Video: Egypt Unexpectedly Bans "The Jews of Egypt"

["The Jews of Egypt"] presents a harmonious vision of early 20th century multicultural Egypt and asks – according to director Amir Ramses – "how did the Jews of Egypt turn in the eyes of Egyptians from partners in the same country to enemies?"
The Guardian

The Guardian reports that Egypt bans film about Jewish community:

Security agencies have banned an Egyptian film about the Arab nation's once-thriving Jewish community just a day before it was due to open in cinemas, according to the documentary's producer.

A Project That Explores The Life, Not Genocide, Of Forgotten European Jewish Communities

The following is an audio report on the Helix project led Rob Adler Peckerar, the executive director of Yiddishkayt, a non-profit Yiddish cultural organization.

Peckerar's project takes a unique approach in introducing Jews to pre-WWII Jewish communities, as described by Nina Porzucki in her article Jewish American Students Reimagine Yiddish Europe:

Instead of visiting concentration camps and mass graves like many conventional Jewish student tours this summer, Peckerar took eight students to the hometowns of Jewish poets and novelists. This was a tour more about life than genocide.

Here is the audio:

The Muslim World Is Almost Judenrein. And Then There Is Israel

Michael Totten writes about The Last Jews of Tunisia:

Jews lived all over the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years, and they lived among Arab Muslims for more than 1,000 years, but they’re almost extinct now in the Arab world. Arabs and Jews didn’t live well together, exactly, but they co-existed five times longer than the United States has existed. They weren’t always token minorities, either. Baghdad was almost a third Jewish during the first half of the 20th century. Morocco and Tunisia are the last holdouts. In Tunisia, only 1,500 remain.

Totten quotes a short exchange with a Jewish restaurant owner in Tunisia. The restaurant is named Mamie Lily, in the posh Tunis suburb of La Goulette.

Wikileaks--Endangering Jews In Iraq And Supporting The Regime In Belarus

The lack of information damaging to Israel in the cables released by WikiLeaks has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists.
Bloggers claim WikiLeaks struck deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks, Haaretz, December 10, 2010

I don't know how damaging Wikileaks is supposed to have been to Israel since December 2010, but the carelessness of Wikileaks has been endangering the lives to the few remaining Jews in Iraq:

Bulgaria Takes Pride In Being First To Help Israel With Carmel Fire--And Of Its Jewish History

Though Bulgaria did not bring planes and helicopters with them to help with the Carmel fire, they did bring a delegation of 92 fire fighters--and they were the first to arrive.

According to former Bulgarian ambassador to Israel Dimiter Tzantchev, who is now Bulgaria's deputy foreign minister, Bulgaria this is consistent with the history of special ties that Bulgaria has with the Jewish people:

Fond Memories Of A Jewish Community In Lebanon--By Jews, Christians And Muslims Alike (And A Synagogue Being Restored)

Earlier this year, Bablylon & Beyond described how New book attempts to resurrect Beirut's lost Jewish past. The book is about Wadi Abu Jamil--referred to as Wadi Yehud: The Valley of the Jews--which used to be a busy Jewish community in Beirut. It is a collection of 21 stories about Jewish life in Wadi Abu Jamil, of Jews who preserved their Jewish traditions while at the same time having strong ties with their Christian and Muslim neighbors.

Wadi Abu Jamil: Stories about the Jews of Beirut is written by BBC journalist Nada Abdelsamad, who brings to life the various Jewish personalities who used to live there, through the memories recounted by the people who considered those Jews to be their neighbors and friends.

Video: Chinese Jews Arrive From Kaifeng--A Jewish Community Dating Back To 960CE

There is an article in the Jerusalem Post describing their arrival at the airport.

Olympics In China Offer Israel An Opportunity To Renew Ties With Chinese Jews

Michael Freund writes about a unique opportunity that this year Israel will fail to take advantage of:

But whereas in previous years, Israel and its athletes have utilized the Olympic Games as an opportunity to reach out to the host country's local Jewish community in a show of tribal solidarity and brotherhood, no such gesture is in the offing for next month's games. Sadly, China's Jews are being given the cold shoulder by the Jewish state.

