At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a
synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn. Over the
entrance is a banner saying: “Congratulations on the 30th anniversary
of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan.”
The
Jews of Iran remove their shoes, wind leather straps around their arms
to attach phylacteries and take their places. Soon the sinuous murmur
of Hebrew prayer courses through the cluttered synagogue with its
lovely rugs and unhappy plants. Soleiman Sedighpoor, an antiques dealer
with a store full of treasures, leads the service from a podium under a
chandelier.
I’d visited the bright-eyed Sedighpoor, 61, the
previous day at his dusty little shop. He’d sold me, with some
reluctance, a bracelet of mother-of-pearl adorned with Persian
miniatures. “The father buys, the son sells,” he muttered, before
inviting me to the service.
Accepting, I inquired how he felt about the chants of “Death to Israel” — “Marg bar Esraeel” — that punctuate life in Iran.
“Let
them say ‘Death to Israel,’ ” he said. “I’ve been in this store 43
years and never had a problem. I’ve visited my relatives in Israel, but
when I see something like the attack on Gaza, I demonstrate, too, as an
Iranian.”
The Middle East is an uncomfortable neighborhood for
minorities, people whose very existence rebukes warring labels of
religious and national identity. Yet perhaps 25,000 Jews live on in
Iran, the largest such community, along with Turkey’s, in the Muslim
Middle East. There are more than a dozen synagogues in Tehran; here in
Esfahan a handful caters to about 1,200 Jews, descendants of an almost
3,000-year-old community.
Over the decades since Israel’s
creation in 1948, and the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the number of
Iranian Jews has dwindled from about 100,000. But the exodus has been
far less complete than from Arab countries, where some 800,000 Jews
resided when modern Israel came into being.
In Algeria, Tunisia,
Libya, Egypt and Iraq — countries where more than 485,000 Jews lived
before 1948 — fewer than 2,000 remain. The Arab Jew has perished. The
Persian Jew has fared better.
Of course, Israel’s unfinished cycle of wars has been with Arabs, not Persians, a fact that explains some of the discrepancy.
Still
a mystery hovers over Iran’s Jews. It’s important to decide what’s more
significant: the annihilationist anti-Israel ranting, the Holocaust
denial and other Iranian provocations — or the fact of a Jewish
community living, working and worshipping in relative tranquillity.
Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of
Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran — its
sophistication and culture — than all the inflammatory rhetoric.
That
may be because I’m a Jew and have seldom been treated with such
consistent warmth as in Iran. Or perhaps I was impressed that the fury
over Gaza, trumpeted on posters and Iranian TV, never spilled over into
insults or violence toward Jews. Or perhaps it’s because I’m convinced
the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran and likening of any compromise with
it to Munich 1938 — a position popular in some American Jewish circles
— is misleading and dangerous.
I know, if many Jews left Iran, it
was for a reason. Hostility exists. The trumped-up charges of spying
for Israel against a group of Shiraz Jews in 1999 showed the regime at
its worst. Jews elect one representative to Parliament, but can vote
for a Muslim if they prefer. A Muslim, however, cannot vote for a Jew.
Among
minorities, the Bahai — seven of whom were arrested recently on charges
of spying for Israel — have suffered brutally harsh treatment.
I
asked Morris Motamed, once the Jewish member of the Majlis, if he felt
he was used, an Iranian quisling. “I don’t,” he replied. “In fact I
feel deep tolerance here toward Jews.” He said “Death to Israel” chants
bother him, but went on to criticize the “double standards” that allow
Israel, Pakistan and India to have a nuclear bomb, but not Iran.
Double
standards don’t work anymore; the Middle East has become too
sophisticated. One way to look at Iran’s scurrilous anti-Israel tirades
is as a provocation to focus people on Israel’s bomb, its 41-year
occupation of the West Bank, its Hamas denial, its repetitive use of
overwhelming force. Iranian language can be vile, but any Middle East
peace — and engagement with Tehran — will have to take account of these
points.
Green Zoneism — the basing of Middle Eastern policy on the construction of imaginary worlds — has led nowhere.
Realism
about Iran should take account of Esfehan’s ecumenical Palestine
Square. At the synagogue, Benhur Shemian, 22, told me Gaza showed
Israel’s government was “criminal,” but still he hoped for peace. At
the Al-Aqsa mosque, Monteza Foroughi, 72, pointed to the synagogue and
said: “They have their prophet; we have ours. And that’s fine.”