May
Iranian Jews in Israel face two opposing countries
PHOTO: The Israel Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem, Francisco Martins, flickr.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” Israeli leaders have nuclear weapons all but aimed at Iran and have spoken menacingly about their dislike of the country’s leadership.
This is the kind of political environment in which Iranian Jews exist.
The Iranian Jewish leader in Israel spoke out on Monday saying his community would not celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel’s creation. “We are in complete disagreement with the behavior of Israel,” Siamak Morsadegh, the incoming Jewish member of the Parliament said.
He criticized recent Palestinian deaths in Gaza as the reason for his speaking out.
Iranian Jews, he said, face “no specific problems” in Israel. His comments, however, will most certainly make other more hardline Jewish leaders in the Parliament cringe, at the very least.
Iran has the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel. Like other Jews across the world, many of them immigrated to Israel after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.
