Did Ya' Hear The One About Cohen & The Iranian Jews?

Ever notice how often the reputedly astute prove amazingly naïve if not downright dumb? Take the New York Times much lauded op-ed columnist Roger Cohen.

In a long rambling piece datelined Esfahan, Iran, wandering analyst Cohen recently told his global readers that the remnant of Iran's once thriving Jewish community is doing just fine - in fact, it's actually living the life of Reza side by side with Islamists, enjoying freedom of worship, business and family life and just dying to join other patriotic Iranians in angry anti-Israel street demonstrations. To back up his contentions, Mr Cohen quotes that esteemed expert Morris Motamed, the man who once served as the mullah endorsed Jewish stooge in Tehran's rubber stamp parliament.

It all reminded me of my 1990 Baghdad visit to the remnants of Iraqi Jewry - a disapora community older and once larger than even Iran's. Like most Iranian Jews, the vast majority of Iraq's 150,000 Musawi or ""Mosaics" wisely fled for Israel and the West in the early 1950s. Of course, they had to leave behind everything they owned. By the time I visited Baghdad, there were less than 300 Jews left in a city where Jews once comprised 25% of the urban population. These Jews also prayed in their synagogue on the Sabbath where their communal president assured
me with great flourish (while Saddam Hussein's omnipresent agents listened to every word) that he and his fellow worshippers were "proud to be both faithful Jews and loyal Iraqi patriots".

The truth was very different - as it is in Iran where the Jewish community is under constant surveillance, where teaching Hebrew is prohibited, where Jewish women are forced to follow the same modesty laws their Muslim sisters do, where Jews are barred from certain jobs and some imprisoned or hung on trumped up charges of contact with "Zionists".

Another journalistic sin of Mr Cohen's piece was his insistence to use Iran's supposed tolerant treatment of its remaining Jews as an excuse to take another of his nasty jabs at Israel. After all, Cohen tells us, perhaps Iran's threats to destroy the Jewish state are merely a "provocation to focus people on Israel's bomb, its 41 year occupation of the West Bank, its Hamas denial, its repetitive use of overwhelming force."

He then goes on to ignore the hard fact that Iran is behind Hamas as well as Hezbollah and most of the terrorism that currently confronts Israel , the very terrorism that frequently obliges Jerusalem to invoke its "overwhelming force".

Mr. Cohen also attacks "some American Jewish circles" for their "misleading and dangerous...'Mad Mullah' caricature of Iran".

In other words we really shouldn't worry about Iran's race to obtain a nuclear weapon - even though such a weapon would not only threaten Israel, but the rest of the world including the United States.

And as if to underscore its increasingly perverted sense of journalistic balance, today's NY Times runs a second Iran focused op-ed piece alongside that of Cohen's. This one by Iranian born journalist Ali Reza Esraghi is oddly entitled "Our Friend in Tehran" and urges President Barack Obama to stop wasting time and "seize the opportunity to shake the Iranian President (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's) outstretched hand".

Lord protect us from the reputedly astute!

Comments

[BiBiJan]

Most recommended comment on Mr Cohen's article today:

"I am a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and all I can say is bravo - both for your reporting about Iranian Jews and for calling out the obvious pro-war agenda behind much of the criticism you received.
— Larry Derfner, Modi'in, Israel"

Recommended by 186 readers.

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/03/02/opinion/02cohen.html?permid=18#comment18

[BiBiJan]

"The incentives - ranging from £5,000 a person to £30,000 for families - were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel among Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community. The offers were made with Israel's official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/13/iran.israel

""Whatever they say abroad is lies - we are comfortable in Iran - if you're not political and don't bother them then they won't bother you," he explains.

His customer, middle-aged housewife Giti agrees, saying she can easily talk to her two sons in Tel Aviv on the telephone and visit them.

"It's not a problem coming and going; I went to Israel once through Turkey and once through Cyprus and it was not problem at all," she says.

The exodus of Jews from Iran seems to have slowed down - the first wave was in the 1950s and the second was in the wake of the Iranian Revolution.

