The Modern-Day “Uncle Mordechai” Who Saved Countless Iranian Jews

On November 4, 1979, Iranian student supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini stormed the United States embassy in Tehran and took 52 American hostages, whom they held for 444 days. As part of U.S.’ response, On November 27, President Jimmy Carter issued executive order 12172, under which no Iranian would be allowed entry into the U.S. and those already here, including students, would be deported.

The setting of the event was an Islamic revolutionary Iran, an extremely frightened and defenseless Jewish community of 100,000 souls, and a mere few short months after the execution of Habib Elghanian, the head of the community, which had sent shock waves through the Jewish community of Iran, sending thousands fleeing the country in panic, including many who wanted to seek refuge in America where their student children, friends or relatives resided.

When the news of the executive order hit, my father, Moussa Kermanian, who, for decades was managing the community’s external relations, reached out to a dear friend, Morris (Morry) Katz with a request for help. Morry who had played a significant role in President Carter’s 1976 elections campaign and had a close friendship with the President agreed to help arrange a meeting at the White House for a delegation led by Kermanian to explain the predicaments of our community to the administration.

The momentous meeting took place in the spring of 1980. On the White House side, it was led by Stuart (Stu) Eizenstat, President Carter’s Senior Domestic Policy Advisor at the time, and included representatives from the Department of State, the then office of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Justice, NSC and OMB.

Our community’s delegation consisted of 10 reputable community members from various walks of like who were joined by Mark Talisman, the head of the office of Council of Jewish Federations in Washington. The result of that meeting was an agreement by the White House delegation, led by Stu, to allow all Iranian minority groups to apply for asylum in the United States, eventually opening the way for tens of thousands of our brethren to immigrate to, and reside in this country permanently.

The full scope of what went into this effort and the decades’ long ensuing activities undertaken by the Iranian-American Jewish Federation (IAJF- formed about a year later) in close coordination with, and help from, our friends in the larger Jewish community in order to build upon the outcome of that meeting and ensure the continuity of admittance into the U.S. is beyond the scope of this short article. Suffice it to say that those activities did not end there. It will not be an exaggeration to state that most members of our community who currently live in this country owe their ability to be here to Stuart Eizenstat and the efforts of that community delegation.

To ensure that these activities did not harm the remaining Jewish Community of Iran, all activities surrounding this endeavor remained secret for nearly 40 years. As part of maintaining their confidentiality the code name given to Stu Eizenstat within the IAJF’s External Relations Committee, was “Uncle Mordechai” after Queen Esther’s uncle, who helped save the Jews of Iran from annihilation at the hands of Haman 2,500 years earlier.

In his book, “President Carter”, Stu recounts the events of that meeting. Many years later, he stated that what guided his decision to help was the knowledge of how Jewish requests to come to the U.S. during World War II were denied by the then U.S. administration and how that fact had led him to commit to help other Jewish communities escape persecution if he was ever placed in that position.

Stu went on to serve in numerous other high-ranking positions at the Departments of State and Treasury in the years that followed and among his many other accomplishments, he successfully negotiated compensation for the victims of the Holocaust and the return of Jewish looted art to their true owners.

Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, our community’s Uncle Mordechai, will be visiting Los Angeles from the 24th to the 26^th of February on a tour of his latest book “The Art of Diplomacy” and will be the guest of Stephen S. Wise Temple on the evening of February 25.

Sam Kermanian served as a director on the board of the IAJF for 30 years, of which he held the position of Secretary General for 15 years.