YES, YOU read that correctly. There are in fact Chinese Jews, and they are heirs to a proud and ancient heritage dating back more than 1,000 years. The first Jews are believed to have settled in China's imperial capital of Kaifeng, along the banks of the Yellow River, during the Song Dynasty.

Over the centuries, China provided its Jews with a welcome and comfortable home, free of the widespread hatred and persecution that plagued Jewish communities elsewhere in the Diaspora.

In 1163, Kaifeng's Jews built a beautiful synagogue, which was subsequently renovated and rebuilt numerous times. At its peak, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Kaifeng Jewry may have numbered as many as 5,000 people.

But by the middle of the 1800s, widespread assimilation and intermarriage had all but erased the Chinese Jews' knowledge of Judaism. After the last rabbi of the community died sometime in the first half of the 19th century, Kaifeng's Jewish community effectively disbanded.

BUT THAT was not the end of the story. Against all odds, Kaifeng's Jews struggled to preserve their Jewish identity, passing down whatever little they knew to their progeny.

Today there are still several hundred people in the city who are clearly and verifiably identifiable as descendants of the Jewish community. Nonetheless, the policy of the Israeli government throughout the years has been essentially to ignore Kaifeng's Jewish descendants, out of a dubious fear that China's government might not look kindly on such contacts.

Since Jews are not an officially recognized minority group in China's multicultural society, and Judaism is not accorded the status of an official religion, the question of Kaifeng Jewry's status is a sensitive one for Beijing, which views them as full-fledged Han Chinese. And with the burgeoning of economic, cultural and tourism ties between the two nations, it appears that Israel is unwilling to go near the issue.

Despite China's poor record on human rights in general, Freund writes that the Jewish community has not been persecuted there.

China has always treated its Jews kindly and graciously, and there is no reason to suspect that this has changed. Israel can and should extend a hand to Kaifeng Jewry, while of course respecting Chinese sensitivities. With its international atmosphere, the Olympic Games would provide an excellent opportunity for Israel to do so, in coordination with Chinese officials.

In the past, the Olympic Games have served as just such a venue. In 2000, at the summer games in Sydney, Australia, Israeli and Jewish athletes participated in a range of events that were organized with the local Jewish community. These included the hosting of competitors for Shabbat hospitality as well as the establishment of a memorial for the Israelis who were murdered in the 1972 Munich Games.

Similarly, in 2002, at the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, Israeli and Jewish athletes attended two receptions with Utah Jews as well as services with them.

It would be a terrible shame for Israel to forgo the opportunity to renew ties with the Jewish community there.

Michael Freund's knowledge of the Jewish community in China comes from personal experience, as you can see by watching this video of a Jewish wedding in China that Freund attended [in Hebrew]:



Here is another YouTube video that gives an overview of the Jewish community in China [in English]:



For a general overiew of the history of the Jewish community in China, you can check out Wikipedia.

Also, check out other posts about Jewish communities in unexpected places.

Technorati Tag: Jews in China and Olympics.

Scottish Jews Get Their Own Tartan

The first Scottish Jew is recorded to have come to Edinburgh in 1691--so this is over 300 years in the making:

It is the only Scottish Jewish Tartan approved and registered by the Scottish Tartans Authority.

Initiated by Rabbi Mendel Jacobs - the only Scottish born Rabbi living in Scotland, it's 100% Kosher - being a non wool-linen mix, and as it incorporates many aspects of Scottish-Jewish cultural and religious history, it is the perfect representation of our heritage.

A lot of thought went into the design:

Religious experts and Tartan Authorities worked meticulously to come up with a design that reflected religious values and Scottish history.

The colours, weave, and number of threads have all been picked for their importance in Judaism.

In the tartan design we have blue and white the colours of both the Israeli and Scottish flags with the central gold line representing the gold from the Ark in the Biblical Tabernacle and the many ceremonial vessels. The silver is to represent the silver that adorns the Scroll of the Law and the colour red is for the traditional red Kiddush wine.

There are seven lines in the central motif and three in the flag representations - both numbers of great significance in Judaism.

I looked around a little for the history of the Jewish community in Scotland and apparently Scotland holds a unique distinction in Europe:

Indeed the eminent Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches states in his autobiographical Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood that there are grounds for saying that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews.

