Aimee Kligman skriver på FB:
The Jews Iran Isn’t Supposed to Have
Here’s the thing that really messes with the neat little narratives everyone loves to cling to. In Iran — yes, that Iran — there is a Jewish community that has been there for millennia, living its life, running businesses, attending synagogues, and stubbornly refusing to perform the expected role of perpetual victim. When asked about antisemitism, one Iranian Jew reportedly flipped the question back at the interviewer: isn’t it in your country that synagogues are being burned? In Iran, they aren’t. Sit with that for a moment. It’s an answer so calmly devastating it barely needs commentary.
Even more inconvenient: these Jews, estimated anywhere between 10,000 and 25,000 depending on who’s counting and why, have no interest in leaving. No rush to Israel, no Western rescue fantasy, no longing for exile. They are explicitly anti-Zionist, which somehow shocks people who confuse Judaism with nationalism and identity with geopolitics. This story gets almost no attention because it scrambles the script: a Middle Eastern country portrayed as uniquely barbaric, Jews who don’t want saving, and antisemitism that looks uncomfortably familiar — just not where we’ve been told to look. Awkward. Fascinating. And very much worth talking about.
The Jews Iran Isn’t Supposed to Have
Here’s the thing that really messes with the neat little narratives everyone loves to cling to. In Iran — yes, that Iran — there is a Jewish community that has been there for millennia, living its life, running businesses, attending synagogues, and stubbornly refusing to perform the expected role of perpetual victim. When asked about antisemitism, one Iranian Jew reportedly flipped the question back at the interviewer: isn’t it in your country that synagogues are being burned? In Iran, they aren’t. Sit with that for a moment. It’s an answer so calmly devastating it barely needs commentary.
Even more inconvenient: these Jews, estimated anywhere between 10,000 and 25,000 depending on who’s counting and why, have no interest in leaving. No rush to Israel, no Western rescue fantasy, no longing for exile. They are explicitly anti-Zionist, which somehow shocks people who confuse Judaism with nationalism and identity with geopolitics. This story gets almost no attention because it scrambles the script: a Middle Eastern country portrayed as uniquely barbaric, Jews who don’t want saving, and antisemitism that looks uncomfortably familiar — just not where we’ve been told to look. Awkward. Fascinating. And very much worth talking about.
Aimee Kligman skriver på FB:
The Jews Iran Isn’t Supposed to Have
Here’s the thing that really messes with the neat little narratives everyone loves to cling to. In Iran — yes, that Iran — there is a Jewish community that has been there for millennia, living its life, running businesses, attending synagogues, and stubbornly refusing to perform the expected role of perpetual victim. When asked about antisemitism, one Iranian Jew reportedly flipped the question back at the interviewer: isn’t it in your country that synagogues are being burned? In Iran, they aren’t. Sit with that for a moment. It’s an answer so calmly devastating it barely needs commentary.
Even more inconvenient: these Jews, estimated anywhere between 10,000 and 25,000 depending on who’s counting and why, have no interest in leaving. No rush to Israel, no Western rescue fantasy, no longing for exile. They are explicitly anti-Zionist, which somehow shocks people who confuse Judaism with nationalism and identity with geopolitics. This story gets almost no attention because it scrambles the script: a Middle Eastern country portrayed as uniquely barbaric, Jews who don’t want saving, and antisemitism that looks uncomfortably familiar — just not where we’ve been told to look. Awkward. Fascinating. And very much worth talking about.
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