Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:10to get me a tent so we could
00:00:31in the country's history.
00:00:35It was May 2025 and Iran was on the brink of war with
00:00:38Israel, the self-proclaimed Jewish
00:00:41state.
00:00:44At the same time, Israel was engaged in a war
00:00:47of
00:00:51prompting American Jewish communal leadership, to accuse
00:00:54dissenters of anti-semitism, and to
00:00:57call for them to be silenced and even
00:01:00criminalized. So when I came to
00:01:03Iran, one of the first things I wanted to
00:01:06know was what the leaders of Iran's
00:01:08Jewish, the second largest in the region,
00:01:12thought about the crisis and what the
00:01:15relationship with the Islamic Republic was really
00:01:18like. I had read and heard so much about
00:01:22them, some of it might have been true, but much of it felt like
00:01:26propaganda, so I wanted to see for myself,
00:01:31to meet Iran's Jews where they lived in their
00:01:34congregations and communities.
00:01:38What I found was an authentic brand of Judaism
00:01:42in practice, one representing thousands of years
00:01:46of tradition and which today
00:01:49remains uncaptured by the militaristic force of
00:01:53Zionism.
00:03:00our homeland is very valuable to us, and
00:03:03incidentally, experience has shown
00:03:06that especially small
00:03:09communities are more committed, meaning that we,
00:03:13despite having a smaller population in Iran, have stronger
00:03:16beliefs. Our students study in various
00:03:20schools, go to university,
00:03:23and all Jews in Iran fully
00:03:27enjoy their basic civil rights. They have a religious
00:03:30leader, a representative in parliament, and it can be
00:03:34said that they experience a relatively good
00:03:37life within the majority community. your critics on
00:03:41the outside and the media, the western media says that you
00:03:44as an Iranian Jew have to denounce Zionism in order
00:03:48to secure your place here under a
00:03:51republic that officially rejects Zionism,
00:03:54and that the only reason most Iranian Jews are still
00:03:58here practicing Judaism is because
00:04:10We are a young and aware generation. A large
00:04:13part of our community is educated, so
00:04:17naturally, we are aware of the issues. I say that the
00:04:21world is not like before, where people had something ingrained
00:04:24in their minds and thought about it with prejudice. We now
00:04:28have Iranians who have
00:04:38emigrated and live there. a sign that Nike put up
00:04:41and it just said never again
00:04:44because the runners were exhausted
00:04:47and some extreme Zionist ran a
00:04:51campaign against Nike to demand they take that down
00:04:54because never again is also a slogan of the holocaust
00:04:57and of course Iran's
00:05:00Islamic Republic, the ultimate enemy. So
00:05:04in your community, the Jewish community inside
00:05:07Iran, uh, do people talk about anti-semitism?
00:05:10Is it something they think about
00:05:43from the criticisms that are leveled, it's not necessarily
00:05:45against Judaism, because the issue of
00:05:49Zionism or Israel and authentic
00:05:52Judaism are two completely separate topics.
00:05:55Yes, Iran is an enemy of Israel and is in conflict
00:05:59with it, and the Jews of Iran are also completely
00:06:03against what Israel does regarding the killing
00:06:06of innocent people. In fact, we are with that Neturei
00:06:10Karta group, which
00:06:42includes rabbis and anti-Zionist Jews.
00:06:45I think Fas was Iranian and was
00:06:48defense minister, committed many crimes against
00:06:51Palestinians, part of the
00:06:53establishment.
00:06:56What do they think of you and how do you defend
00:07:00your relationship with the Islamic Republic against this
00:07:03majority of Iranians who live on the
00:07:05outside?
00:07:08I am doing what my conscience, religious beliefs,
00:07:12and national identity have taught
00:07:16me and brought to me. I have a criticism
00:07:20for the person who emigrated and left Iran
00:07:23and criticizes my behavior. I tell him
00:07:27that before you are a Jew,
00:07:30before you are an Iranian,
00:07:33you are a human being. Therefore,
00:07:37you cannot be indifferent to the killing of
00:07:40people. This is not about
00:07:43politics; it is about the violation of the rights
00:07:46of ordinary people. Israel as a promised
00:07:49land has religious
00:07:52appeal for us. We have that love and
00:07:56devotion for it, but this does not mean
00:08:00that we approve of what the
00:08:02government of Israel
00:08:47does. "I think Zionism would like to collapse all Jewish
00:08:51communities outside of Israel and foments
00:08:54anti-semitism in order to
00:08:58force all Jews to move to Israel, and so as
00:09:02a Jew in the United States, not only
00:09:05because I oppose the slaughter of children and occupation of
00:09:08people in the Gaza strip in the West Bank, etc., but
00:09:12so because of what it's doing to us in the US, I oppose
00:09:16Zionism,
00:09:18and with the looking at the whole history, the
00:09:22Jewish of the Jewish experience, we need
00:09:25to look past the European Jewish
00:09:27experience and look at how Jews have lived in the Muslim
00:09:31world, which is why I was so interested in doing this documentary,
00:09:35because we have the experience in Andalusia where Jews
00:09:38lived with Muslims very peacefully, well
00:09:42before.
