|
|
| |
|
|
Eyes on the Middle East: Iran
August 12, 2015
27th Av, 5775
Dear JIMENA Friends & Members:
This month we are excited to launch our "Eyes on the Middle East" project which will bolster the experiences, opinions, and culture of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews.
Our intention is to create a nuanced resource that is reflective of current events and prominent issues facing the various communities JIMENA represents. Each month we will focus on a different country and we are excited to see the content unfold through the perspectives and priorities of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. If you would like to share any kind of digital content that reflects your Mizrahi or Sephardic heritage and outlook, please
be in touch!
Given current events related to the Iranian nuclear agreement, we begin by launching Eyes on the Middle East: Iran. JIMENA has an ongoing responsibility to help elevate the voices of Iranian-American Jews, and other indigenous Middle Eastern communities - especially when their recent history is so relevant to current events. Now, perhaps more than ever, the experiences, perspectives, and opinions of Iranian Jews can help inform our own outlook and opinions Iranian Jews lived continuously in the Middle East for over 2,700 years and JIMENA believes it is crucial for us to listen to them and heed their insightful concerns.
Sincerely,
Sarah Levin
Executive Director |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Time was, you could claim to be a patriotic Iranian, a supporter of Israel and a lover of the United States all at once and be believed by most Iranians. You could say you were all three things without pretense or contradiction, or the need to rank your loyalties in order of intensity, or to distinguish between your support for Israel as a nation, as opposed to any one of its governments. That's what we thought anyway, we Jewish Iranians whose ancestors had lived in Iran for 3,000 years.
|
|
There's an old Iranian joke: Ask an Iranian "What's two plus two?" and he will answer, "It depends on whether I'm buying or selling." We Iranians take pride in our bazaari mentality. Nothing pleases us more than a successful negotiation. For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has stretched this skill to nefarious extremes.
At their outset, all Iranian Americans hoped the nuclear negotiations would bring a diplomatic resolution.
|
|
When I escaped from Iran in 1982 at the age of 17, I took a heart-wrenching journey into the unknown, crossing the dangerous Kavira Loot Desert in the company of smugglers. I was one of the first in my family to leave the country. I took nothing with me except my belief in freedom, a sense of my own identity, and my love for home and family.
|
|
|
The Most Famous Casualty of Obama's Nuclear Deal Could Ultimately Be Hassan Rouhani
Current wisdom is that the nuclear deal will strengthen moderates within Iran, who will be seen as having delivered on their promise to strike a deal with the United States and deliver the country from crippling sanctions. However, the exact opposite may be even more likely to occur. Iran's leadership may well pocket the deal and punish president Hassan Rouhani and his moderate allies for the concessions they made in Vienna.
|
|
After the announcement July 14 that the United States and other world powers had reached an agreement with Iran that calls for limits on Iran's nuclear program, Los Angeles-area Iranian Americans of various faiths expressed pessimism at the outcome and disappointment with the negotiated deal.
Read More
|
|
How Iran Kept Its Jews
By Roya Hakakian
Tablet Magazine
December 30, 2014
It was with a murder that the most critical moment in the modern history of Iranian Jewry took shape. And in what followed, Tehran's policy toward the local Jewish community, still precariously in effect, came into being. The day was May 9, 1979, nearly three months after the victory of the Iranian revolution in the previous February. In those early days, dread filled the hearts of readers as they glanced at the morning papers.
|
|
|
Iran: 'This deal is not the last step'
I have three identities: I'm Iranian, I'm American, and I'm Israeli. Historically, what that has meant is that there are very few places in the world that I've found where all my identities have been welcome. Actually, through my extensive travels, including Afghanistan, North Korea, South Sudan and many other countries, the only place where all my sides were liked was Kurdistan, Northern Iraq.
|
|
By Shahrzad Elghanayan
Washington Post
April 22, 2015
Asked by NBC's Ann Curry during recent talks in Switzerland whether Iranian leaders understand why Jews have been wary of their rhetoric, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, "We have a history of tolerance and cooperation and living together in coexistence with our own Jewish people, and with - Jews everywhere in the world."
That's not quite right.
|
|
|
|
From JIMENA's Iranian Jewish Archives
|
|
A collection of personal stories, oral history video clips, songs, a comprehensive bibliography, recipes, and photographs capturing the Iranian Jewish experience in both Farsi and English.
|
|
|
| JIMENA Oral History Interview with Abraham Berookim of Tehran, Iran |
|
| Supporting Community Opinions |
|
Why Iran's Anti-Semitism Matters
The Atlantic
Jeffrey Goldberg
August, 2015
|
|
Iranian Nuclear Deal Is a Win for Anti-Semitism
Time
Rabbi David Wolpe
July 14, 2015
I suppose all hatred has an element of irrationality. Yet some hatreds are more irrational than others. For thousands of years, hatred of Jews has been unique.
Sometimes acts of hatred, such as confiscating Jewish wealth or property, served utilitarian purposes for rulers or mobs. But often nations deliberately wounded themselves and their prospects by expelling Jews, persecuting them, and killing them.
|
Hurt Iran's Hawks, Not Its People
By Abraham D. Sofaer
New York Times
February 26, 2014
For decades, American strategy toward Iran has had a deep flaw - failing to respond to outrages by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. In January, however, we got it right. The Obama administration barred Iran from the Geneva conference on Syria because the Revolutionary Guards Corps was in Syria, helping keep its brutal president, Bashar al-Assad, in power. Secretary of State John Kerry tried to press Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the issue. But Mr. Zarif, tellingly, said he had no authority to negotiate about Syria, nor to discuss the missile program also run by the Revolutionary Guards.
|
|
Humanitarian Tragedy: Iran's Beleaguered Jewish Community
What genuine apartheid looks like
By Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
Frontpage Magazine
September 2, 2013
One of the crucial humanitarian tragedies- that the world and the mainstream media has failed to focus on- is the fate and current living situation of Jewish communities in the Muslim-dominated countries, particularly the Shiite-Islamist country of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Jewish community in the Islamic state of Iran has been subject to little scholarly work and research.
|
|
Light and Shadows: The Story of Iranian Jews
by Fowler Museum at UCLA
Hardcover
List Price: $30.00
Our Price: $17.62
Buy Now
|
The New Persian Kitchen
by Louisa Shafia by Ten Speed Press
Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2013-04-16
List Price: $24.99
Our Price: $12.44
Buy Now
|
|
Esther's Children
by The Jewish Publication Society
Hardcover
List Price: $110.00
Our Price: $82.00
Buy Now
|
The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.
by Gina B. Nahai by Akashic Books
Hardcover
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $22.16
Buy Now
|
|
From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture
by Saba Soomekh by State University of New York Press
Paperback
List Price: $26.95
Our Price: $21.24
Buy Now
|
Wedding Song (HBI Series on Jewish Women)
by Farideh Goldin by Brandeis University Press
Kindle Edition ~ Release Date: 2012-06-26
Buy Now
|
|
|
|
i
s 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that aims to
achieve universal recognition for the heritage and history of the 850,000 indigenous Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Our programs aim to ensure that the accurate history of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews is incorporated into mainstream Jewish and Middle Eastern narratives in order to create balance in attitudes, narratives, discourse, and negotiations about Middle Eastern refugees and the modern Jewish experience.
|
|
|
| |
|
_584_566_356_c1.jpg)
