July 23, 2021

“Take a picture of us,” my father implored last week during what he described as one of his greatest celebrity sightings in Los Angeles.

“Alright,” I responded, “but I want a photo, too.”

The object of our wonder wasn’t a film or television star (this is Los Angeles, after all); it was an 81-year-old Iranian-Israeli veteran radio broadcaster named Menashe Amir.

Amir isn’t a household name in the United States. But if you’re an Iranian Jew of a certain age, whether in Westwood, Tel Aviv or Tehran, you will instantly recognize his legendary, comforting voice.

For 57 years, Amir served as a broadcaster for Kol Israel (“Voice of Israel”/”Sedaye Israel”) Persian radio, which was based in Jerusalem and broadcast to millions of Persian-speakers around the world, including in Iran. Amir has served as an all-knowing, trustworthy father figure for generations of Iranians, even before the Islamic Revolution, when Iran and Israel enjoyed friendly ties. In fact, it’s with deep reverence and gratitude that I liken Amir to an Iranian-Israeli Edward R. Murrow, if Murrow had lived in exile outside the U.S., but never lost his love for the country or its people.

For nearly six decades, Iranians woke up to the famous opening words of Amir’s daily broadcast: “Here [in] Jerusalem: This is Voice of Israel.” Growing up, whether in Iran or America (the program played during the mornings in the U.S. and early evenings in Iran), I knew better than to disrupt my father’s daily radio ritual, as Amir reported news about Iran and took calls from Iranians in cities ranging from Isfahan to Mashhad. Most of those callers were Iranian Muslims who described the hardships of life under oppression and expressed kinship with Israelis.

For nearly six decades, Iranians woke up to the famous opening words of Amir’s daily broadcast: “Here [in] Jerusalem: This is Voice of Israel.”

How was anyone in post-revolutionary Iran, which has an official state policy identifying Israel as an enemy state, able to call a radio station in Jerusalem? Iranians called a phone number in Germany, and their calls were routed to Israel. For some reason, the regime couldn’t prevent such calls, nor could it jam the Israel-based transmitters. Amir always asked his callers to announce from where they were calling. If they were still in Iran, he immediately asked them about the situation on the ground, whether in 1979 or 2009.

The secret to Amir’s success in reaching Iranians is twofold: He’s an unabashed champion of the Iranian people and of democracy; and he reports news that the regime itself keeps under wraps.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it wasn’t uncommon for many Iranians to tape record Amir’s broadcasts and secretly give them to friends and family; such tapes were even exchanged between children on playgrounds. That’s how many Iranians of all faiths came to trust and rely on Amir and Kol Israel. His voice was even heard on taxi radios.

That same inimitable voice resonated through the large ballroom of Neman Hall at the Iranian-American Jewish Federation (IAJF) in West Hollywood last week, as Amir spoke to hundreds at an event hosted by IAJF on July 13. Naturally, I attended with my father. It was our first in-person event in 16 months, made even more extraordinary because we were surrounded by our own community.

“Menashe Amir’s voice brings us back to a time when we felt more peace and dignity in [pre-revolutionary] Iran,” announced event moderator Zohreh Mizrahi, a local immigration attorney and IAJF lay leader, as she introduced Amir.

His first order of business on stage? Declaring a wholly inseparable bond between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Amir then commended the local Iranian American Jewish community for having created IAJF immediately upon arriving in the U.S. (in 1980).

“Often, the community has a tendency of acknowledging the contributions of its dedicated members posthumously,” Mizrahi told the Journal. “In this case, IAJF has been a pioneer in presenting and showcasing the value that the Diaspora community has offered, not just locally but also globally, when such recognition is due.”

Amir astutely reminded the audience that the event was taking place during the saddest days of the Jewish calendar—the nine days before Tisha B’Av. And then, he made an extraordinary observation: “Jews haven’t forgotten Israel and Jerusalem after 2,000 years. Iranians shouldn’t forget the real Iran after only 42 years,” he said in reference to the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the secular, Westernized Shah and established an oppressive theocracy, with absolute power in the hands of a Supreme Leader. Before the revolution, there were 100,000 Jews in Iran; today, only 5,000 to 8,000 remain.

In a phone interview with Amir during a brief trip to San Francisco before he returns to Israel, I asked him why, after living in Israel for 61 years, his Persian was still so eloquently fluent. In fact, his impressive vocabulary is one of the many keys to his credibility with Iranian listeners.

“Every day after I came to Israel, I made sure to speak and write in Persian,” he said, acknowledging that his late wife, Sofia, who passed away in 2018, would joke that their home outside of Jerusalem was like a Persian museum because it contained so many Persian works of art.