00:10:13We don't follow it, and as you said, that
00:10:15expansionist world conquest that Israel
00:10:19is pursuing was never part of
00:10:22the teachings of Moses. What happened
00:10:26in Israel, in Gaza, cannot be censored. It is seen. In Iran,
00:10:30in all central synagogues, and especially
00:10:33here, we held ceremonies
00:10:36extensively
00:10:40condemning what Israel did
00:10:43against Gaza in defense of
00:10:47the innocence of women and children who, unfortunately,
00:10:50were lost. The words of
00:10:53Moses in his commandment,
00:10:57the main one being to love your neighbor
00:11:00as yourself. How can a land
00:11:04come and, as you said, misuse
00:11:07the words of God who says, love
00:11:11your neighbor as yourself?
00:11:45What I found captured by the militaristic force of
00:11:49Zionism. My journey began in the Jubarda
00:11:52neighborhood of Isfahan, the historic home of Isfahan's Jewish
00:11:56community. Synagogues here open each morning as
00:12:00rituals are quietly observed. In this unique
00:12:03quarter, a mosque and a synagogue are separated by just one
00:12:07house. Jubare is also known
00:12:10as the three religions junction with the
00:12:13synagogue in one corner, a Christian church in another, and
00:12:17a mosque at the center, a symbol of coexistence among
00:12:20faiths.
00:12:53Iran's largest Jewish population have traditionally lived in
00:12:56Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, with nearly
00:13:00half living in Tehran alone. Thriving communities exist across
00:13:04the country, from Hamedan to Yazd, to
00:13:07Kerman, Kashan, and
00:13:09Kermanshah. Jews in Iran have long
00:13:13maintained good relations with their Muslim neighbors, often
00:13:17participating in shared festivals and celebrations.
00:13:21Their presence is woven into the social and cultural fabric of all
00:13:42The arrival of Jews in Iran dates
00:13:45back to the destruction of the Second
00:13:48Temple.
00:14:03So how did Jews first arrive in Persia? Nebuchadnezzar
00:14:07the second, the ruthless king of Babylon, launched an
00:14:11invasion into
00:14:11Judah.
00:14:18His armies laid siege to Jerusalem, destroyed
00:14:22the city, and set fire to the holy temple, Solomon's
00:14:26temple, before leading the people into
00:14:28exile. They were taken in chains to
00:14:32Babylon. This traumatic event became known
00:14:35as the Babylonian
00:14:36exile.
00:14:41In Babylon, the Jews endured years of
00:14:44hardship, far from their homeland, their sacred
00:14:47temple, and their
00:14:48identity.
00:14:57Then from the East, a new force rose,
00:15:01Cyrus The Great, King of Persia. He was a
00:15:05conqueror, but also, as the story
00:15:08goes, he was a wise and just ruler.
00:15:11Upon defeating Babylon, Cyrus issued a historic
00:15:15decree: "All captives are to be freed, let
00:15:19every people return to their lands. Let their faiths
00:15:22and temples be restored," he said.
00:15:30Many Jews returned to their homeland, yet others remained, planting
00:15:34roots in Iran generation after generation.
00:16:10is mostly with Muslims, and we fully
00:16:13respect Muslims
00:16:16and Christians. We respect their
00:16:18laws. In fact, it is one
00:16:21of the commandments of the Torah. Since
00:16:24we are born in this country
00:16:28and have used and are using its blessings,
00:16:31this itself creates a sense
00:16:34of respect. One cannot allow
00:16:37God to come and inflict ten plagues
00:16:41on the Egyptians. Now, I don't know if you are aware
00:16:45or not, one of
00:16:46the plagues
00:16:49inflicted on the Egyptians was the plague of
00:16:52lice. Lice come from dirt.
00:16:56Then God commanded Moses to take a handful of dirt
00:17:00and scatter it in the air. It would turn into
00:17:03lice, and all
00:17:06Egyptians would be afflicted with lice. Moses did not
00:17:10do this. He conveyed these instructions to
00:17:14Aaron, so Aaron would come and do this. Why?
00:17:18Because the dirt, meaning the dirt
00:17:21of Egypt, had served him in previous times, and also
00:17:35water
00:17:38and a narration about this. That Shah Abbas Safavi
00:17:41begins to entertain himself with polo
00:17:45in these areas, and this entertainment
00:17:49causes him to lose his way, and
00:17:52he even encounters a deer and follows
00:17:56this deer, and in an enclosure that we commonly call
00:17:59Cheleh Khaneh, he gets trapped here.
