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For the Kind Attention of His
Excellency Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the Esteemed Chief
of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran: It is now for some time that
the manners adopted by the country’s mass media, printed press, at
times, some books and certain writings, as well as certain unidentified
flyers, some programs broadcasted by the radio and television stations
dealing with the question of Judaism and the Jewish community, have
changed drastically in such a way that has raised alarm and caused
anxiety among the Jewish community in Iran. To make matters worse, the
aforementioned causes of concern have been coupled with threats through
crank calls and letters containing profanities made and sent to some
Iranian citizens of Jewish faith. Apart from the issue of the
current campaign against the Zionists and their atrocious measures, for
which the Iranian Jewish community has taken the appropriate measures to
be among the forefront leading communities to make tangible contribution
to the cause, we now stand witness to the regrettable fact that quite a
few biased and provocative articles are published almost on daily basis
and these most, if not all, contain false and selected interpretations
from the Jewish religious books and words of Hebrew prophets. These
articles not only fail to be in line with the principles of the Jewish
faith and other divine religions but also stand in absolute contrast to
the mottos, objectives and performances of the sacred Islamic Republic
of Iran’s (IRI) political system. The Iranian Jewish community,
which enjoys a long and enduring history of peaceful coexistence with
their Muslim compatriots in Iran and has employed all means available to
these Iranian citizens to bring fruition to the Islamic Revolution in
Iran, led by the late Imam Khomeini (RH) and actively participated in
the 8-year-long Iraqi imposed war on this country, now feels extremely
disappointed and discouraged in face of the current biased writings that
is said to be in line with the campaign against Zionism taken up by the
noble Muslims and people of
the world, since it seems that the campaign is gradually being
translated into a useless confrontation among religions. . . The writers and authors of
the aforementioned articles and books seem to be bent on trying to
mislead the revolutionary combatants and the public opinion by their
distorted writings and extremist religious and sectarian approaches. We wonder if it is not a well-founded maxim in
the IRI that every citizen must fully comply with the laws of the
country express his allegiance to them It is worth to mention that the
provisions of article 1 and 18 of the International Human Rights
declaration, the provisions of articles 1, 3, and 4 of the declaration
for doing away with all features religious discrimination and ethnic
bigotry based on compliance with the affording considerations to the
Jewish religious and ethnic rights, irrespective of their nationality
and their citizenship status are in support the said statements and the
provisions of articles 13,14, 19, 20, and 37 of the IRI constitution as
well as the visions held by the late Imam Khomeini (RH) in addition to
the principle of international right have all put the seal of approval
on the rights of the Iranian Jews. . . . We should like to draw
your attention to the response made by the late Imam (RH) to a foreign
journalist in this connection: Quoted question: Being an
Iranian citizen has rendered a strong foundation to the nation-statehood
of the country and religious differences have created little, if any,
frictions among the religious minorities, such as the Jews, the
Christians, or the clerics of the religious minorities in Iran. How
would the religious minorities fare under the government of your choice? Quoted Answer: Islamism has
created much stronger ties among Iranian citizens than their national
citizenship status. The religious minorities not only enjoy the very
same freedom as others but also it is incumbent upon the Islamic
government to defend the rights of all established religious minorities
of the country as well; furthermore, every Iranian citizen has the right
to enjoy the very same social rights enjoyed by all citizens no matter
whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews or of another faith for
that matter. [Extracted from the text script
of Imam Khomeini’s (RH) interview with a German daily on November 15,
1979] . . . It goes without saying
that the contents and principles of Judaism faith have not been
subjected to fundamental change ever since the time of the holy Prophet
of Islam (SWAS) and in light of the holy Prophet’s full understanding
of the Judaist faith nature, the Prophet of Islam (SWAS) could never
entertain the idea of extermination of the Jews and profanation of the
religion. Those who are now, after the
passage of 1400 years, engaged in making new interpretations of the
Quranic verses pertaining to the divine promise of destroying all the
Jews are expectedly thought as being totally divorced from the teachings
of the holy Prophet of Islam (SWAS). . . . Briefly, such approaches
as mentioned in the above boil down to mere anti-Semitism and a true
manifestation of racism, while God the Almighty has said in the holy
Quran that individuals must be judged based on their actions and their
faith. (Citation of Quranic verses Al-Umran, Verses 113-114 in support
of the latter statement). Translation: “Not all believers of
monotheistic faiths are similar in their natures. Some behave and
conduct themselves finely and recite divine verses in the small hours of
the night and kowtow to the Almighty since they believe in the
resurrection day and try to engage in charitable actions and refrain
from evil manners as well rush to volunteer in doing good deeds. These
individuals are among the elites.” “We have set a clear path for
the nations of every single monotheistic faith and if God wished so he
would have brought all the nations into a single one. However, he
desired to test you by giving you what he has. So, try to compete
against one another in performing good deeds. Every person ultimately
returns to God and then He will inform you of the nature of your
disputes.” (Maedeh, 48) Your Excellency, Ayatollah
Hashemi Shahroudi: While
once again the Iranian Jewish community declares its unswerving
allegiance and adherence to the values of the Islamic Republic of Iran
and shall take pains to live up to the expectations of being dutiful
citizens in the service to this country and by way of safeguarding the
national Iranian and Jewish religion values, this community insists that
the biased propaganda campaign and violation of rights against it be
stopped in concurrence with the establishment and institutionalization
of the Iranian citizens’ rights as a more realistic perspective of the
current numerous political and social woes, which stare at our dear
country in the face, is contemplated in the national and international
arenas. We should like to insist that the complaints enumerated in this
letter be followed up at the earliest and expedient measures be put into
effect to stop the profanation and cultural onslaught waged against the
Jewish sanctities. We are of the opinion that any
disregard or negligence afforded to the perpetrators violators and
writers of the aforementioned articles, at least in some specific cases
of the kind, would be tantamount to severe and imminent menace to the
social security of the Jewish citizens in this country. The Iranian Jewish community
insists on safeguarding and maintaining all its citizenship right and
privileges for spending living in its motherland country of the IRI. We
are Jews and would like to remain as Jews but our faith has inextricably
been mingled with our love for Iran and the Iranian people. We should like the present
propaganda onslaught against Judaist faith and Iranian Jews to be
brought to a halt. We take pride in the fact that
we have been lucky to be spared from falling into the trap set for us by
the Zionists to make us emigrate to America and Israel. Undoubtedly, the crass ignorant
can never persuades us to renounce our citizenship to turn us into
cannon fodder for the Zionist entity. We hereby enclose some cases of
the unprecedented aforementioned provocative onslaught inflicted upon
the Iranian Jewish community by some press and writings that are
regarded as veritable direct insults to the Jews and their faith. Yours very truly Board of Directors of Tehran
Jewish Committee |
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