I also asked Amir whether, four decades ago, he could have imagined that the regime would have lasted so long. “No,” he responded, “I couldn’t have thought it; [Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini annihilated so many groups in order to consolidate power. And when the [Iran-Iraq] War started, everyone thought the regime would fall, but that only strengthened and nourished Khomeini.” Amir attests that even Khomeini listened to Kol Israel broadcasts.

As a former colonel in the Israel Air Force, one of Amir’s sons became familiar with the geopolitics of Iran. When Amir asked his son if he thought the regime would fall, he answered, “No, dad. It won’t.”

During the conversation with Mizrahi, Amir discussed a range of topics, from the Abraham Accords to the Biden administration’s Iran strategy. “Americans are very good-hearted,” he said, “but they don’t understand the political reality of what it’s like to actually live in the Middle East.” At one point, Amir made a diplomatic statement about former President Jimmy Carter, whom many Iranians loathe for having enabled the revolution. Gauging the audience’s response, Mizrahi joked that attendees might deport Amir back to Iran. My only thought? I hadn’t realized how much I missed in-person events. Such spontaneous audience engagement simply isn’t the same on Zoom.

In fact, I found myself as sentimental as ever, savoring each moment of the event, looking into the eyes and expressions of audience members and being reminded of how much I’ve simply missed faces. As the entire program was spoken in Persian, I also realized that I don’t know anyone under the age of 35 who would have understood most of what was being said. As for Amir, there’s a dangerous dearth of young, fluent Persian-speakers in Israel who could succeed him, but that’s for another column.

“American Jewish youth have been raised under the overwhelming shadows of a strong Israel and a free America, and have grown too comfortable and complacent, to the point that they need not worry about the re-emergence of the old hatred [of antisemitism],” Mizrahi told me. “So, more than the avid followers of Mr. Amir, younger Jews must take part in such conversations to learn from the former’s vast knowledge of the history, Israel, Iran, and the Middle-East.”

Engaging youth is critical for Amir, who recently published a series of interviews he conducted with the late Amnon Netzer, an Iranian-born, Israeli journalist, professor and researcher who was also a prominent broadcaster for Kol Israel. The aim of the book —“Jews, Iran, Israel”—which was also translated into English by Farshid Delshad, is to empower young Jews of all backgrounds to be experts about Jewish history. Amir is also working on an English-French-Persian dictionary.

Amir (ne Manouchehr Sachmachi) was born in a Jewish quarter (mahaleh) of Tehran in 1939. His parents were from the northern city of Hamadan, home to the ancient tombs of Esther and Mordechai (called “Shushan” in the Megillah of Esther). His father served in Reza Shah Pahlavi’s army.

During World War II, a young Amir listened to Nazi propaganda radio that was broadcast from Germany to Iran. He also loved listening to a local radio station in Tehran. This inspired him to sit in his bedroom, face a wall, and pretend to be a radio broadcaster. He also developed a love of foreign languages, eventually learning French, Hebrew, and Arabic, in addition to Persian.

At the age of 17, Amir began working as a journalist for the popular daily Tehran newspaper, Kayhan, an unusual profession for a Jew in Iran (ironically, after the revolution, it became one of the most conservative papers in Iran).That same year, he traveled to Israel as part of an educational delegation and fell in love with the country, making aliyahthree years later in 1960. He eventually met and married his late wife, an Argentinian Jew whose family was Ashkenazi. They had two sons.

He returned to Iran for a brief visit in 1978, on the eve of the revolution, never to return again. His reporting from Israel proved indispensable during the chaotic turmoil of the revolution and its aftermath.

“During the Iranian hostage crisis, from Nov. 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, we relied on [Menashe] Amir’s views and his sources to understand the negotiation process and intertwined political conflicts with more transparency and clarity,” IAJF President Susan Azizzadeh told the Journal. “For 444 days, the world waited for his interpretation of the political changes that the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) brought to the country.”

Such reflections offer a sense of how tightly the new regime controlled the media; Iranians were forced to rely on a foreign country, Israel, to offer them truthful reporting about events at home.

During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Kol Israel Persian was the only regional broadcaster (beside Radio Baghdad) to warn millions of Iranians when Iran would be bombed each evening (early evening broadcasts played at 6:30 p.m.). I remember those shortwave radio broadcasts and Amir’s comforting voice vividly. I also recall wondering why Israel, and not my own government, was warning residents of imminent attacks.

