They feel caught in the middle. They are loyal Israelis, but unlike many Jews from Europe and the Arab world who came to Israel to escape religious oppression, they still feel Iranian and generally maintain strong ties to their old homeland. They tend to be religious, but their Judaism has a slightly different flavor from the European and Arab Jews and they generally worship in their own synagogues.
The possibility of war only accentuates their uniqueness as they shun the war drums being heard about them.
US National Public Radio (NPR) this week visited a number of Iranian Jews in Israel and sought out their views.
In a small cluttered apartment in Jerusalem, Naheet Yacoubi cooked a traditional Persian meal for her Shabbat (Sabbath) dinner. Originally from Tehran, she came to Israel when she was a child. Her husband, Aaron, says the Iranian Jewish community in Israel remains close to the much smaller community of Jews in Iran. Only about 25,000 are left there, 10 percent as many as are Israel.
Aaron says, “We can call them directly and they can call us.”
Iranian Jews travel to Israel via Turkey. The Israeli embassy in Ankara doesn’t stamp their passports but gives them visas on separate sheets of paper so the Iranian authorities won’t know where they have been.
But Israeli Jews can’t go back to Iran because they have only Israeli passports.
Aaron says he is proud of his Persian ancestry, yet he’s also loyal to the Jewish state. But he says that because of the growing tension and rising tide of sanctions, he feels conflicted over what could happen next.
On a recent day, he called his cousins in Iran to see how they are. Speaking in Farsi, his relatives tell him they want to sell their house but can’t. The rial is plunging and it’s a struggle to make ends meet. Tears roll down Aaron’s face as he hears their news.
After he hangs up, Aaron told NPR he feels that it’s not right to hurt the people. He says something should be done to hurt the Iranian government instead.
Meir Javadanfar is an analyst of Iranian descent who lives in Tel Aviv and writes extensively on Iran-Israel relations.
“It’s not easy not to get emotional when talking about Iran and Israel, especially for people like me who’ve lived in Iran and in Israel,” Javadanfar told NPR.
“The Iranian people don’t want another war. They are a great people and they want to live in peace. It’s just their leadership that’s aggressive, not them,” Javadanfar said. “And it hurts me to see how [the] people of Israel are being threatened by a regime which has called their country a virus, a cancer. I don’t want to see them get hurt either, so it’s a very difficult … scenario for Iranians [in Israel].”
One of the few forums for direct discourse between Iranians and Israelis is a call-in show hosted every Sunday on Israel Radio’s Farsi service.
“There is no other way, no other media for Israel to bring its message to the Iranian people,” says Menashe Amir, who hosts the program.
He says there are about a dozen calls from Iran during each show to talk on a range of topics. The callers aren’t allowed to give their names in case of reprisals in Iran.
Amir, who was born in Iran, says most people talk about how hard daily life is under sanctions. He says the threat of war is also a hot issue.
“Of course, most Iranians are concerned. They demand Israel not to attack civilian targets, not to destroy the Iranian infrastructure, not to harm the economy of the country,” Amir says, though he adds that a strike on military targets might be acceptable to some there.
Amir says everyone in his community is watching events. “The actual situation is so fluid, it’s like chess, once you move one of the pieces, the whole picture changes,” he says.