That same source--Wikipedia--has a section on Scots-Yiddish:

The Scottish literary historian David Daiches describes it in his autobiographical account of his Edinburgh Jewish childhood, Two Worlds: "Recently I received a letter from the son of the man who was stationmaster at one of the small railway stations where the earliest trebblers [Yiddish pronunciation of travellers, i.e. Jewish travelling salesmen] would alight; he told me how, at the very beginning of this century, these Jewish immigrants, not yet knowing any English, would converse with his father, they talking in Yiddish and he in broad Scots, with perfectly adequate mutual intelligibility. Scots-Yiddish as a working language must have been developing rapidly in the years immediately preceding the first World War. It must have been one of the most short-lived languages in the world. I should guess that 1912 to 1914 was the period of its flourishing. The younger generation, who grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, of course did not speak it, though they knew yiddish; and while there is an occasional old man in Edinburgh who speaks it today, one has to seek it out in order to find it, and in another decade it will be gone for ever. ‘Aye man, ich hob’ getrebbelt mit de five o’clock train,’ one trebbler would say to another. ‘Vot time’s yer barmitzvie, laddie?’ I was once asked. ‘Ye’ll hae a drap o’ bamfen (whisky). It’s Dzon Beck. Ye ken: “Nem a schmeck fun Dzon Beck.”’ (‘Take a peg of John Begg’, the advertising slogan of John Begg whisky.)

That must really be something to listen to.

[Hat tip: Rubicon3]

Technorati Tag: Scotland and Scottish Jews.

One More Thing To Blame Bush For: The Disappearance Of The Jewish Community Of Baghdad?

From Stephen Farrell of The New York Times:

Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few

...The community of Jews in Baghdad is now all but vanished in a land where their heritage recedes back to Abraham of Ur, to Jonah's prophesying to Nineveh, and to Nebuchadnezzar's sending Jews into exile here more than 2,500 years ago.

Just over half a century ago, Iraq's Jews numbered more than 130,000. But now, in the city that was once the community's heart, they cannot muster even a minyan, the 10 Jewish men required to perform some of the most important rituals of their faith. They are scared even to publicize their exact number, which was recently estimated at seven by the Jewish Agency for Israel, and at eight by one Christian cleric.

The reasons for the decline of the once prominent Jewish community?

decades of trauma: the 1941 Farhud pogrom in which more than 130 Jews were killed during the Feast of Shavuot, World War II, the Holocaust, the anti-Zionism of Saddam Hussein and the post-2003 rise of Islamic militants.

Abe Greenwald notes that what Farrell implies, Matthew Yglesias makes explicit:

Yglesias writes:

Farrell doesn't make a big deal about it, but the upshot of the factoid about the synagogue seems to be that the U.S. invasion actually turned Iraq into a less hospital place for Jews than was Saddam Hussein's rabidly anti-Zionist rapacious dictatorship.

But Greenwald sees something odd here:

What’s most astounding here is the even weight Farrell places on, say, World War II, the Holocaust, and post-2003 Iraq. It’s as if each fact further displaced an equal number of Jews. In reality, the Ba’athist persecution of Jews (including public hangings) had caused that 130,000 to dwindle to scarcely more than a minyan before the Iraq War.

Greenwald's point that the shrinking of the Jewish community was not equally distributed over time is supported by a report by the American Jewish Committee in 1953:

In the course of 1951 an additional 89,088 Jews left Iraq for Israel, leaving in Iraq at the time of writing some 12,000 Jews. Thus, one of the oldest Jewish settlements in the world was practically liquidated.

Another point to take into account is that the disappearance of a variety of Jewish communities from Arab countries as they fled to Israel tends to point to the irrelevance of Farrell's alleged 'post-2003 Islamic militants' to this phenomenon.

In September 2003, The Justice--the student newspaper of Brandeis University--reported:

Beth Hatefutsoth, the Jewish Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, estimates that a mere 100 Jews live in Iraq, which covers 168,000 square miles and has a total population of 23 million. Today, in Baghdad, just 35 Jews remain in what was once a bustling community of merchants, traders, and bankers.

Earlier, in May 2003, NPR was already reporting on the dwindling Jewish community of Baghdad that could not put together a minyan. No mention of the effect of Islamists on the flight of Jews. Instead:

Most of Baghdad's Jews left in two massive waves, first in 1948 after the founding of the state of Israel, then in 1970, a year after several Jewish men were publicly hanged, accused by the Ba'athist government of spying for Israel. [Listen to the radio report here]

There is plenty of valid things to criticize about the Bush administration in general, and the handling of the Iraq War in particular--but the disappearance of the Jewish community in Baghdad does not come remotely close.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Jews and Baghdad.

