Jews are staying home, “afraid to show their faces” in the street.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Iran’s Jewish community is anxious and fearful as Israel’s attacks continue to pound military and strategic sites throughout their country in Operation Rising Lion.
Ynet reported a source as saying, “People have vanished from the streets. They’re staying inside their homes, terrified. They’re not going to work. There are no gatherings, no prayers in synagogues — nothing. They’re simply afraid to show their faces.”
Israel National News, meanwhile, quoted an “activist in contact with the community” who transmitted a similar message.
“They are alive, as of now, but they live in constant fear,” the activist said. “They rarely speak. What was until now an active community has suddenly become a silent congregation of prayer and fear.”
The vast majority of the community, generally considered to be 8,000-10,000 strong, live in Tehran, followed by Isfahan – two of the main Israel Air Force targets so far, because of the nuclear and ballistic missile facilities that are located in and around the two cities.
According to Ynet’s sources, the community’s main concern is not that regime forces will swoop down on them, but that ordinary Iranians angered by the destruction and death that Israel’s airstrikes are causing will turn into mobs looking for vengeance against their Jewish neighbors.
The most prominent Jews in the country have spoken out harshly against Israel’s actions, possibly in an attempt to prevent such violence, or accusations of disloyalty from the political echelon.
Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, the Jewish community’s symbolic representative in Iran’s parliament, was quoted in separate Tasnim news agency reports as saying that “daily launches of thousands of drones and missiles would be the appropriate reply” to Israel’s actions and called the Jewish state a “savage, child-killing regime.”
He also took part in a joint statement by representatives of minority religions in parliament that slammed Israel.
Censuring “the Zionist regime’s criminal attack on the sacred soil of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the MPs voiced confidence that “Iran’s response will be swift and calculated” and would soon “put an end to the tyranny of the usurping Zionist regime,” according to a report in the Fars news agency, a state mouthpiece.
Isfahan’s Jewish Association and the Tehran Beit Din (religious rabbinic court) also issued statements to the Islamic Republic News Agency on Monday harshly condemning Israel.
“The Zionists’ brutality, which is far from any human morality and has caused the martyrdom of a number of our beloved compatriots, including innocent children, has hurt all of our hearts,” the Association wrote.
A spokesman for the religious court, which is part of the Tehran Jewish Committee, the official body representing the Jewish community in Iran, went even further, stating, that the “murder of civilians, women and children by the criminal Zionist regime and the evil Netanyahu must be met with decisive force.”
Just one day before Israel launched its attack on Iran, the Committee had released its annual report that contained its usual praise for the regime, condemnation of Zionism, and said that their members “continue to perform religious duties with full freedom and dignity, as in the past, under conditions of public safety and security.”
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