I remember those shortwave radio broadcasts and Amir’s comforting voice vividly. I also recall wondering why Israel, and not my own government, was warning residents of imminent attacks.

How did Amir know about planned bombings? He and his staff listened to Arabic-language programs on Radio Baghdad.

Kol Israel also broadcasted Persian music from exiled Iranian artists. The station (and bootleg music tapes) were virtually the only options for millions of Iranians who longed for the forbidden pop music that was banned after the revolution. In the early 1980s, Amir announced a daily count of days since Israeli pilot Ron Arad went missing in Lebanon, imploring listeners to call if they had any information about him.

Most of today’s Persian-language call-in shows, whether on radio, television, or online, owe much of their formats to Voice of Israel Persian. For years, Amir broadcast alongside Farnoush Ram, a formidable and knowledgeable Iranian-Israeli who became a leading female producer and commentator in her own right (and who now serves as a Radio Farda correspondent in Israel for Radio RFE/RL).

But in May 2017, Israel closed down the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), which ran Kol Israel, and restructured its state broadcasting. Suddenly, Kol Israel Persian offered its last broadcast. It is without hyperbole that I recall that day as one of the hardest of my father’s life; nearly every Iranian Jew over the age of 50 with whom I spoke in Los Angeles that month lamented the end of the program (and a devastating end to their daily radio ritual, which offered the voice and commentary of Amir as an old, knowledgeable friend).

The decision to close Kol Israel Persian, according to Amir, was “a foolish move by bureaucrats who didn’t understand the value of Persian language reporting.” In response, Amir created his own website, which featured written news reports and audio clips in Persian. In December 2017, he launched Radio Payam-e-Israel (“Message of Israel”), which offers written news reports, and which, before July 1, also provided audio broadcasts featuring Amir (the latter have been suspended due to budgetary constraints, but the news reports are written and updated daily).

In Jan. 2018, Khan, a new publicly-funded Israeli broadcaster, re-launched Kol Israel’s Persian broadcasts with a new editor. But without Amir’s trademark voice, it was akin to “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” without Oprah Winfrey.

During his recent visit to California, Amir was accompanied by journalist, Faranak Herott, who helps manage Radio Payam-e-Israel. He also spoke at Eretz Synagogue and Cultural Center in Tarzana, as well as at Chabad of Lamorinda in Lafayette, near San Francisco. He gave several interviews for local Persian-language television shows, and was also hosted by a milieu of Iranian Americans at their homes. According to Amir, nearly each person asked him when they could hear his voice on the digital radio station again.

During a recent television appearance, Amir was gifted a pre-revolutionary [Imperial] Iranian flag. He kissed it tenderly. When Mizrahi asked him whether he felt more Iranian or Israeli, he responded, “I’m 100 percent Iranian. I’m also 100 percent Israeli.”

It is my hope that he will read the following words while he is still with us, filled with as much passion and vitality as ever: There will never be another Menashe Amir.

In an age when even the unqualified are extolled as experts, Amir is one of the last, true experts in his field, fueled by an insatiable love for Iran, Israel and the Jewish people. It’s no wonder that the audience at Temple Beth El listened to him with rapt attention, like children listening to a wise and comforting father (even though some attendees were older than him). His relationship with listeners can never be duplicated.

At the end of the program, an elderly Iranian man held the microphone that was set up for audience questions and lovingly announced that he hadn’t seen his “old friend,” Amir, in 70 years. The audience applauded enthusiastically and Amir was visibly touched. The man then proceeded to tell his life story before finally asking a question.

It was a testament to the pulsating, incomparable magic of being with others face to face. But more than anything, it was the best reminder of the love and trust between Amir and millions of grateful listeners around the world.

For advanced copies of “Iran, Jews, Israel,” email Iran.jews.israel@gmail.com

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Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and activist. Follow her on Twitter @RefaelTabby

 

Twenty-five years ago, the prominent Conservative rabbi Harold Schulweis of Encino’s Valley Beth Shalom (VBS) Synagogue had a modest proposal. In response to the greater freedom of Jews in America and in much of the world, and the high Jewish attrition after intermarriage, he suggested Judaism return to its ancient tradition of proselytizing. In doing so, Judaism could tap into the millions of cultural Christians and others who yearn for a rich tradition and a deep spiritual experience.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, who have typically focused on bringing in less affiliated Jews, Schulweis recognized that outreach and inreach were one and the same. In a mixed society, many Jews are so deeply embedded in their surrounding communities and detached from Jewish life that they may not be reached by outreach efforts aimed at Jews. According to the most recent Pew survey, intermarriage rates among the U.S. non-Orthodox Jewish community have climbed above 70%, with only 28% of parents in intermarriages raising their children within Judaism.

