Alessandra Cecolin doesn’t take the most optimistic platform
in this book. According to her, the Iranian Jews have, since 1948, made very
attractive pawns for Zionism. She writes of how they were encouraged to
emigrate to Israel by both the secular and religious parties, both of whom
wanted to use their Iranian brethren for political gain. The secular Zionists
wanted the Iranian Jews to give up many of their customs, while the religious
Zionists favored Ashkenazi (German) customs. Before I go further, I want to
state that this was common for all Jews in Muslim countries, be they from Iran,
Yemen, Morocco, or Ethiopia. The Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews never had their
customs respected.
The myth of Muslim
tolerance is shown in this book to be just that, a mere myth. The author
includes many examples of Persian Muslims abusing their Jewish neighbors,
through massacres, mass thefts, and forced conversions. The Jews of Mashad, for
instance, converted to Islam en masse in the 1830’s, while practicing Judaism
in secret, so they were relieved to be able to emigrate to Israel. Part of the
reason behind the anti-Jewish activities, though not directly stated here, was
the Iranian government’s weakness. Moving to a country like Israel, even at the
cost of becoming a second class citizen, was a better alternative to a government
that couldn’t protect you. A sizeable number of Jews went to Herat,
Afghanistan, rather than say “Alla Hu Akbar,” so perhaps the emigration part
wasn’t really new to them?
Altogether, the
image that Cecolin paints of Iran’s Jews comes off as bleak. However, this book
is missing some essential documentation. There aren’t enough firsthand accounts
of Iranian Jewish life in Israel, nor reprints of speeches or letters. It might
also make sense to compare the situation of Israel’s Iranian Jews with that of
other non-European Jews, like the Yemenite community. However, with Israel’s
Mizrahi community becoming ever more powerful, whatever marginalization is
probably waning fast.
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