A small Jewish minority in the historic desert city of Yazd condemned Israeli airstrikes on Iranian soil as “brutality and bestiality” and publicly backed Tehran’s call for a decisive and “crushing” military response, local news site YazdRasa reported.
Speaking for roughly 150 congregants, Khodadad Goharian, head of the Yazd Association of Jews, denounced the strikes – reported by Iranian media to have killed civilians, “including innocent children” – as “savage deeds” that have “deeply wounded the hearts of all Iranians.”
Iran’s Jewish population, once more than 100,000 under the Pahlavi dynasty, is today estimated at between 3,000 (per official outlets) and 10,000 (per independent demographers), with communities clustered in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, and smaller cities like Yazd, in central Iran. Despite constitutional protections for Judaism as one of four recognized faiths, communal leaders operate under tight state oversight, and public pronouncements often mirror government talking points.
Analysts and activists in the Diaspora caution that such statements reflect political pressure rather than private sentiment. They observed that “when Iran’s Jewish bodies speak out, they do so under the shadow of the regime.”
The Yazd statement invoked memories of the eight-year “Sacred Defense” against Iraq in the 1980s, urging national cohesion: “Through solidarity and empathy, we can stand against any enemy. The Jewish community of Yazd, regardless of religious or cultural differences, is an integral part of Iran and prays for this land’s prosperity.”
Goharian has made similarly forceful declarations in past regional interviews. In June 2021, he told YazdRasa that “the crimes of the Zionist regime in Iran are a clear manifestation of its brutality and bestiality.”
He has distanced local Jews from “this child-killing regime” and celebrated Iran’s unified support for figures like Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whom he described as “belonging to all freedom-loving people, including real Jews” – a reminder, he said, that “the Zionist party does not represent Judaism.”
And in a 2023 conversation with YazdRasa, Goharian condemned the Israel-Hamas War: “Jews worldwide disavow these inhumane and savage acts by the Zionist regime,” asserting that “no faith or free-thinking human being can endorse such crimes.”
Minorities with limited representation and subject to state supervision
The country’s roughly 89 million people include small Armenian, Assyrian-Chaldean, Zoroastrian, and Jewish minorities, each accorded limited representation in parliament but subject to state supervision.
On Monday, The Jerusalem Post detailed how the Esfahan Jewish Association and the Tehran Beit Din similarly condemned the June 13-15 strikes as “savage Zionist aggression,” lamented “the martyrdom of our beloved compatriots, including innocent children,” and vowed a “crushing and regret-inducing response.”
That report also noted how Iran’s lone Jewish MP urged “daily launches of thousands of drones and missiles” in retaliation, underscoring the narrow latitude for dissent among Iran’s 3,000-10,000 Jews, whose public voices now echo Tehran’s war narrative.