Iran's Jews: It's Our Home And We Plan To Stay
A Friday prayer service at a synagogue in Isfahan, Iran. The country had more than 100,000 Jews before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Fewer than 9,000 remain, but say Iran is their home, even if they face limitations. Molly Messick/NPR hide caption
Iran is a country where people at rallies routinely chant "Death to Israel." It's also home to the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel and Turkey.
Iran's Jewish population topped 100,000 in the years before the Shah of Iran was toppled in 1979 by the country's Shiite Muslim clerics. Today, the number of Jews has dipped to below 9,000.
The Jews' very presence in Iran demonstrates the complexity of a country that is hard for outsiders to understand. Our search to understand what keeps the Jews here begins in the kitchen of a kosher restaurant in Tehran.
The cooks were in the basement, cutting up meat. We took a table in the dining room, and talked with David Shumer, 28, the son of the owner. He says his family has run this place for 35 years, serving kebab and chicken on the bone.
"Many restaurant is better than this restaurant," he says.
I stopped him, wanting to be sure of his English.
"I am honest," he says with a laugh.
We asked Shumer for an honest answer to a more serious question: What is it like to be Jewish in an Islamic republic?
"It's so good and so happy," he says.
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Iran's Jews: It's Our Home And We Plan To Stay