THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

PAST HERITAGE AND REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS

Following Khomeini’s triumphant return to Iran in 1979, the leaders of the Jewish community met with him to pledge their loyalty. Khomeini adopted their formula on the difference between Judaism and Zionism stating: “We distinguish between Jews and Zionists. Zionism has nothing to do with religion.” Vague as it often appears, this distinction is still generally endorsed in official policy, although not always adhered to in public statements (see below). Once the revolution had stabilized, the recognized religious minorities came to rely on a measure of tolerance and protection. The regime could not altogether disclaim the traditional responsibility toward the dhimmis (protected non-Muslim minorities) that devolved upon a Muslim ruler, nor disregard the norms of behavior toward minority groups expected by the community of nations. Moreover, the government was aware that the Jews did not pose a political threat, and were generally loyal to the state and the regime. As a religious minority group, the Jews were given representation in the Majlis and their freedom of worship was not restricted. About a dozen synagogues are now active in Tehran alone and, given the overall religious atmosphere in the country and the community’s need to reorganize following the revolution, they are well frequented.

The election of Mohammad Khatami as president in 1997, his relative pragmatism and his quest for substantial reform, led to some relaxation in statements regarding Jews. Some intellectuals who had advocated dialogue between Islam and other faiths, including Judaism, before his election (see ASW 1997/8), reinforced their call after he became president. Yet, the conservative press continued its critical tone, even when discussing purely Jewish issues (see below). The life of the Jewish community, too, appears to have been influenced by the ongoing domestic tensions. The al-Aqsa intifada led to a further intensification of hostile expressions against Israel and Zionism, and occasionally also against Jews in general.

The US State Department’s report on human rights in Iran for 2000 described Iran’s record as “poor.” Religious minorities, it specified, experience “varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education and housing.” Moreover, they “suffer discrimination in the legal system, receiving lower awards in injury and death lawsuits, and incurring heavier punishments than Muslims.” Its annual report on religious freedom for 2000 stated that the government “fuels anti-Baha’i and anti-Jewish sentiment” in the country “for political purposes.”

The discriminatory law of inheritance and blood money (diyeh, compensation for criminal damage) favoring Muslims, is a matter of considerable concern for the religious minorities. In April, Supreme Leader Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamene’i issued an edict regarding a family inheritance dispute among the Zoroastrian community, stating that if there are Muslim members in the family, infidels cannot receive any inheritance (Iranshahr, 22 June 2001). This means that if one member of a minority group converts to Islam, that person is entitled to the entire inheritance. A report by the Committee for Religious Minority Rights in Iran (CRMRI), affiliated with the Council of Iranian American Jewish Organizations, stated that at least one Jewish family has recently received a similar unfavorable ruling in court (CRMRI, “Anti Jewish Trends in Iran: Update, June 2001”).

All in all, while Iranian Jews are occasionally criticized, they are generally treated with a measure of tolerance, which – albeit precariously – so far prevails. This situation has allowed a large number of Jews to remain in Iran, but has not mitigated their concerns. Even though the majority of Jews left the country after the revolution, there are stillJews living in Iran than in any other Muslim country.

THE IMPACT OF THE JAILED JEWS AND THE AL-AQSA INTIFADA

The religious aspects of the Iranian approach to the question of Palestine, and the harsh criticism of Israel following the al-Aqsa intifada, were bound to promote anti-Jewish sentiments. As was the case in the Arab world, the distinction between Jews, Israel and Zionism was often blurred. Israel was referred to as a “bunch of Jews,” the American Jews were often termed Zionists, and there was even mention of seventh century Jews as “the Zionists of [the Prophet] Muhammad’s time.” With the outbreak of the intifada, the number of anti-Jewish expressions increased.

Addressing an international conference on Palestine, held in Tehran in April 2001, Ayatollah Khamene’i stated that there was “evidence on hand that a large number of non-Jewish hooligans and thugs of Eastern Europe were forced to migrate to Palestine as Jews.” The purpose, he said, was “to install in the heart of the Islamic world an anti-Islamic state under the guise of supporting the victims of racism,” thus dividing the world of Islam. Khamene’i added that historical documents attested to “close collaboration of the Zionists with Nazi Germany,” and that the “exaggerated numbers” of Jews killed in the Holocaust, were “fabricated to solicit the sympathy of world public opinion, lay the ground for the occupation of Palestine and justify the atrocities of the Zionists” (IRNA, 24 April 2001).

In a Friday sermon (18 May 2001), Ayatollah Khamene’i dwelt in length on the animosity of the Jewish communities towards the Prophet Muhammad in the early Islamic era. Typifying the Jews of Arabia, he pointed to their economic control and intellectual domination over the populace and their sense of superiority which led them to mock and ridicule the people. Khamene’i named the Jews as one of the main enemies of the Prophet, and enumerated their acts of obstructionism, conspiracies and betrayal. He singled out the cases of three Jewish communities accused of betrayal and animosity toward the Prophet: Bani Nazir, who were banished, but allowed to take some of their belongings with them; Bani Qaynuqa’, who were expelled and their assets given to the faithful Muslims; and Bani Qurayza, who conspired to stab the Prophet in the back, for which all their young males were executed (Kayhan, 20 May 2001). Such a speech “at the height of the Israeli-Palestinian mini war,” said the CRMRI report, could be interpreted as an open threat to the Jews of Iran (“Anti-Jewish Trends in Iran: Update, June 2001”).

