I saw a video on Youtube last year by a Hasidic Jew from NYC with a thick Yiddish accent who traveled to Iran to visit some landmarks from Persian Jewish history and the locals in the video were unfailingly kind to him. Blew my mind.
CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
Protests against Iran’s regime erupt in Canada after U.S.-Israeli strikes
- Thousands are rallying in Canadian cities on Saturday afternoon, offering support to the anti-regime movement following military strikes by the U.S. and Israel on Iran. Kasra Sasanian, an Iranian-Canadian demonstrating in Richmond Hill, Ont., says he feels hopeful and happy because Iranians are finally gaining their freedom from the regime after 47 years of oppression
That video sounds great to watch! I’ve had the minarets of Isfahan on my wish list to see some day but it’s a pipe dream for sure.
It’s quite possible to be against Iran’s regime and against the war which started yesterday.
I’m also wondering if Netanyahu gotten grief for beginning this war on the Sabbath?
ETA: This war now has its own Wikipedia page: 2026 Israeli–United States strikes on Iran.
That page is already very long! And starts funny:
The operation, codenamed Roaring Lion [b] by Israel[27][28] and Operation Epic Fury by the United States Department of Defense
Hm, someone is calling the Department of War the Department of Defense.
There’s a passage in 1 Maccabees (which is in the Septuagint but is not part of modern Jewish canon) where the Maccabees initially refuse to fight on Shabbat, which leads to a great number of women and children being slaughtered, and the survivors thereafter resolve that they’ll fight on the Sabbath if they have to in order to protect the innocent.
1 Maccabees 2:29-41
At that time many who sought righteousness and justice went out into the wilderness to settle there, they and their children, their wives and their animals, because misfortunes pressed so hard on them. It was reported to the officers and soldiers of the king who were in the City of David, in Jerusalem, that those who had flouted the king’s order had gone out to secret refuges in the wilderness. Many hurried out after them, and having caught up with them, camped opposite and prepared to attack them on the sabbath. The pursuers said to them, “Enough of this! Come out and obey the king’s command, and you will live.” But they replied, “We will not come out, nor will we obey the king’s command to profane the sabbath.” Then the enemy attacked them at once. But they did not retaliate; they neither threw stones, nor blocked up their secret refuges. They said, “Let us all die in innocence; heaven and earth are our witnesses that you destroy us unjustly.” So the officers and soldiers attacked them on the sabbath, and they died with their wives, their children and their animals, to the number of a thousand persons.
When Mattathias and his friends heard of it, they mourned deeply for them. They said to one another, “If we all do as our kindred have done, and do not fight against the Gentiles for our lives and our laws, they will soon destroy us from the earth.” So on that day they came to this decision: “Let us fight against anyone who attacks us on the sabbath, so that we may not all die as our kindred died in their secret refuges.”
There’s certainly an argument that launching this strike on Shabbat is permissible under the principle of pikuach nefesh, which holds that violating any mitzvah (aside from murder, idolatry, and sexual immorality) is permissible if it will save a life.
Honestly, though, whether or not Netenyahu is acting in accordance with halacha is probably very low on the list of reasons anyone might object to this action, since a good chunk of the ultra-Orthodox don’t even believe that the modern state of Israel should exist at all, since reestablishing it is the Messiah’s job and he hasn’t shown up yet.
No. Israelis, even religious ones, are pragmatic when it comes to operational neccessities.
Also, most Israelis don’t consider this to be “beginning the war” - just continuing the ongoing one. Everything since October 7 2023 has been one, big war.
What Exit? hid very off-topic post.
Here it is. He mostly narrates in Yiddish with occasional English phrases, which can be hard to follow, but you can get the gist of it. He throws in “Baruch HaShem” so much that it’s practically punctuation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5TZPlO4Se8/
VIDEO: Hasidic Jew’s trip to Iran to find Queen Esther’s tomb – The Forward
I agree that we need something more than just the word of the Iranians, but given that just a few days ago the maladministration was using its border defenses to shoot down its own border defenses (see El Paso airspace debacle) the notion that a school might have been hit by the US is not impossible. I would be sad but not surprised to find this is true.
I know the building that was hit - I lived right around the corner from it for 17 years. It was a pre-WW2 building, so it pobably didn’t have a bomb shelter.
Baruch dayan ha-Emet.
Warning
Not sure how you could possibly think this was relative to the thread in any way.
Continuing such an off topic hijack.
Also seeing you just got warned for hijacking on February 2nd. Be much more alert.
@Eric1 pointing at you also, don’t stray so far from topic.
Ha!
Are you serious?
Magically Khameini’s subordinates would have never done such a thing?
See you in the Pit.
Wow, that’s some strong Canadian weed that guy’s been smoking (of course, we all share his hopes). Meanwhile, back in the real world, while no one can predict the future precisely, the vast majority of experts — and the CIA — think the regime will remain intact, and even more hard-line.
Because that legacy draft dodger likes to play with the US military like they’re his own private toy soldiers, he has started a war which will set the Middle East on fire….and will ignite retaliative strikes and attacks all over the world.
Agreed. I could somewhat get behind the last one which ostensibly targeted nuclear weapons production. This doesn’t seem to serve any purpose. The head fascist was killed who was an ancient old man. There is a long line of men ready to take his place.
Wow, that’s some PEAK Western arrogance.
This guy is an Iranian who clearly knows a lot about this conflict, and cares a whole lot about it to, I’m sure he knows every intricate detail about the situation.
But hey, what does he know? He’s just some dumb foreigner. Clearly he’s just high.
Their analysis is worth infinitely more than the analysis of someone who started paying attention when Iran entered the news cycle. Accusing them of smoking too much “strong Canadian weed” is pretty disgusting.
The regime took a very serious blow during the protests in early January, which is why they resorted to killing 30,000 of their own people. If we had been destabilizing the regime and striking its leadership at the same time, they could have overthrown the regime.
Iran claims that Achmedinijed is dead; no independent sources yet.
If so, very good riddance.
Presumably you missed the reference to the CIA.
Who is “they”? Sincere question: is there a shadow government that stands ready to supplant the current one? Trump is encouraging the citizens of Iran to take over their country, but citizen protestors aren’t a proxy for new leadership.
I am super confused as to what the CIA document is supposed to prove?
Yes, obviously Iran has a succession system. They’re a country, with institutions and shit.
Do you imagine that the war is over? Everyone involved has been talking about continuing these strikes for weeks.
Khamenei was already having problems controlling his country before the war. What makes you think that the new hardliner guy who takes over will have an easier time of it?
Yes, Iran will replace the commanders and political leaders who were killed; the new guys will be killed as well, and the IRGC and Basij bases will be bombed so Iranian forces can’t effectively respond to unrest within their own country, and so on.
The son of the former Shah is viewed as a symbolic leader by many in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora (which is why many of the protests have the lion flag of the prior Iranian state; mostly abroad, but lately I’ve seen protesters flying them in Iran, which is a scary thing to do - you can be executed for it - but I’ve seen videos of college students at Iranian universities with the flag). It doesn’t seem that most Iranians want him as a leader or a restored monarchy, mind you; he’s just a symbol to rally around (because it’s very hard for someone within Iran to become such a symbol without being murdered by the regime) but both he and people who support him generally agree he would just be an interim, transitional leader while they democratically work out what they want to do.
Currently he’s been telling Iranians to stay home and avoid protesting, and while there have been some protests against the regime, and celebrations after Khamenei died, it seems as if they are listening. He claims to have some kind of plan, and allies within Iran, but we will see.