With all this talk about Israel needing to attack Iran before Iran's genocidal anti-Semitism inevitably makes it nuke Israel, I got to wondering about the attitudes of Persian Jews in Beverly Hills. They must quake with horror at the very mention of the name "Persia," right?
Yet, as far as I can tell, Persian Jews kind of like the place. In casual conversations with Americans, they call themselves "Persians" rather than "Jews." They make jokes about the extravagance of "Persian weddings" rather than of "Jewish weddings."
I mean, they definitely prefer living in Beverly Hills to living in Tehran, but they go back and forth to visit their relatives in Iran a lot. Here's a bit from an opinionator named Ari Bussel who naively can't understand why Iranian-American Jews who regularly visit Iran aren't as terrified of Iran as he is terrified of Iran from reading about Iran in the American press:
According to different estimates, there are 25,000 - 30,000 Jews in Iran today. I, for one, do not understand why they are still there. Clearly they are not being held hostage, for everyone else is able to go in and out. A friend was employing a young, religious Jew from Iran who went back from the States to Iran last year to marry. Being true to my natural curiosity and what I consider journalistic obligation and integrity, I would have taken a flight to Tehran to personally inspect, witness, investigate and report. In the case of Iran, though, I am afraid.
If I were to do that, I likely would be taken prisoner, either as an American spy or a Zionist agent-conspirator. My devotion to the profession is noble, but my obligations to myself and my family are greater than risking being used as a parade icon by the Iranian regime. Thus, I am left wondering about the fate of the Iranian Jews...
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I live in Encino around all the Persian Jews who haven't yet gotten rich enough to move to Beverly Hills. They're culturally at least as much Persian as they are Jewish-- Persian food, celebrating Nowruz along with the high holidays, and they go for that same brand of godawful taste in architecture that's so memorably mocked by http://uglypersianhouses.com/ . It's an interesting phenomenon not shared by any of the other Near East Jewish populations.
Steve, the Jews have been in Persia for millennia. They predate the arrival of Islam by more than a 1000 years. Culturally they're much more Persian than they are Jewish (meaning Ashkenazi). They have their own synagogues and rituals, and as Anon noted a penchant for ostentatious housing. Why would you expect them to identify themselves as Jewish in the US, rather than claiming a culture of which they're proud?
Jews in Iran have to keep their heads down, but despite the occasional show trial of community leaders for conspiring with the Zionist entity, everyone knows they're as Persian as their Shiite neighbors. The Bahá'í, on the other hand, are subject to horrible abuses, 'cause they're considered apostates.
I'm not sure this referring to themselves as "Persians" rather than Jews thing is that unusual. In college there was a sizable population of Russian Jews, and they tended to refer to themselves as "Russians" even though they would segregate themselves from the Christian Russian students.
Hmm, Persian Jews feeling and acting Persian - doesn't this contradict the thesis constantly espoused at isteve that Jews are "a people that shall dwell alone"?
Hmm, Persian Jews feeling and acting Persian - doesn't this contradict the thesis constantly espoused at isteve that Jews are "a people that shall dwell alone"?
They do "dwell alone." They are endogamous, maintain some of their own culture, ways, etc.
If they didn't, they wouldn't exist today - they would have assimilated into the general population, adopted the majority religion, etc. by now, since they've been living there for hundreds, thousands of years.
"Hmm, Persian Jews feeling and acting Persian - doesn't this contradict the thesis constantly espoused at isteve that Jews are "a people that shall dwell alone"?"
No. The fact that there are still Persian Jews after several thousand years proves the thesis right.
It's interesting that it seems the only 'ethnics' whose taste SWPLers allow themselves to mock are Persians.
"Hmm, Persian Jews feeling and acting Persian - doesn't this contradict the thesis constantly espoused at isteve that Jews are "a people that shall dwell alone"?"
Ah, yes, another internet goofball who thinks he sees "contradictions" in Kevin MacDonald's work while demonstrating that he does not have a clue what that work actually is.
Persian Jews long ago learned to live at peace with their neighbors and therefore to feel comfortable flaunting their wealth.
They do pose a problem for the Jewish myth of eternal and universal oppression since Jews have lived in Persia for over 2000 years and have never been forced out.
I suspect this happened for a variety of reasons, such as IQ equality with the natives, a similar ethnic gift for business, similar ethnocentricities (race purity, help limited to one's blood relations), and the Islamic system, which tolerates self-governing minority communities.
Also, Persian Jews don't seem to suffer from the revolutionary tendencies/social justice/tikkun olam which causes Polish/German/Russian Jews to try to re-engineer the gentile societies in which they live.
"Hmm, Persian Jews feeling and acting Persian ..."
Sure, including that typically "Persian" flavour.
People forget that Iran is only very recently very Islamic.
Between the wars present day Iran hardly existed. Britain held the south and Russia held the north. Iran only existed in a strip of land and it was the worst land.
A hero arose. Reza Pahlavi emerged to restore Iran to its former greatness. In some ways he was like Kemal Ataturk. He was anti-Muslim. He like many Iranians then looked on the Islamic conquest in the seventh century as a cultural disaster. Persia had been fighting Eastern Rome for centuries. A true clash of civilizations. Everyone was surprised when the primitive Arabs came out of the desert and took over. Reza Shah wanted to restore Iran to its place under the Achaemenids.
