Iranian Jewish leaders urge 'daily missile salvos' against Israel
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-857895"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."
ByZVIKA KLEIN
JUNE 16, 2025 11:45
Updated: JUNE 16, 2025 14:01
Iran's two principal Jewish institutions have issued unusually strident statements condemning last weekend's Israeli air-raids on Tehran, Natanz and other sites, describing the operation as "savage Zionist aggression" and demanding that the Islamic Republic reply with overwhelming force. The comments appeared only in state-aligned Persian media.
"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 Jewish Association and Community of Isfahan wrote in a statement provided to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Sunday evening.
Offering condolences for seven senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and nuclear scientists it claims were killed in the strikes, the association added: "We are confident that proud and honourable Iran will give a crushing and regret-inducing response that will make the Zionist regime repent its shameful deeds."
IRNA reminded readers that "the history of the presence of Jews in Iran dates back more than three thousand years," putting today's Jewish population at "about three thousand" – a figure well below the 8,000-10,000 estimated by most demographers.
Beth Din spokesman: assaults 'unjust and criminal'
Dr. Younes Hamami Lalezar, spokesman for the Beth Din (religious court) of the Tehran Jewish Committee, used still sharper language, calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision "unjust and criminal" and writing that the "murder of civilians, women and children by the criminal Zionist regime and the evil Netanyahu must be met with decisive force."
Hamami stressed that Iranian Jews "have always been part of this great nation and will never fail to defend our homeland."
Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, the community's sole representative in Iran's Majlis, declared in an open letter carried by the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency that "daily launches of thousands of drones and missiles would be the least appropriate reply" to Israel's operation.
A separate Tasnim report quoted Sameyah as saying the attacks proved Israel to be a "savage, child-killing regime" and urged Iran to deliver a lesson that would be "unforgettable."
Missile claims and wider escalation
The Isfahan Jewish statement repeated IRGC claims that the third phase of Iran's ongoing retaliation – Operation True Promise 3 – had already doubled the number of missiles fired at Israel and targeted sites "three times larger" than in earlier waves. IRNA further asserted that seven Iranian Qiyam missiles landed near Tiberias and Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. These details could not be independently verified, and Israel's military has acknowledged only limited damage from the barrages.
Israel has said its own sorties struck Quds Force command centres, air-defence batteries and nuclear-related facilities that posed an "imminent existential threat." Washington has urged both sides to de-escalate.
Millennia-old roots, dramatic decline
Jews have lived on Iranian soil for more than 2,500 years—one of the world's oldest continuous Diaspora communities. The Hebrew Bible places Queen Esther and Mordechai in the Achaemenid capital of Susa, and Cyrus the Great's 539 BCE edict freeing the Judeans from Babylonian captivity is still revered as a landmark of religious tolerance. Jewish colonies later spread across Hamadan, Shiraz and Isfahan, surviving successive Parthian, Sassanian and Islamic dynasties, and by the mid-20th century the community peaked at an estimated 140,000–150,000 under the Pahlavi shahs. The 1979 Islamic Revolution triggered a mass exodus—mainly to Israel and the United States—leaving today's Jewish population inside Iran somewhere between the Iranian census figure of roughly 3,000 and scholars' estimate of 8,000-10,000, with the largest concentrations in Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz.
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