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Egypt: Jewish New Year celebrated at Heliopolis synagogue for first time in 70 years, while in Tehran services are televised by the gov’t
[AlAhram] The Egyptian Jewish community celebrated on Friday the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) at the Vitali Madjar Synagogue in Heliopolis on Friday for the first time in 70 years.The celebration, organized by the Drop of Milk Egypt NGO, was attended by members of the small Jewish community in Cairo as well as foreign diplomats and Egyptians of other faiths. Since its inauguration in 1928, the synagogue has been renovated several times, including most recently in 2017. Recently, the Vitali Madjar synagogue hosted a number of events including Hanukkah in December 2022. The Jewish New Year service was led by Magda Haron, head of the Jewish community in Cairo The year 5784 in the Jewish calendar began at sunset on 15 September. Worshipers pack Tehran synagogue for Selichot service ahead of Rosh Hashanah [IsraelTimes] Some two hundred worshipers attended a Selichot service this this week in the Iranian capital Iran, according to footage broadcast by the Kan public broadcaster on Friday. The nightly Selichot prayers — a litany of penitential and supplicant prayers — are held in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which began on Friday night. The service was led by Iran’s Chief Rabbi Yehuda Gerami. Prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there were some 100,000 Jews in Iran; by 2016, according to an Iranian census, that number had fallen to below 10,000. This year, Rosh Hashanah coincides with the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iranian police, which sparked weeks of widespread protests. Security forces were deployed across Iran  ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word Iranis a cognate form of Aryan.The abbreviation IRGCis the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either Duceor Führeror maybe both. They hate on Saturday, amid regime fears of renewed unrest. A number of members of the Tehran Jewish community were detained amid the protests last year. At the time, the Tehran Central Jewish Committee issued a letter, in which it said it was standing by the Iranian regime amid its deadly crackdown on protesters. The Jewish community in Iran has previously taken other precautionary measures to protect members, with Gerami saying in 2021 that he condemned the US killing of top Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani  in 2020, amid fears Jews could be physically attacked by some Moslem neighbors.Prominent figures in the Jewish community of Iran intermittently issue anti-Israel statements that match the regime’s agenda. Meanwhile in Egypt, prayers were held at a Cairo synagogue on Friday night for the first time in 70 years, Kan reported. A number of members of Cairo’s small remaining Jewish community attended the service at the 100-year-old Vitali Madjar Synagogue, alongside foreign diplomats. Egypt’s Jewish community, which dates back millennia, numbered around 80,000 in the 1940s, but today is thought to stand at fewer than 20 people. The departure of Egypt’s Jews was fueled by rising nationalist sentiment during the Arab-Israeli wars, harassment, and some direct expulsions by then-Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. ...also a law which made it illegal for any Jewish male to be in the country after his eighteenth birthday. Some stayed, of course, but most left. Their sisters followed, because without the young men, who were they to marry? Bat Ye’or, who wrote about Eurabia and the idea of dhimmitude, was one of the latter. Posted by: trailing wife 2023-09-17 |
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