A thought-provoking — and exclusive — conversation with Rabbi Yehuda Gerami, Tehran’s American-educated chief rabbi
Photos: Personal archives
"A revered national hero” is how Tehran’s chief rabbi Yehuda Gerami referred to Islamic Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani, assassinated in a targeted US Air Force drone strike in January 2020. And amid the turbulence in Tehran surrounding Soleimani’s death, media users saw photos of an unusual condolence call — a black-hatted delegation from Iran’s Jewish community, led by Rabbi Gerami, paying their respects to the family of the slain general who had dedicated his life to wiping out the State of Israel.
The photographs were a stark reminder that despite reports of oppression and modern memories of fleeing masses, a Jewish kehillah still exists in Iran. With a population variously pegged between 8,000 and 15,000, mainly concentrated in the cities of Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan, the community supports a network of government-sanctioned religious services, including shuls, yeshivos, kollelim, shechitah, mikvaos, and training for mohelim.
Rabbi Gerami is just 35, but in recent years his star has risen as the respected leader of this vibrant kehillah of Iranian Jewry. He leads a robust community in the land of the ayatollahs, having restored the institution of the Iranian rabbinate to its golden age. But what does Rabbi Gerami really think? Does he really view Qassem Soleimani as a national hero, while most of the Western world considered him an arch-terrorist?
Soleimani was a major thorn in the side of US and Israel, held responsible for countless terror attacks against Israeli and American targets. After his death at the hands of the Americans under commander-in-chief Trump, Israelis celebrated, Americans cracked open champagne, and many Jews quoted the pasuk “ken yovdu kol oyevecha Hashem (likewise all your enemies shall be eliminated).”
But Rabbi Yehuda Gerami wasn’t smiling. He and the thousands of Jews living in Iran are in that most delicate of positions, caught between their identity as part of the Jewish People, with which the State of Israel is identified, and loyalty to their native land.
So who is Rabbi Yehuda Gerami? An anti-Zionist Jew with strong Iranian loyalties, or just a careful young talmid chacham who’s making sure to stay on the regime’s good side? In order to try and solve the riddle, I made contact with Rabbi Gerami to ask him directly.
The fact that our conversation took place at all — with me in Israel and Rabbi Gerami in the Islamic Republic of Shiite Iran — was a surprise in itself. We videoconferenced while he was at home in one of Tehran’s upper-class neighborhoods, speaking fluent Hebrew with a thick Iranian accent. Of course, we had to stay on “safe” subjects, and odds are that we’ll never be able to meet in person — at least not in the near future, as long as Iran continues its threats to wipe Israel off the map and to build up its nuclear arsenal. But with the wonders of modern technology, we can talk any time, even if we’re both in enemy territory. (While Zoom is blocked in Iran, we’re able to use a WhatsApp video call as an alternative.)
