Iranian Jews living in Israel prefer Ahmadinejad

Despite unrest and violence following last month's presidential elections in Iran, some Jewish Iranians living in Israel and abroad say life in the Islamic republic is better under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than it would be under challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi. At a conference of Iranian Jews in Jerusalem on Monday, leaders of the Mashadi Jewish community said that despite Ahmadinejad's blustery rhetoric against Israel, Iran is a safe place for Jews to practice their religion.

"Ahmadinejad speaks badly about Jews, but he is preferable to Mousavi," said Shlomo Zabihi, a Mashadi rabbi. The current government is relatively stable and provides a safe environment for Jews, he said.

During the 1979 Islamic Revolution, many Mashadi Jews fled to the United States, primarily New York City - where some 6,000 Jews with ties to Mashad now live. There are almost no Jews in Mashad today, though an estimated 25,000 still live in Iran, concentrated in Teheran.

"They've found it very safe and pleasant, no problems," said Bahman Kamali, founder of the federation. "Actually, the regime during Khatami and the regime now have been very good with Jewish people. There has not been any problem."

More:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443737189&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


See also:

BBC: Inside Iran's Jewish community
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x236673

Iran's Jews reject emigration incentives
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1336711

And:

Silent Exodus was selected at the International Human Rights Film Festival of Paris (2004) and presented at the UN Geneva Human Rights Annual Convention (2004)

In 1948 nearly one million Jews lived in Arab lands. But In barely twenty years, they have become forgotten fugitives, expelled from their native lands, forgotten by history and where the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a cloak of silence.

A people whom legend have always associated with "wandering" many of these Jews from Arab lands had lived there for thousands of years and accepted their fate, through good times and bad times.

But 1948, the beginning of their exodus, also saw the birth of the State of Israel.

And, while the Arab armies were preparing to invade the young refugee-country, the survivors of the Shoah were piling up in rickety boats. Meanwhile a few hundred thousand Arabs from Palestine were getting ready to flee their homes, convinced that they would return as winners and conquerors.

Soon - by a terrible twist of fate they, as well, began to fill up refugee camps and passed on their refugee status to new generations.

The Jews, however, did not receive refugee status.

They had just rediscovered the land of their birthright.

And if they came from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq or from Yemen, if they had lost everything, even their relatives and their cemeteries, they were ready to rebuild their lives in the West and for many - in Israel - and try to forget their past.

Without ever asking for compensation or the right of return, or even wishing that their story be told...




More:
http://www.pierrerehov.com/exodus.htm