Those Jews who remain in Iran seem to have made a conscious decision to stay put.

"We are Iranian and we have been living in Iran for more than 3,000 years," says the Jewish hospital director Ciamak Morsathegh."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

From the National Review's Corner:
"Roger Cohen, Useful Idiot [Michael Rubin]


"... I came across this column by the New York Times's Roger Cohen entitled "What Iran's Jews Say" and his defense of it, here. What to say? I'm familiar with the synagogue and attended it when I lived in Isfahan. I chatted with some of the university-aged students who had taken shelter in an attached guesthouse because, as Jews, they were beat up in the university dormitories. Men and women both referred to the Jews' representative in the Parliament as a flunky for the regime, and would not discuss problems or issues when he was around. Several would say one thing in the synagogue, but when we went to parks on took walks through the city, they would bend over backwards to make clear that they cannot talk freely in the synagogue since the walls have ears. The same sentiment was expressed at synagogues in Tehran and Shiraz. Cohen, however, talks to him as the authority and takes his word that he is not a quisling. True, Jews are better of in Iran than in many neighboring countries, but there is a reason why their number has dropped by 80% over the last three decades. Cohen simply appears on a propaganda tour; parachuting in, an eager recepticle for his regime minders. It should not surprise that his column now graces the pages of the regime's mouth piece, The Tehran Times. "

[BiBiJan]

"The Jewish community of Iran has been present in their society for nearly 3000 years. They object to the attitude by non Iranian western Jews that we want to save them, or educate them, or in any way interfere with their cultural and religious life. Before we make assumptions about what they need or who they are, it would be well to acknowledge that they are the oldest ongoing community of Jews in the world continuously associated with one place. They are not Jews of exile. They are deeply rooted in the land of Cyrus. They can visit the graves of Esther and Mordecai, Daniel and Habbakuk. They possess a Torah that is over 1200 years old. The Jews of Esfahan have their own language! The Jews of Iran are deeply proud of their own heritage, even though they, like other Iranians, may struggle with the limitations imposed by the Islamic Republic on freedom of expression."

(Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb)
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/02/a-rabbis-reflection-on-iran.html

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

Excerpts from article in Jerusalem Post by Rafael Medoff, David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies

Are 25,000 Jews living happily and securely under the most repressive and anti-Semitic regime in the world? Apparently the answer is yes, if one is to believe Roger Cohen...

Cohen is hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries. Assessing the status of Jews in Nazi Germany in October 1936, president Franklin D. Roosevelt told American Jewish Congress leader Stephen Wise: "I have just seen two people who have toured Germany,.. They tell me that they saw that the synagogues were crowded and apparently there is nothing very wrong ...at present."

Interestingly, the Jews whom Cohen met in Iran had only positive things to say about their anti-Semitic government. .

The State Department's most recent annual report on international religious freedom paints a picture ...at odds with Cohen's description. The report says Iran's Jews live in "a threatening atmosphere" and suffer "officially sanctioned discrimination." ...Three-quarters of Iran's Jews have emigrated in the 30 years since the Khomeini revolution, and the State Department notes that some continue to emigrate,.

Sometimes hope for a change in government is sufficient to persuade others to stay in a country where they are mistreated. In fact, in 1937 - fully four years after Hitler's rise to power - Germany was still home to more Jews than any other Western European country. That was not because they enjoyed Hitler's rule.

[BiBiJan]

The most anti-Semitic regime in the world?

"Every Monday night at 10 o'clock, Iranians by the millions tune into Channel One to watch the most expensive show ever aired on the Islamic republic's state-owned television. Its elaborate 1940s costumes and European locations are a far cry from the typical Iranian TV fare of scarf-clad women and gray-suited men.
But the most surprising thing about the wildly popular show is that it is a heart-wrenching tale of European Jews during World War II."

(Wall Street Journal)
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118912609718220156.html

[BiBiJan]

Having given up on getting a reply from Mr Cheznoff, this too is my last comment.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/02/a-rabbis-reflection-on-iran.html

An American rabbi reports on her visits to the 'oldest ongoing Jewish community in the world:' Iran

Rabbi Gottlieb led a delegation to Iran last April and visited again in December. A Middle East Program Associate with the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, she will be visiting Iran again this August.