The link between events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Holocaust was made even more frequently in the last year. Reporting from the West Bank, IRNA stated on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001, that this year the commemoration had occurred in the midst of “a genocidal war” launched by the Jews against the Palestinians. Indeed, the report went on, the brutality and utter callousness of the Israeli repression prompted the analogy between “the German holocaust” against Jews and “the Jewish holocaust” against the Palestinians. Although such an analogy would probably be dismissed as “exaggerated” by the Zionist-influenced media in the West, the Israeli torment of Palestinian civilians made it far from implausible “both at the practical and theoretical levels.” The siege and encirclement of the Palestinian population, which had effectively turned these towns and villages into “concentration camps,” was hardly an un-Nazi practice (IRNA, 19 April 2001).

The impact on popular sentiment is obvious. The State Department reports on International Religious Freedoms and on Human Rights (Sept. 2000 and Feb. 2001, respectively) pointed out that the government’s stated hostility to Israel and the perception among some conservative elements that Jews support Zionism and Israel, as well as the trial of the 13 Jews, created a “threatening atmosphere” for the Jewish community. Former President ‘Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani chose to examine the situation from a different perspective, but his arguments could be construed as leading to a similar conclusion. Referring to developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that the situation “does not benefit the Jews, either.” Jews throughout the world “are feeling insecure” that they have to “pay the cost of the atrocities perpetrated within the Palestinian territories.” Of course, he said, the Jews are not responsible for such actions and they do not endorse them. In Iran, he said, “the Jewish community has issued a statement, condemning the Zionist movement.” Yet, he went on, “those who are here [presumably the Iranian Jews] may become victims of the people’s sentiments and wrong judgments.” The Zionist action has “provoked the people’s sentiments and makes them unhappy” (Radio Tehran, 27 Oct. 2000).

IRAN AND HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Even when discussing purely Jewish issues, segments of the Iranian press continued its hard line, alleging that the Holocaust was “one of the biggest frauds of the outgoing century” and that it was a story “made up by the Zionists to blackmail the West” (see ASW 1999/2000).

In fact, Iran has recently become a center for disseminating Holocaust revisionist views. After the visit to Iran by Roger Garaudy in 1998, German-born Fredrick Toben (who lives in Australia) arrived in December 1999 (see ASW 1998/9 and 1999/2000). Toben said recently that he would apply for political refugee status in Iran if his position in Australia became insecure (Tehran Times, 22 April 2001). Jürgen Graf, who left Switzerland after being sentenced to prison for his views on the Holocaust, also went to Iran. He lectured at Iranian universities and began, with the assistance of his hosts, to organize an international conference on the Holocaust, which was to have been held in Beirut in March 2001 but was banned by the Lebanese government (WINEP, 25 April 2001).

Some Iranian newspapers publish Holocaust denial views and are harshly critical of the Jews. The Jews claim a “right to be paranoid,” wrote Tehran Times (28 Sept. 2000), because they feel that the world is “after them.” Yet, listing key Jewish members in the US administration, the paper stressed that in this predominantly Christian state, Jews “have a hand in every sensitive government post.” Not only government, but all the major publishing houses, newspapers and the entertainment industry there “are headed by Jews.” Does being “historically persecuted,” the paper asked, give them the right to “rule the world” to “occupy it, usurp it, control it... without any resistance?” The main power in the US, asserted Jomhuri-ye Islami (7 Nov. 2000), is in the hands of a minority of influential Zionists. While the Jews make up less than 3.5 percent of the population, over half of the sensitive posts in the Congress, Senate, Cabinet and advisory positions in the Clinton administration, were held by Jews. Under such circums,obviously there cannot be much difference in the nature, tendency and performance of US presidents: They are, after all, “only executives of the Zionists’ wishes.”

Tehran Times seemed especially obsessed with the Holocaust. Perhaps “the biggest lie in history,” a 25 January 2001 article maintained, took formal shape during the Nuremberg trials, where a confession “obtained by means of torture” became “the cornerstone of the official Auschwitz version.” No one has ever asked “the Jewish swindlers,” who present themselves as “gas chamber witnesses” any critical questions. Yet, “the terrible accusation” of genocide, is based only upon “the lies of a handful of Jewish swindlers like Rudolf Vrba, Filip Mueller and Elie Wiesel,” and “the confessions of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess who was tortured for three days by his Jewish and British interrogators before signing the statement his tormentors had prepared for him” (Tehran Times, 17 Feb. 2001). There is “no documentary evidence for the gassing of even one human being in a German camp,” it added, and the German documents do not confirm “the Holocaust story,” in fact, they “directly refute it” (1 Feb. 2001). According to Tehran Times, about 150,000 prisoners died in Auschwitz, “mostly from diseases.” There were also executions, the paper admitted, but this was only “for acts of resistance and sabotage.” Yet, it complained, the “massive reductions” of the Auschwitz death toll do not affect the “sacrosanct figure” of six million Jewish “Holocaust victims.” This figure, “remains as solid as the pyramids.” That is the “holocaust mathematics” (Tehran Times, 29 Jan. 2001). Had Auschwitz been an extermination camp, it suggested (19 Feb. 2001), “virtually no Jew would have survived it.” Yet, the memoirs of former Auschwitz inmates “fill whole libraries.” The paper concluded that “professional survivors” who present themselves as witnesses of the “Holocaust” are themselves “living proof that the alleged extermination of the Jews did not take place.”