The slaying of four innocent Jews in a kosher market in Paris last week sent shockwaves throughout the Jewish communities worldwide and an outpouring of support from various Jewish communities for France’s Jews. Perhaps one of the most emotional signs of support in my opinion has come from my own community of Iranian Jews here in Los Angeles. Southern California’s Iranian Jewish community’s strong solidarity with French Jews has not surprising come from “LeDorVaDor” a newly established Iranian Jewish youth group working in conjunction with the Beverly Hills-based Nessah synagogue. The group’s objective has been to promote community activism, Zionism and philanthropy among young Iranian Jews. Recently I spoke with the group’s leader Daniel Babajoni who shed light on why young Iranian Jews in the U.S. feel such a strong sense of brotherhood with France’s Jews during this time. “LeDorVaDor is proud to stand in solidarity with France through this tragic time,” said Daniel Babajoni, the Iranian Jewish head of LeDorVaDor. “We are not afraid to show the world we are proud to be Jewish and are not afraid to stand for what's right! As a family, and as young professionals of our community, we stand strong for the freedom of speech, liberty and right to religion”. I am quite proud of LeDorVaDor and the other Iranian Jewish groups in New York and L.A. who have pledged their support for French Jewry and denounced the radical Islamic violence plaguing Europe today.
It is indeed not a surprise for us as Iranian Jews living successful and free lives in America to have a very strong affinity and bond with the Jews of France. Our community of 40,000 Iranian Jews in Los Angeles, 20,000 Iranian Jews in New York and less than 10,000 Jews still living in Iran owes a great debt of gratitude and the livelihoods of our families to the French Jewish “Alliance Israelite Universalle” (AIU) organization. Between 1898 and 1979, the AIU provided secular and Jewish education to Jews living throughout Iran, an effort that indirectly resulted in Iranian Jews gaining high education, eventual wealth and leaving their ghettos in Iran. Had the very kind and generous philanthropic Jews of France in 1898 not established the AIU schools in Iran for Iranian Jews, many of us Jews would probably still be living in poverty in Iran and our grandparents and great-grandparents may not have obtained the high levels of education necessary for them to pull themselves out of the Jewish ghettos in Iran. If the Jews of France had not given us a sense of Jewish pride, not helped teach us Hebrew, not encouraged us to seek higher education in the West and not instill in us a love of Zionism through the AIU schools, I doubt very much we as Iranian Jews today in the U.S. would have had such success, such a strong bond to the larger Jewish community and to Israel. The Jews of France and the AIU gave us hope and a sense of Jewish brotherhood which many of us in L.A.’s Iranian Jewish community today refuse to forget!
Today as France’s Jews face a dire situation with growing anti-Semitism and insecurity in France, we as Iranian Jews in America stand shoulder to shoulder with them. We know what it feels like to live in fear of your life in the country you were born in because as Jews we faced this same violence and insecurity in Iran after the 1979 Iranian revolution. I wrote a brief story in 2008 about how L.A.’s Iranian Jews raised money and thanked the AIU for their gift of education to our community for more than 80 years in Iran. We stand proudly with you Jews of France and proclaim to the world…Je Suis Juif!