Reading Roger Cohen's piece in the NY Times confirmed my own experience in Iran. I have had the pleasure of meeting the ancient community of Jews from Esfahan, Shiraz and Teheran on two separate occasions. I attended services in each of the cities, met with the official representatives of the community twice in Shiraz and Teheran and had several private conversations in hotel lobbies and private homes for hours on end, with youth and elders. I was also surprised at the depth of study of Jewish sources by Muslim scholars at Mofid University who quoted Maimonides, Rashi and Torah with ease and were anxious to learn more. As in any culture there is a diversity of attitudes. The condition of Jews is really no different than the condition of others who are in the 'reformist' camp. There is a need for interfaith civilian diplomacy so that those relationships can be explored and nurtured.

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

This letter in today's NY Times says it all and with it I end any further comment from me on this issue:
To the Editor:

"I was a 9-year-old girl living in Tehran when my family fled to America as a result of the Islamic Revolution. We didn’t leave Iran because of the weather, but because of a second-class existence transformed into a nightmare of religious persecution, which the few remaining Jews that Roger Cohen found have sadly internalized and accepted.

For Mr. Cohen to suggest that Iranian Jews have anything close to religious freedom or free expression in Iran is to discredit the long history of Muslim oppression and to deny the experience of generations of Jews who locked themselves in their homes during the Ashura holidays lest they become the target of the frenzied Shiite masses who filled the streets, or who cringed when they were called a word meaning dirty and impure and told to wait at the end of the line to draw water.

What about the Jewish schools and institutions that were systematically shut down after the Islamic Revolution? Or the fact that while Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are free to shout “Death to Israel,” Iranian Jews are forced to?

We must never forget the true history of Jews under Muslim regimes — my history.

Mojgan Cohanim Lancman
Fresh Meadows, Queens, Feb.23, 2009"

[BiBiJan]

The fact that you choose this letter, and do not provide a link to other NY Times letters on the subject, says something. Perhaps does not say it all.

Here's the link to NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/l27cohen.html

[BiBiJan]

Jeffrey Goldberg has linked to Chezoff's post, from his post in the Atlantic
Roger Cohen's Very Happy Visit with Iran's Jews
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/roger_cohens_very_happy_visit.php

Jeffrey says "I was once with a mullah in Pakistan who told me that Allah would soon fulfill his promise and destroy the Jews".

There you have it. You might not find this in any of the books bulging out of Islamic libraries of the middle east. But, for $3 Billion a year in aid money, Jeffery will find you a quote from somewhere.

Here is a picture of president Khatami visiting Tehran's Yusofabad synagog. According to Jeffery, he is just another friendly Muslim. OooooK.

http://www.bibijon.org/iranimage/images/Yusufabadsynagogue.jpg

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

For starters, "Jews" is always spelled with a capital J. You seem to insist on spelling it with a lower case J.
Out of the 100,000 or so Jews living in Iran when the mullahs took over, 75% have left - tens of thousands of them for Israel where the Jewish population of Iranian origin is now close to 200,000. Here is what the Haaretz article you keep quoting says about those who stayed and why so few of this particular group has emigrated to Israel:

"Not that life in the Islamic Republic is a picnic for anyone, especially not Jews. Jewish schools are forbidden, teaching Hebrew is prohibited, Jewish women are subjected to the same draconian modesty laws forced on their Muslim counterparts, while Jewish conscripts to the army are routinely humiliated and trusted only with lowly, menial tasks. Persecution is usually low-key. ((some believe change may be coming to Iran)). ...The prospect of good times just around the corner is enough for most of them to prefer the current precarious situation to a journey into the unknown. "

[BiBiJan]

Of the millions of Iranians who are now living outside Iran, true a fraction have been Jewish, while the vast majority (99.9%) are Shi'a Muslims. Any objective analysis would point to political disagreement, initial revolutionary instability, Iran/Iraq war, general 3rd world economic exodus. There was nothing sectarian about the emigrations.