The Jews Of Zimbabwe

In light of the elections in Zimbabwe, James Kirchick writes on Contentions about the Jewish community there:

Zimbabwe’s small community of Jews — numbering no more than 300 — is particularly vulnerable, as most of them are elderly. Due to the massive inflation of the past 8 years, their savings have disappeared, and many depend on families abroad or on Jewish philanthropy. (Peter Godwin’s recently-published memoir, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, is a searing account of one Jewish family’s struggle to survive in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.) Mugabe is prone to anti-Semitic outbursts, and has long expressed support for Palestinian terrorist organizations. Though they are numerically small and represent no threat whatsoever to his regime, the Jewish community of Zimbabwe would be an easy group for Mugabe to scapegoat as he sinks to even further levels of desperation.

Claudia Braude has a piece in this week’s Forward reporting from Harare on the state of the Zimbabwean Jewish community. She writes that contingency plans are being drawn up by an African Jewish organization to help Zimbabwe’s Jews emigrate should they find themselves in physical danger following the election. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Israeli government sponsored a series of heroic missions to rescue Ethiopian Jews wishing to flee oppression and make Aliyah. Perhaps the time has finally arrived for another Operation Moses.

I had no idea at all that there was a Jewish community there. According to the Zimbabwe Jewish Community website, their website:

nearly 110 years of Jewish Communities in Zimbabwe and help record the history and details of a unique period for the benefit of both current and future generations. From a peak of some 7,500 Jews in the early 1970s - the total Zimbabwe Jewish community in 2006 is approximately 270 souls (from 294 in 2005). This is the story of a once vibrant community who settled for many different reasons in what was originally Rhodesia - later to become Zimbabwe. Time however, is of the essence as the numbers of those that can "tell the story" and the remaining community dwindle.

The Jewish Virtual Library traces the Jewish community in Zimbabwe to early immigration from Russia and Lithuania:

In 1894, the first synagogue was formed by 20 Jews in a tent in Bulawayo, Rhodesia. The second community arose in Salisbury (Harare) in 1895; a third congregation, which has remained small, was established in Gwelo in 1901. By 1900, 400 Jews lived in Rhodesia. The first Jews came by way of the southeast coast through Portuguese Beira.

Rhodesian Jewry was always very active in regional and international Zionist activities. In 1898, the Central African Zionist Organizations were established in Bulawayo as the Zionist supervising organization in the region.

In the 1920s and 1930s, several Sephardic Jews arrived from Rhodes. By 1921, census data reported 1,289 Jews living in Rhodesia. In the late 1930s, several German refugees, moved to the country fleeing Nazi persecution. Following World War II, Rhodesia witnessed a period of economic prosperity; consequently a number of Jews arrived from South Africa and England.

A variety of links to various sites about the Jewish community of Zimbabwe can be found at Jewish Zimbabwe

Read posts about other Jewish communities.

Technorati Tag: Jews and Zimbabwe.

The Jews of Venezuela

From the Miami Herald:

''The situation we have now in Venezuela is that for the first time in modern history we have government-sponsored anti-Semitism in a Western country,'' said Sammy Eppel. ``That is why this is very dangerous, not just for the Jewish community in Venezuela but for the Jewish community as a whole.''

Among the examples offered by Eppel:

Venezuelan government intelligence services twice have raided the country's most important Jewish center in a vague, ultimately unsuccessful search for weapons. Publications of the government's cultural ministry run articles entitled ''the Jewish Question,'' along with a Jewish star superimposed over a swastika.

...One 2006 article in El Diario de Caracas debates whether it will be necessary to ''expel [the Jews] from the country.'' Another article in the Diario VEA accuses Jews of being involved in the murder of a government prosecutor.

...Venezuela's Jewish community once numbered 30,000, but community leaders estimate that number has dropped dramatically during Chavez's tenure in power. Several recently arrived Venezuelan Jews attended Eppel's presentation and lamented the situation in the country.

