Iran’s Bid for Regional Power

jews in Iran
IRAN: Life of Jews Living in Iran
Iran remains home to Jewish enclave.
By Barbara Demick

It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran that this most virulent anti-Israeli country supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country.

Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues, many of them with Hebrew schools. It has two kosher restaurants, and a Jewish hospital, an old-age home and a cemetery. There is a Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament. There is a Jewish library with 20,000 titles, its reading room decorated with a photograph of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Khomeini protection
But Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a ``fatwa`` decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Similar edicts also protect Iran`s tiny Christian minority.

Just as it radically transformed Muslim society, the revolution changed the Jews. Families that had been secular in the 1970s started keeping kosher and strictly observing rules against driving on Shabbat. They stopped going to restaurants, cafes and cinemas - many such establishments were closed down - and the synagogue perforce became the focal point of their social lives.

Not everyone in the Jewish community favors liberalization of Iranian society. Arizel Levihim, 20, a prospective Hebrew teacher, said Judaism has fared better within the confines of Iran`s strictly religious society. ``I believe it is good for women to keep their head covered. I think it is good to restrict relations between boys and girls,`` Levihim said. ``I agree with the ideals of the Islamic republic. These are Jewish values too.``

hamidm # 3 - so you picked up a book recommended to you by your daughter (who by the way called you ``yucky``, as per one of your previous posts), throw in a bit of caustic remarks and a whole lot of generalizations, and lo! a freakin opinion is born. REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN!

hamid sahib - sounds like a regime change is in works in your own home.

regime change in tehran

......... after reading ``lolita in tehran`` my daughter said, ``now i understand why my friend`s parents left iran - it must have been really scary``........... so i read the book, and i was scared too - scared for the millions of young muslim women who are threatened by misogynist monsters in turbans and cloaks ......... a little girl in the book says, `` khomeni is still alive, the women are still wearing scarves`` ........... yes, he is alive, the spirit of the brooding monster lives on - people like echo and mullah urstruly, are lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on innocent women and unsuspecting men even as their prophet hides in a cave somewhere ``along the border between pakistan and afghanistan``

.......... it is time for regime change in tehran ....... the people of iran have suffered enough and the world cannot afford to wait seventy years for another totalitarian state to fall under its own weight ...... the stakes in human suffering are too high ...........

Great subject indeed. Sure to flush out near-muslims, margarine muslims, Haraamkhore muslims , munaafique muslims and the westernised scum.
Put up the tik-tiky and release the Jallaads.

Let the fun begin.

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I have yet to read the article. Just this caught my eye, and so my reply.


[``Iran`s trump card is the geopolitical fact that it is a major oil producer bordering other major oil producers. A large-scale war undertaken by the United States would almost surely lead to a disruption of world oil supplies and the danger that Iran would use its missiles to attack Saudi or Gulf state oil complexes.``]

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That can be said as a strategic advantage but the real strtegth comes from character and standing-up to the bull. VietNam , Cuba, Venezuela, China, and even North Korea are good example. Anyone who expresses even the desire to hasten the demise of the United Satans of America & its droolig-dogs the world over is on the side of the oppressed of the world.

Urstruly is right.

Iran and any self-respecting and ghairatmand nation must arm itself with any or all devices irrespective of the ``humanistic`` consequences. Tippu Sultan`s words will always ring true. It is the baighairats from the cantonements, the colonies, and civil lines who have been english-educated to take orders from the masters.

It will be a fatal mistake for Iran, not to nuclearize itself.