Jews Find Acceptance in Iran

We have all seen the news coming in from Muslim countries and now even European countries....Jews are being persecuted pretty much every where they go, with increasing frequency. Just today I ran across an article that Jews are leaving France at highest rates ever because they are no longer feeling safe there.

So where are they finding acceptance?

Iran.

What????  That can't be true!!  Isn't it Iran's leaders who have said they want to remove Israel from the face of the earth?  Isn't it Iran who has been hiding their nuclear facilities under a mountain so they can continue cooking a nuclear bomb?  Isn't it Iran that the world has been watching to see if Israel is going to bomb them to smithereens??

Yep.  But check out this article from Associated Press.

More than a thousand people trekked across Iran this past week to visit a shrine in this ancient Persian city, a pilgrimage like many others in the Islamic Republic — until you notice men there wearing yarmulkes.

Iran, a home for Jews for more than 3,000 years, has the Middle East's largest Jewish population outside of Israel, a perennial foe of the country. But while Iran's Jews in recent years had their faith continually criticized by the country's previous governments, they've found new acceptance under moderate President Hassan Rohani.

"The government has listened to our grievances and requests. That we are being consulted is an important step forward," said Homayoun Samiah, leader of the Tehran Jewish Association. "Under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, nobody was listening to us. Our requests fell on deaf ears."

Most of Iran's 77 million people are Shiite Muslims and its ruling establishment is led by hard-line clerics who preach a strict version of Islam. Many Jews fled the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Jews linked to Israel afterward were targeted. Today, estimates suggest some 20,000 Jews remain in the country.

Tensions grew under Ahmadinejad, who repeatedly called the Holocaust "a myth" and even sponsored an international conference in 2006 to debate whether the World War II genocide of Jews took place. Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi once accused Jews as whole of being drug dealers.

But since Rohani took office last year, Jews say they have been heartened by the support they've received. His government agreed to allow Jewish schools to be closed on Saturdays to mark Shabbat, the day of rest. Rouhani also allocated the equivalent of $400,000 to a Jewish charity hospital in Tehran and invited the country's only Jewish lawmaker to accompany him to the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year.

"We were fearful in the '80s. We were feeling the pressure. Now, we are not concerned anymore. We feel secure and enjoy freedoms," said Mahvash Kohan, a female Jewish pilgrim who came to Yazd from Shiraz. "In the past, Israel and others were providing incentives such as housing that lured some Jews. Now, it's not like that. And Iranian Jews have better living and working conditions in Iran. So, no one is willing to leave now."

Here;  http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.628577

So according to the Jewish lady in the last paragraph, none of the 20,000 Jews in Iran are willing to leave....because they have it pretty good in Iran.

Interesting.

I wonder what it's going to take to make the Iranian Jews YEARN to go to Israel?  I wonder what will happen to them if Israel bombs Iran in 2015 to prevent them reaching the nuclear "point of no return?"

We don't know....so for now we are going to file this article under the section of "Good News".