00:18:03During this trapping, Sarbat
00:18:05Asher or Esther Khatoon, who is commonly
00:18:09talked about, is revealed to him.
00:18:13Who was Sarah Ahmed Asher, who is the granddaughter
00:18:16of Prophet Jacob? What important characteristic
00:18:20did this character have? When Prophet Jacob
00:18:23is waiting for Joseph, his son, and thinks
00:18:27he has lost him, Sarah
00:18:30or Sarah, his granddaughter,
00:18:33who is the daughter of Asher, another son of Prophet Jacob,
00:18:38gives the good news, she announces
00:18:40to Jacob that Joseph is alive.
00:18:44And Jacob prays for Sarah that
00:18:47if what you say is true and real and Joseph is alive,
00:18:51I will pray for you to have eternal life.
00:18:54And this belief exists in Jewish
00:18:58culture that Sarahbat Asher, through this prayer
00:19:01of Prophet Jacob, attains a special
00:19:05eternal life.
00:19:09She comes in many historical accounts
00:19:12and becomes a savior. So here, Sarahbat
00:19:15Asher, centuries later, is revealed
00:19:18to Shah Abbas Safavi and tells him
00:19:22that I will save you. Her request is that he
00:19:25allow the Jews in this area to have a
00:19:29place where they can bury their loved ones,
00:19:32and Shah Abbas grants
00:19:35this large area to the
00:19:38Jews of Isfahan as
00:19:41a shrine, which for centuries has been known
00:19:44as the largest and oldest Jewish cemetery in Isfahan.
00:19:46میشه
00:19:52And it's interesting that the city where Esther
00:19:56Khatoon or Sarahbat
00:19:59Asher exists, its name
00:20:01is Pir Bakran.
00:20:03The name of the city here. And why is it called Pir Bakran?
00:20:08Mohammad ibn Bakran, one of the great Muslim
00:20:12mystics, lived in this city. His shrine,
00:20:16tomb, mosque, and the places where he had schools
00:20:20are close to here.
00:20:22And it has an architecture similar to here.
00:20:26Meaning, exactly like what you see here, they even
00:20:30built something similar there.
00:20:37is the town of Puerbakron. It
00:20:40is said that this was the place where the first Jews set foot in the
00:20:43land that today there is an interpretation here.
00:20:47Of course, it
00:22:26comes. Here, the distance from the city was naturally
00:22:30very far. People would come by cart, horse,
00:22:34donkey, whatever they could, and perform burials
00:22:36here.
00:22:38In the past, what they used to do was even
00:22:42draw professions on tombstones. For example, if someone
00:22:46was a butcher, they would draw butcher tools
00:22:50on their tombstone to indicate this is a butcher, or they would draw scissors,
00:22:52meaning this is a hairdresser.
00:22:56This is my father's grave. He passed away
00:23:00almost 28 years ago, and
00:23:03he was an engineer at the oil company
00:23:06in Abadan. In his youth, due to a
00:23:10fire incident that occurred at the refinery in
00:23:12Abadan, despite going and saving several
00:23:16people from the fire and bringing them out to save them,
00:23:21he himself was severely burned in that fire.
00:23:25He was sent to London and was hospitalized in London
00:23:28for a very long time. When he was in the hospital in a coma,
00:23:32he saw one of the great Iranian rabbis
00:23:35in his dream, who asked him to read one
00:23:39of the chapters of Psalms, the Psalms of David,
00:23:42and by reading it, God would restore his
00:23:46health. When he came to Iran, because of the plastic
00:25:22surgeries he had undergone, he was no longer
00:25:23the same person.
00:25:32Suuridis,
00:25:43ludzina
00:25:45konfere.
00:25:56I told him, forgive me,
00:25:58it's a tent. And for what? For
00:26:01a tent whose cost
00:26:06was that he couldn't afford a tent for me. Back then, it was very expensive. It was 4,000 shekels and 5,000
00:26:10shekels. He couldn't afford
00:26:13go to the south.
00:26:18is for Palestinian men who can't even put basic food on the
00:26:22table. On one hand, there is their honor, but on the other
00:26:26hand, there's all the invisible unwaged work that women
00:26:29do and women are really the pillar. So if the
00:26:33woman is doing well, the men will do well.
00:26:50Hello, hi, welcome, can take a photo with
00:26:54us? Sure, I'll take it. You'll take it?
00:26:57Sure.
00:27:01Okay, okay. Look
00:27:04relaxed.
00:27:09Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Where are you
00:27:13from? I'm from Kansan. Beautiful. The rose water
00:27:17festival now, your country is not what they told us it
00:27:20was in our country. Well, they tell us everything is grim and
00:27:24dark here and all about war, and they and they
00:27:27don't tell us that also there are people of other religions living
00:27:31harmoniously.