Wikipedia has an article on the history of the Jewish community in Venezuela, though the article lacks verification:

The history of Jews in Venezuela most likely began in the middle of the 17th century, when some records suggest that groups of marranos lived in Caracas and Maracaibo. Although many scholars say there is no evidence yet discovered to prove that a Jewish community existed in Venezuela as early as the 17th century, Venezuelan popular belief claims that groups of marranos went from Caracas to the city of Tucacas in 1693, and vanished without leaving behind any records. However, due to Venezuela's geographic proximity to countries that did have organized Jewish communities, such as the Dutch colony of Curaçao, it can be assumed that Jews from Curaçao traveled to Venezuela to trade. After the disappearance of Jews from Tucacas, Jews did not begin to settle permanently in Venezuela again until the middle of the 19th century.

At the turn of the 19th century, Venezuela and Colombia were fighting against their Spanish colonizers in wars of independence. Simon Bolivar, considered Venezuela's liberator, found refuge and material support for his army in the homes of Jews from Curaçao. Jews such as Mordejai Ricardo and brothers Ricardo and Abraham Meza offered hospitality to Bolivar as he fought against the Spanish, thus establishing brotherly relations between Jews and the newly independent Venezuelan republic. Several Jews even fought in the ranks of Bolivar's army during the war.

So much for history.

UPDATE: Read this article from the Forward:

Venezuela’s Jews Find Their Voice as Chavez Ramps Up Harassment

When two dozen heavily armed policemen came to search the Hebraica community center in the Venezuelan capital one night last month, the Jewish community here finally snapped.

Technorati Tag: Venezuela and Jews.

The Jews Of Panama

I came across this in the archives of The Jewish Journal [scroll down Note: link now broken: try here and scroll down] from 1998: an account by Lauren Kramer of her visit to the Panamanian Jewish community.

Into the Welcoming Arms of the Jews of Panama

...Panama's Jewish community is distinguished in two respects. First, it is the only country in the world - besides Israel - to have had two Jewish presidents in the 20th century - Max Shalom Delvalle (1969) and Eric Delvalle Maduro (1987-1988). Second, unlike the majority of Jewish populations worldwide, Panama's Jews are increasing in number, according to a 1996 report by the World Jewish Congress. In the last two decades immigration to Panama - particularly of Israelis - has trebled the number of Jews here, bringing it to approximately 7,000.

The Jewish community boasts a superb infrastructure, with two Jewish day schools, kosher supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants, a Hebrew Cultural Center, a Jewish club and a host of Jewish organizations. There are three synagogues in Panama City, with a fourth under construction, and Orthodox Jews constitute 75 percent of a community that has existed in Panama since the 1850s. Some Jews came via Portugal after their descendants were expelled from Spain in 1492. Fidanque, for example, has traced his ancestry back to Zarazoga, Spain, and the year 1279. Other members of Panama's Jewish community came here seeking refuge from the Holocaust.

Read the whole thing [scroll down Note: link now broken: try here and scroll down].

See also: The Forgotten Jewish Community of Greece and The 1,500 Year Old Jewish Community in China

Technorati Tag: Panama and Jews.

The Forgotten Jewish Community Of Greece (Updated)

David Hazony, Editor-in-Chief of Azure writes about a brief stopover in Greece, where he learns about

the fate of Greece’s Jewish community during World War II. Before the war, this community, dating back over two millennia, boasted 77,000 mostly Sephardic Jews, who prospered in both wealth and scholarship. During the war, fully 87 percent were shipped off and murdered—the highest proportion in all of Europe.

Yet unlike Germany, France, and Poland, which have made an effort to teach their own populations about the Nazi genocide, in Greece there is virtually no awareness that the liquidation of their Jewish community ever took place.

Congregation Kehila Kedosha Janina has some information about the destruction of the Jewish community in Ioannina and The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki is developing material on the Jewish community there, including during the time of the Holocaust. There is a website dedicated to The Jewish Presence in Greece and the Balcans, including The Rise and Decimation of Greek Jewry. Also, Wikipedia also has an article on the history of the Jews of Greece.

We cannot forget.

Update: joem wrote in a comment:

Not quite forgotten..

zorkmidden at discarded lies has written quite a bit about the Jewish Community of Greece; see, for example here, or here, or here, or any of her posts in the terra nostra category.

abravanel blogs about current Jewish life in Greece.

