Despite Iran’s bitter hostility and military conflict with Israel and the West, the daily life of Tehran’s Jews offers an unexpected picture. In a school in a Jewish neighbourhood of Tehran, a portrait of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hangs with honour right beside a Jewish religious symbol.
The scene was shown in a special video report by CNN, the US broadcaster, on the life of Jews in the Iranian capital.
The report visits the Musa ibn Imran boys’ school in central Tehran. On one classroom wall stands a traditional menorah, one of the main symbols of Jewish culture, and right beside it hangs a portrait of Ayatollah Khamenei.
Almost all of the school’s pupils are Jewish, but both Jewish and Muslim teachers work there. Alongside Iran’s general national curriculum, the pupils study their religious law and the Hebrew language. Guidance on religious festivals is also taught to them in both Persian and Hebrew.
The report also shows a Jewish girls’ school, where religion and local culture meet in the same way. The pupils enjoy popular Persian songs and wear the hijab, as the country’s rules require at every school. The pupils said plainly that there is no hostility between Muslims and Jews locally, and that the two communities have long lived side by side in peace and friendship.
The CNN correspondent said the scene at the Tehran Jewish school was the complete opposite of the image of Iran common in the West, and not what he had expected.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report