In an effort to challenge the usual historiographical narrative about the Jewish diaspora, Lior B. Sternfeld researched alternative histories based on the experience of Iranian Jews. Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran helps better understand the complexities of the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel.
´The intense relationships between Iran and Israel since 1979 have given proeminence to the false dichotomies and wrong assumptions that dominate the discourse instead of facts´. Indeed, at the level of the everyday political and international fight, it looks like Iran and Israel and the Jews in general are separate and antagonistic topics. The histories - I love so much this plural of honesty because it modestly outlines and acknowledges the epistemological limits of history - told by Sternfeld are being told in a larger context of Iranian communities part of the Iranian society. Which means that there are Jews living in Iran as part of the society, bearing Muslim-sounding names, marrying non-Jews, taking part to events such as the Islamic Revolution or the Iran-Iraq war.
His main challenger is the usual Zionist-oriented historiography, which denies to the Jews the possibility of living anywhere else but in Israel, therefore their diaspora histories must be affected by benign anti-Semitism. Which anti-Semitism actually exists, including in Iran, but Sternfeld is looking for different kind of stories - although it is a bit of denial to not introduce the murdering of Habib Elghanian a proeminent leader of the Tehrani Jews condemned to death by a revolutionary tribunal. Which challenges the narrative that mostly the poor Iranian Jews were actually affected by anti-Semitism and made aliyah - although many of them were deeply disappointed by the unfriendly political attitudes towards non-European Jews and left for America or even returned to Iran. But this is rather a political than an academic debate and what the reader is left with are a couple of good histories not told too often about the complex community which can trace its genealogy from the Babylonian Exile.
Complex and preferably unbiased approached is the main approach that needs to be used when trying to understand the life of Jewish communities. Having in mind all those aspects is essential for a further acknowledgment of the diverse communities living in Israel, especially those originally from the Middle East. When the assumptions are eliminated from the historical research there are interesting realities revealing.
In the case of the Iranian Jews analysed in the book, it is worth mentioning the intellectual contributions of their representatives to the ideological construction of the Tudeh Party - which further developed as well individual contacts with members of the MAPAM, the Israeli United Workers´ Party active in Iran - as well as to the journalistic landscape during the Shah. Another historical chapter is represented by the support that members of the Jewish community offered to the prime-minister Mosaddeq, despite his partnership with the arguably anti-Semitic Ayatollah Kashani and his decision to severe ties with Israel. It would be interesting to read more (preferably) ideology-free contributions of the relationship between Iran and Israel - described off the record by the Shah himself as an ´extramarital affair´ - as well as of anti-Semitism during the Shah years. Another less known fact involves the Jewish presence during the protests that helped to install the Islamic Revolution, such as the fact that the Sapir Jewish Hospital in Tehran was used to treat wounded protesters protecting them from the long arm of SAVAK - the Shah´s internal security services with a reputation of no-mercy attitude towards political dissent. And there is even more: late in 1978, a delegation of the Jewish community visited to Paris the Ayatollah Khomeini himself in order to ensure that ´Jews would not be regarded as enemies of the revolution but rather as its supporters´.
The distinction between Jews and Zionists or rather between religious and political Zionism persists today and permeates the public discourse and personal attitudes in Iran. The role of micro-histories is to take the wise distance from the political and ideological stamps and look into the personal testimonies and human contacts. One day, those contacts will be more than mediated by words, but hopefully by the strength of human intellect and direct contacts between humans who can communicate beyond the brainswashing language of ideology. It´s worth waiting for those times.
Rating: 4 stars
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