Update II: Abravel left a note in the comments:

Forgotten but not extinguished. The Jewish Community of Greece may traditionally keep a low profile but despite everything we still are here.

By the way a good, though not recently updated site, is the Central Board of Jewish Communities - www.kis.gr

Also a nice site is E.Messinas page - http://www.yvelia.com/

See also: The Jews of Panama and The 1,500 Year Old Jewish Community of China

Technorati Tag: Greece and Jews and Holocaust.

Iranian Jews Speak Out!

"I can tell you, based both on personal experience and on what I hear from friends, that there are places [in Iran] where Muslims have already divided among themselves the homes and property of their Jewish neighbors. They say that if there will be a war, the first thing they will do is slaughter the Jews."
Iranian Jew interviewed in Yedioth Ahronoth

I am extremely grateful to "Twilight Experiment" who emailed me about an article in the October 3rd edition of Yedioth Ahronoth by Ariela Ringel Hoffman entitled "Between the Hammer and the Devil". I am also thankful to Yedioth Ahronoth for being so quick to respond and email me a PDF of the article.

Some highlights of the article:

• According to Hoffman, between the years 2000 and 2007--approximately 1,200 Jews arrived from Iran. In 2000: 384, 2001: 207, and year by year the numbers have diminished. However, while 65 Jews arrived from Iran in 2006, thus far this year 77 have arrived.
  
  
• This is despite The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, of which Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein is president, which guarantees a grant of $10,000 to each Iranian Jew who comes to Israel. Efforts are being made to put together a package of incentives to entice them further.
  
  
• Yossi Shraga, Director of Middle East immigration at the Jewish Agency, there are between 25,000 and 28,000 Jews now living in Iran--though the Iranians themselves put the number much higher: 100,000. Either way, averaging 100 Jews from Iran per year is a minuscule amount.
  
  
• Hoffman describes the situation as a conflict between fear of life in Iran and the ability to adapt and lead a normal life there; between the worry of leaving everything behind and the desire to lead a new life in Israel.
  
  
• According to Jeff Kaye, an official of the Jewish Agency, there good reason to worry about the fate of the Jews of Iran--the same reasons that pushed Israel to bring Jews out of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to Israel or the US exist also in Iran.
  
  
• One Iranian Jew interviewed by Hoffman said that Jews in Iran know they are sitting on a powder keg--at least half of them think that either Israel or the US will attack Iran's nuclear reactors. And when they do, the Jews of Iran will pay the price. Even without encouragement from the government, the Iranians on the street will take it out on the Jews.
  
  
• Another Iranian Jew tells Hoffman that it was not the threat of war that brought him to Israel, but the desire to live as a Jew. "There, it is difficult to keep Mitzvot, to keep Kosher, to pray and to learn about Judaism. On Shabbat the children have to go to school--everything there is more difficult.
  
  
• He continues, saying that it is the Israeli government that Iran hates--and not the Israelis themselves. He believes that things are better than they were 10 years ago--when there was a water fountain in the marketplace in Tehran with 2 faucets: one for Muslims and one for Jews. If a Jew dared to drink from the faucet for Muslims he would be beaten up. Today it is different.
  
  
• Another Iranian Jew shows Hoffman his passport. On the last page--as will all Iranian passports--it reads:

• Another Iranian Jew describes how most of his friends at the university were Muslims--some of whom expressed the wish to visit Israel. He draws a distinction between the Iranian on the street and those in the university, where instructors openly question Iran's need for a nuclear reactor. He believes that Anti-Semitism is something encountered only on the street, where calling someone a Jew is the equivalent to someone in Israel calling someone a Nazi. Yet he admits that Jews cannot hold government posts.
  
  
• Hoffman reports that the economic situation of Jews in Iran is good relative to the rest of the population, and has in fact improved during the last few years--even while the poverty level has increased.
  
  
• In Iran, the Internet is censured. Soon after a new site pops up, the authorities find out about it and it is blocked. Likewise, families watch CNN--until the government comes around and takes down their TV antenna. In previous years there was a punishment too, but no more. One of her interviewees tells Hoffman that he has a friend, a lawyer, who was involved in the compensation when 60 died from an explosion--but the explosion was never reported on the news.
  