In a sense, this is a measure of the success of liberal streams of Judaism, whose goal was to create well-integrated Jews, and of a larger non-Jewish society that can be open enough to welcome these Jews even as marriage partners. Many Jews would like to fully participate in the surrounding society, and they are largely successful. But the Jewish aspect of their lives is an odd piece out. In a world that values new developments and advancement, it is a religious tradition that emphasizes its continuity with ancient times. In a world that values pluralism, it is an ethnicity and a religion at the same time. In a world that values rationalism, it is a theistic faith.

So, even before Jewish affiliation is lost, traditional Judaism is on the defensive in these communities. Practices as intensive as keeping kosher and observing Shabbat are isolating, dating only Jews limits one’s options, and the special tie of many Jews to Israel—home of nearly half the world’s Jews—is increasingly being attacked. Over the course of several generations, the Jewish aspect of these people’s lives often becomes ever-smaller, until it disappears.

Over the course of several generations, the Jewish aspect of these people’s lives often becomes ever-smaller, until it disappears.

Traditional Jews have responded by creating religious enclaves, some turning to hyper-religiosity. However, this approach misses many Jews even in the major Diaspora population centers and is not practical in areas without a critically large Jewish community. Separatism is also, in a sense, an admission of defeat. It is an acquiescence to the idea that Judaism is peripheral enough and adds little enough to the surrounding community that individuals and groups can pull away with few effects. This is not true. Throughout history, from the Islamic Golden Age to the European Enlightenment to today’s America, Jews—especially secular Jews—have contributed to numerous creative disciplines out of proportion to their numbers. A world separate from its Jews would be missing much of its character.

Fortunately, there is a third way, one that has been little explored. That way is to work to absorb the surrounding community. Just as Jews are integrated and become part of other communities, members of these communities can also be integrated and join the Jewish people. This is the fullest acknowledgment that Judaism is not only an ancestry, and that Jews are not simply one people among many. Rather, Jews make up a vital world civilization that continues to be relevant to its practitioners. Jewish outreach must be attractive without being intrusive, as well as mindful of other groups. If it is, it will go a long way toward helping people understand Judaism.

Our silence about the value of being Jewish is a striking contrast to our willingness to be loud about other Jewish issues. We are not shy about calling out antisemitism or about discussing the importance of Israel as a state for the Jewish people. While we expect others to accommodate us in these areas, making sometimes extensive demands, we are mostly mum about the flip side—what Judaism actually is, how belonging to it enhances our lives, and what Jews offer world culture. Becoming more vocal about Judaism would enable us to offer positive insights and experiences to those around us.

Since Schulweis’s call to action, only a handful of rabbis and Jewish communities have taken steps similar to those he advocated. Valley Beth Shalom continues to maintain its conversion outreach program even after his death. Others have moved along similar lines, largely independent of one another. For example, Conservative rabbi Michael Gilboa of the Detroit area’s B’nai Israel Synagogue maintains an Internet-based program of Open Outreach. Reform rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp of Cincinnati’s Temple Sholom broadcast her synagogue services on local television to spread Judaism to the widest possible audience, Jewish or not. Several years ago, the well-known Orthodox rabbi Shmuley Boteach came out in favor of Jewish proselytization. A few funds, such as the National Center to Encourage Judaism’s grants for educational programs, have become available for Jewish outreach intended for people who do not identify as Jewish. Even with their limited reach, such efforts have brought thousands of people into Judaism.

In order for Judaism to remain relevant, it is time to fully embrace the promotion of its relevance, not only to born Jews but also to the wider world.

Despite the energetic and successful open outreach programs at smaller scales, few efforts have been made to coordinate its practitioners, analyze what works, prioritize, and support similar initiatives at the scale needed to impact the Jewish demographic. In order for Judaism to remain relevant, it is time to fully embrace the promotion of its relevance, not only to born Jews but also to the wider world. If we practice explaining why Judaism is relevant to people of many different cultural backgrounds and walks of life, we will better understand its relevance for ourselves and our children.

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Rebecca Sealfon is a Reconstructionist Jewish writer and social media consultant who lives in New York City. She started and maintains a popular Israel-Palestine peace forum called Unity is Strength, which receives more than 1,000,000 views per year and attracts writers from Israel, Palestine, and all over the world. Rebecca has published in the New York Daily News, Smithsonian magazine, and the Daily Beast, as well as appeared multiple times on NBC’s Rosie O’Donnell Show.