Are there any Jews left in Iran? If so how are they treated? Are things getting worse for them?
There are about 27,000 Jews in Iran today. Most live in Teheran, with a few thousand in other Iranian cities.
Good site
Has these articles
“Jewish Exile Describes Life in Iran”, Tufts Daily, September 24, 2004
“Backgrounder: The Trial of 13 Iranian Jews,” Anti-Defamation League, March 2003
Houman Sarshar, “Esther’s Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews,” (Jewish Publication Society of America, 2002).
“The Jews of Iran,” Jewish Virtual Library
John F. Burns, “Arrests Shake Ancient Roots of Iran’s Jews,” The Sunday New York Times, October 17, 1999.
“The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews,” Houman Sarshar, editor (Center for Iranian Jewish Oral, 1997)
For more information, please visit The Anti-Defamation League’s Website
or the American Sephardi Federation website
Jews are also reserved one seat ( out of 290 ) in Iran’s Majlis ( assembly ). But only one - they can’t hold more than that, either ( Christians get three, Zoroastrians one ).
- Tamerlane
A family friend is an Iranian Jew. She has lived away from Iran for a couple of decades. She made a visit to her family in one of the main cities, not Tehran, a couple of years ago and the authorities there made it extremely difficult for her to leave again. She was trapped there for several months before her family there managed to secure an exit permit.
Interesting, why does Iran make it so hard for Jews to leave?
I think one of the main motivations for fighting exodus of Jews is to keep Israel weak as many will just go to Israel or the US (the US and Israel have over half the world’s jews as parts of their populations). The more Jews Israel and the US have then the more scientists, economists and soldiers they will have. That is a possible reason.