  
• Despite the small size of the Jewish community in Iran and the difficulty in finding a shidduch, intermarriage is relatively rare.
  
  
• In Iran, serving in the army is mandatory. Many Jews avoid service by paying someone off--something that is not limited to the Jews alone. One who ended up serving in the army recounts how the Iranians who served were religious and treated him like someone impure, and gave him the hardest jobs. Though service is for 24 months, after 20 months he got disgusted and deserted.

Hoffman concludes:

The problem is that the Iranian Jews don't want to leave, I say to him [Yossi Shraga]. That is true, he says--they may not say it, but that does not free us. This is similar to the situation the Jews faced in Europe before the rise of the Nazis. Jews have the tendency, says Shraga, to believe that everything will turn out all right. But back then, there was no Jewish state, no government. Today there is, and we will not be able to forgive ourselves if something happens.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad and Israpundit.

Technorati Tag: Iran and Jews.

Where Do Iranian Jews Stand?

Many of them have an opportunity to make Aliyah--but will they take advantage of the opportunity:

Evangelical Christians in the U.S. have brought dozens of Iranian Jews to Israel in recent months, offering cash incentives and claiming that Iran's tiny Jewish community is in grave danger.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that funnels millions of dollars in evangelical donations to Israel every year, is promising U.S. $10,000 to every Iranian Jew who comes to Israel, said the group's director, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein.

...But an Iran expert said the money would not be enough to draw Iranian Jews, who do not perceive themselves to be in grave danger.

But is that true--and if so, why? One place to check the pulse of Iranian Jews is the Iranian American Jews blog. Karmel Melamed has a post on this news, and quotes from a previous post that addresses the question:

Frank Nikbakht, an Iranian Jewish activist and director of the L.A.-based Committee for Minority Rights in Iran, said a substantial number of Jews have stayed in Iran because they feel they will face economic and cultural challenges if they leave the country.

"Some successful and resourceful Jews [in Iran] have either a false sense of security or are willing to take risks, hoping to outlast the regime," said Nikbakht, "while some have converted to Islam or other 'safer' religions such as Christianity to help them survive."

Not a lot of good options there--but there is another issue Melamed touches on: that by openly carrying out this work, The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is playing directly into the hands of the Iranian government. Should this group publicly fall flat on their face in this plan, Iran can point to their failure as proof that life for Jews in Iran is so wonderful, they refuse to leave to go to corrupt Israel.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iranian Jews.

IRANIAN JEWS CONDEMN ISRAEL...AGAIN: As dutifully reported by the Iranian press:

Iran's Jewish community voiced hatred for the recent measures taken by the Zionist regime of Israel against Palestinians, and called for the immediate intervention of human rights bodies to stop Tel Aviv's brutalities and crimes.

The stance was announced by the representative of Iranian Jews, Morris Moatamed, at an open session of the Iranian parliament here in Tehran on Monday.

The Iranian Jews further expressed sympathy for the deprived and oppressed Palestinian nation, and stated their deep hatred for Israel's recent violent measures, including massacre and wounding of tens of Palestinians and demolition of tens of residential units, administrative buildings and facilities.

They further called on the international bodies and organizations alleging to be advocates of human rights to show immediate intervention, stop Israel's brutal crimes and prevent any further destruction of the Palestinians' infrastructures and trespassing of their rights.

It seems the Iranian press has got this down to a science now. Not like the last time:

The Association of Iranian Jews here on Sunday renewed its commitment to defend the national interests of Iranians with the advent of the Iranian new year (1386), which the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution declared to be year of "national unity and Islamic solidarity."
The association renewed its commitment in a message issued on the threshold of the Jewish religious festival of the Passover, which starts Monday night.

"In obedience to the instructions of Jesus, in the new Iranian year, which has been declared year of national unity and Islamic solidarity, Iranian Jews voice their readiness to defend all national interests of Iranians and to observe the guidelines set by Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei) for the sake of strengthening national unity and solidarity in the fight against present-day pharaohs," the message said.

[Hat tip: The Corner]

Technorati Tag: Iran and Jews and Israel.

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN THE UKRAINE: The JCPA has an article about the large--but dwindling--Jewish community in the Ukraine.
[Hat tip: Smooth Stone]

Technorati Tag: Jews and Ukraine.