish, as was Ben-Gurion - and many current right wing politicians are Russian or of Eastern European immigrants.

But, it should be no surprise that there is a proud Jewish community in Iran - except to those who wish to believe in the loon hype about Muslims hating Jews.

Cheers,
Shafique

symmetric · Sep 10, 2011

European Jews are European, they were never Semites like Arabs/Assyrians/Aramaens/Canaanites/Hebrews.

The term anti-Semite is being mis-used and in a very ignorant way. It means nothing to us here.

However, Jews in Iran have always lived normally in peace during the Sunni Islamic period which lasted for almost 900 years. Until Shiasm took over and smashed the vast majority of Sunnis and also Zoroastrians and Jews.

Today, Sunnis are being more discriminated than Jews.

event horizon · Sep 10, 2011

symmetric wrote:Today, Sunnis are being more discriminated than Jews.

Now if you had said Jews are more discriminated than another religious group in an Islamic/Muslim majority nation, we would have seen our resident babbler have a few choice words with you.

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