‘Fade to Survive’: Iran’s Jews Keep Low Profile Under Islamic Republic
December 10, 2025
Awat Pouri
Students at Ali Khamenei’s office in Qom chant “Now we are all killers of Jews’ children” while state media broadcasts images of peaceful Jewish life in Tehran synagogues just 144 kilometers away.
This contradiction defines life for Iran’s roughly 10,000 remaining Jews, who must pledge loyalty to a government that routinely threatens Israel’s destruction on billboards written in Hebrew and erected near their own houses.
The Jewish community lives in a state of permanent contradiction, according to Elham Yaghoobian, a writer and human rights activist born in Tehran who now lives in the United States.
More than 80,000 Iranian Jews left after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Those who stayed have developed survival strategies based on low visibility and public demonstrations of loyalty, according to interviews with community observers and experts.
Jews hold one of several seats reserved for religious minorities in Iran’s parliament.
https://iranwire.com/en/religious-minorities/146871-fade-to-survive-irans-jews-keep-low-profile-under-islamic-republic/
