Three years ago, Raymond P., a 28-year-old Iranian Jew, was a full-fledged member of a notorious Los Angeles street gang. He sold drugs and suggests that he may have participated in violent crimes. He doesn\’t want to talk about specifics but explains by saying he was desperate to pay for his drug habit.
Local Iranian Jewish leaders George Haroonian and Bijan Khalli were involved in setting up the Museum of Tolerance event. They said they felt a responsibility as Jews to inform their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots about the truth of the Holocaust.
For the last eight years, Chadorchi, a Beverly Hills resident in her 20s, has become a rare jewel in the Persian Jewish community, quietly mobilizing a small army of friends, family members and local students to respond to the plight of the homeless in Los Angeles.
More than 2,000 Southern California Iranians from various religious backgrounds gathered in Westwood last weekend to demonstrate against calls for Israel\’s destruction by Iran\’s new president. Participants held high the flags of Iran, Israel and the United States as they marched along Wilshire Boulevard near the Federal Building.
Considered one of the oldest but least- studied Jewish writings in the world, Judeo-Persian writings consist of the Persian language written in Hebrew characters by Jews living in what today are Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and some parts of India during the last 1,000 years.
For more than 25 years, Shofet worked alongside his father, Hacham Yedidia Shofet, the community\’s longtime spiritual leader, who died last summer.
More than 2,000 mourners packed the Nessah Cultural Center in Beverly Hills this summer to bid farewell to Hacham Yedidia Shofet
Jahangir Javaheri lived a full life in Iran as a pharmaceutical retailer, complete with a nice car, large house and the esteem and satisfaction that came with being a leader within the nation\’s small but cohesive Jewish community.
Almost 30 years ago, Parvaneh Doustan Sarraf began teaching Judaism and Torah studies in Iran, becoming one of that community\’s first women to join a profession long dominated by men. Since then, she\’s taught a multitude of young students about the joys of Judaism at Jewish schools both in Iran and, currently, in New York.
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