'There is
no evidence of a specific threat to Jews right now'
Its country
at war with Israel, Iran’s Jewish community walks a delicate tightrope
The
millennia-old community of some 15,000, the Mideast’s largest outside Israel,
condemns Israel’s preemptive strikes on the Islamic regime. Experts say it’s
not only for show
By Zev Stub Follow
20 June 2025, 6:46 am
While there is no evidence that there have been any
antisemitic attacks against Iran’s 2,700-year-old Jewish community since Israel
began its preemptive assault on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and military
sites early on June 13, there are fears that this could change as the fighting
continues, sources familiar with the community tell The Times of Israel.
“The Jewish community is probably going to face greater
scrutiny than it usually does, but I don’t think they are in significantly more
danger than before the war,” said Lior Sternfeld, author of “Between Iran and
Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran” and a teacher of modern
Iranian history in the Department of History and the Jewish Studies Program at
Penn State University.
Since fighting began early last Friday, hundreds of strikes
by Israel’s Air Force have hit Iranian assets, the IDF has said. At least 639
people have been killed and 1,329 others wounded, according to the
Washington-based group Human Rights Activists on Thursday morning. It says that
of those dead, it identified 263 civilians and 154 security force personnel.
Iran has not given regular death toll figures during the
conflict and has minimized casualty numbers in the past. Its last update,
issued Monday, put the death toll at 224 people killed and 1,277 wounded.
Reports in the Hebrew press indicate that Iran’s Jews are
less concerned about a crackdown by the regime than about fears of violence by
vigilante mobs seeking revenge for the Israeli attacks. However, it is not
clear how likely that scenario is.
“There are many Iranian Jews in Israel who say things like
that,” said Avi Davidi, an expert on Iranian affairs and editor-in-chief of The
Times of Israel’s Persian-language site.
“They hear about their aunt being afraid to go outside, and
they take it as a generalization reflecting the entire community. There is a
war, and there is a general threat, but there is no evidence of a specific
threat to the Jews right now,” he said.
Jews in Iran say they enjoy a large degree of religious
freedom and security, with religious ceremonies and rituals protected by the
state.
Contact between Iran’s Jewish community and the outside
world is generally sparse, easily leading to misunderstanding, experts say.
Communication lines are often tapped, and direct contact with Israel is
strictly prohibited by the Iranian regime, so much of what is known is filtered
through “official” Iranian channels. That makes it difficult to gauge the
community’s real sentiments.
In recent days, several of the country’s Jewish communities
have published sharp statements condemning Israel. On Sunday, the Jewish
community in Isfahan, with an estimated 1,500 Jews, said “the Zionists’
brutality is far from any human morality” in a statement published in reports
on the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
“We are confident that the Islamic Republic of Iran, proud
and honorable, will give a crushing and regretful response to the Zionist
regime and will make it regret its shameful actions,” the statement said.
A similar statement by the Tehran Jewish Association
“strongly condemns the Zionist regime’s brutal aggression on the sacred soil of
the Islamic Republic of Iran and the martyrdom of a group of military
commanders, nuclear scientists, and our beloved compatriots.”
While some believe that such statements are merely parroting
the regime’s agenda and belie the community’s true sentiments, Sternfeld said
this is not necessarily the case.
“While it is true that the regime expects such statements,
they are at least partially based on real perceptions of the community and
their Iranian identity within the conflict,” Sternfeld said. “If they were
simply saying what they felt would save them from the regime, we would have
seen many more Jews leaving Iran. To fully understand the broader context is a
much longer conversation.”
The Iranian regime clearly distinguishes between Zionism and
the Jewish religion, and local Jews say they enjoy full religious freedom and
security.
The country’s chief Rabbi Yehuda Gerami has stated that
Israel’s government “doesn’t care about Judaism at all,” and hailed Iranian
Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed in a US drone strike, as a national hero.
In March, a video emerged of Gerami reading from the Book of
Esther and dancing with students at the Tomb of Mordechai and Esther in the
city of Hamadan for the holiday of Purim.
The tradition that the heroes of the Purim story are buried
in Hamadan, said to be the ancient city of Shushan, is not generally believed
outside the Iranian community.
The size of Iran’s Jewish community is subject to debate.
Many scholars put the number of Jews between 8,000 and 10,000, primarily in
Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz — all of which have been hit by Israeli strikes.
Sternfeld said he prefers the Iranian chief rabbi’s estimate of 15,000.
Prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there were some
100,000 Jews in the country. Iran still has the second-largest Jewish
population of any country in the Middle East, after Israel.
About 25 synagogues are believed to remain in the country,
as well as several kosher restaurants, an old-age home, a cemetery, and a
Jewish library.
Jews are subject to several legal limitations, including
being barred from holding significant government positions. There is a single
seat in Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, reserved for a Jewish representative.
Last November, a Jewish Iranian man, Arvin Nathaniel
Ghahremani, was executed in the western city of Kermanshah, convicted of murder
after he killed a Muslim while defending himself against a knife attack in a
2022 brawl. The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said at the time that the
legal case against him had “significant flaws.”
But against the odds, Iran’s Jewish community continues to
persist.
“The country can never be empty of Jews,” said Yasmin Shalom
Mottahedeh, an activist who left Iran in the 1980s. “It’s a community that has
survived since the Babylonian exile after the destruction of the First Temple.
Jews have had the opportunity to leave, but those who are there have chosen to
stay for a reason.”
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