Again I invite you to comment on the following articles:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/13/iran.israel
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/954647.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118912609718220156.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4705246.stm

[indyleftist]

If people are actually interested in the Iranian jewish community they might try this article
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/939220.html
This is an Israeli newspaper article discussing why so few Iranians choose to come and live in Israel

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

"Why so few choose to come live in Israel" - 75% of the Iranian Jewish community has chosen to leave the Land of the Mullahs - and large numbers have chosen to go to Israel. In answer to your earlier comment, I have visited Iran and have spoken with Iranian Jews. They are very careful in what they say for obvious reasons - but those Iranian Jews who've left, including the thousands who've come to the US, are less cautious in their descriptions of the hardships and discriminations the community faces.

[indyleftist]

Where do you get your statistics?
The Israeli newspaper article writes that
" It would be more accurate to say that over 99 percent of Persian Jews still prefer to remain under the rule of the Ayatollahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than to come to live in the democratic Jewish homeland. "

You say you spoke to Iranian jews but they were cautious....what did they actually tell you?
Did they perhaps compare their plight favorably to Palestinians living under Israeli control?
Did they oppose Israel bombing their country?

[indyleftist]

Here's a link to the actual article, not sure why it is not linked. Its not very proper to criticize an article but refuse to show people what it actually says
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/22/opinion/edcohen.php?page=1

Bottom, line is that there is a significant population of Iranian jews, more than any of the Arab nations
And this article was about the complex opinions of that group of people
Not all jews hate Iran and support Israel. Infact oddly enough you will find some with exactly the opposite view

My question to this blogger (since I see him responding to some) is if he has ever been to Iran and if has ever spoken to any of the jews living there about their opinions on Iran/Israel relations?

[altohone]

Journalistic ethics?

You write "we shouldn't worry about Iran's race to obtain a nuclear weapon".

Yet no proof of a weapons program has ever been presented.
Not here or anywhere.

Iraq redux anyone?

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

Which is the reason Iran refuses to allow full inspections of its sites.

[indyleftist]

Iran does let inspectors in from time to time

Israel never has

[altohone]

Deja vu again.

Neocons said the exact same thing about Saddam... despite inpections.


If that's good enough for you, fine. I like proof.
I only make assertions I can back up, which I would also do btw if someone called me on something I wrote for public consumption.... as opposed to deflecting to the tactic of forcing someone to prove a negative... which doesn't answer the challenge to your assertion.

I'm just sayin.

[BiBiJan]

Cheznoff,

Care to comment on the stories below? These are links to articles from The Guradian, Wall Street Journal, BBC and Haaretz. When you throw in the "astute" Cohen, then it really is one big global journalistic conspiracy. Right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/13/iran.israel
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/954647.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118912609718220156.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4705246.stm

[BiBiJan]

Also,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/13/iran.israel

"Iran's Jews spurn cash lure to emigrate to Israel"

[S1m0n]

Iran wants a nuclear bomb for the same reason every other nation that has one wanted it: because it is the world's only completely effective defensive weapon. Nations with nukes don't get invaded, period.

And a nation that elected George W. Bush at least once has no business pretending that Iran has nothing to fear--from it or from anyone. Iran knows that had the war in Iraq gone more smoothly, the odds were excellent that they'd have been next; il dubya even told them so. If I were them, I'd have started scrambling for a nuclear deterrent of my own, just as it is alleged Iran is. Who'd blame them?

[Richard Z. Chesnoff - Huffpost Blogger]

Right, and that's why the president of Iran threatens to annihilate Israel,

[BiBiJan]

"The fact that he compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

[indyleftist]

You are purposely mistranslating Iran's president by leaving out the word "Regime", which changes the meaning quite a bit.
Everything Iran says about Israel, Israel says about Iran. And actually Israel takes it much further.
Israel is constantly threatening to bomb Iran, and Constantly trying to get the United States to Bomb Iran. Reportedly, Israel would have bombed Iran last year but George Bush Jr, hardly a shill for the Iranians, refused to give Israel weapons needed to carry out the attack