The Achaemenids had been welcoming of the Jews. The Jews recognized Cyrus as their (gentile) Messiah in the Book of Ezra. Cyrus returned the captive Jews to Israel.
So there is every reason to expect that Jews would feel a connection with Iran - just not with the Islamic government that came into power around the overthrow of Reza's son. Prior to Jimmy Carter and the Ayatollah Khomeini Iran was perhaps the least Islamic of the nominally Muslim nations.
Albertosaurus
How do the Beverly Hills Jewish Persians make their money?
Any suspicious import/export firms?
Hmm, Persian Jews feeling and acting Persian - doesn't this contradict the thesis constantly espoused at isteve that Jews are "a people that shall dwell alone"?
As already pointed out this doesnt hold.
Furthermore, I suspect, they have always been kept out of positions of authority in Persian institutions. Thus they keep their identity but dont get to monkey with Persian socity.
Also what about IQ? They may be a bit brighter than the regular Persians and have their well honed middle-man skills but do they have the high Ashkenazi IQ?
Stupid question - how do these Persian Jews make their moneys?
"It's interesting that it seems the only 'ethnics' whose taste SWPLers allow themselves to mock are Persians."
Riiiiight...tell that to the Italian-Americans. Ever hear of "Married to the Mob," "The Sopranos" or "Jersey Shore"?
"It's interesting that it seems the only 'ethnics' whose taste SWPLers allow themselves to mock are Persians."
Riiiiight...tell that to the Italian-Americans. Ever hear of "Married to the Mob," "The Sopranos" or "Jersey Shore"?
Thats beause they dont count as ethnics, they are white and as such are a legtimate target as any other white ethnicity.
"Culturally they're much more Persian than they are Jewish (meaning Ashkenazi)."
Could be, but I knew a few Jewish Persian Baha'is and they did have traits I associate with Jews. Of course I don't know how Jewish they were because Baha'i Jews were encouraged to marry Baha'is from Muslim and Zoroastrian backgrounds. You have to understand that to be a "Jewish Perisian Bahai" means they have crossed ethnic/cultural/religious and social chasms several millenia wide, putting aside if not their Jewish identity, then at least the exclusionism it entails. It means they accept not just Baha'i but also Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other people in the world. One of these eclectic folks was a woman who made documentaries and was an avid fan of Woody Allen (this was 20plus yrs ago.)
The Jewish Baha'is looked a bit more "western" in a way hard to define, but probably just because I was more used to Jews (Ashkenazi) than to Persians of any stripe. Some of them just looked like New York Jews and were not very dark at all by Persian standards. Not that Persians were always particularly dark unless they'd been in the sun a lot.
I also distinctly recall a certain nasal quality to the voice of a Persian Jewish lady, which was exactly like the voices of some Jewish people I've known--and she had never lived in New York.
Persian Baha'is in general were pretty smart and progressive by middle eastern standards, but the Persian Baha'i Jews were the ultimate in westernized Persians --except for their moral standards, which adhered to their faith, or so I was told.
There are lots of things to consider here. Maybe Iran isn't as bad as it has been portrayed by American media, who seem to have agendas other than truth and clarity.
Maybe the Iranian islamists aren't hostile to all Jews, just Ashkenazi Jews. And maybe Amadinajad's threats against Israel are just empty bluster intended for domestic political consumption.
Could it be that we get an inaccurate view of the world from our biased agenda-driven media? No, that would never happen...
The words of Ari Bussel reveal the tremendous parochialism of the American media. He's never been to Iran and he's afraid to go there, and he cannot understand why people who live there are not as afraid of it as he is.
It just never occurs to him that maybe people who actually live there might know more about the place than he does. How could that be? The American media define reality, right? The media decide what is true, right? So if the media says Iran is evil, then it must be true, and the benighted natives just don't know it because they haven't received the revealed wisdom from the American media. They need to believe the media, not their lying eyes.
Just to clarify. Persian is not a nationality. It is an Ethnicity. Almost all Persian Jews become U.S. Citizens as soon as they can. This is not true for Persian Muslims some of whom like to keep their Iranian Nationality. Persian Jews have a very long history in Iran going back to the time of rebuilding of the 2nd Temple with great help from Cyrus the great king of Persia (A large historic empire which got broken down into many countries including today's Iran). Obviously, Persia the country no longer exists. But there are plenty of Iranians including most of the Jews (but technically not all of them) who have a Persian (Refered to as "Fars" in Iran) ethnicity. Other dominant ethnic groups in Iran are: Turks, Lors, Kurds, Baluch, Mazanderani, Jonoobi, Beduin, etc.... Each Ethnicity has its own local dialect, language, sub-culture, etc.... There are Turk and Kurd Iranian Jews who live in US as US citizens and they identify themselves as Persian although they are technically not Persian. Instead of self identifying as Persian Jew, I prefer Persian American Jew. The only problem is that most Persian Jews don't know why they call themselves Persian Jews. If you ask, the most common answer is that after the revolution and the hostage taking, they switched from Iranian to Persian. That might be true! but that does not change the fact that Persian is an ethnicity and Iranian is a Nationality.
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