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This morning, like every morning for the past two weeks, the first thing I did upon waking was search for news of Iran. Have the protests continued? Will they get the help they so desperately need?
I was sure I would wake up to news of American intervention. Now it’s unclear whether that will happen.
I’ve been so inspired by the brave men and women of Iran taking to the streets, calling for the ouster of the Islamic regime. Thousands keep protesting at risk of death.
But I also feel deep dread. It hurts to see so many killed. Will all this courage end in more slaughter?
If this movement fails, it will be disastrous not only for Iranians, but for everyone watching to see whether freedom can still triumph over tyranny.
At the same time, my family and friends in Israel are again bracing for sirens and shelters, because tyranny never contains its violence neatly within borders.
My connection to Iran goes beyond geopolitics. I spent my teenage years in a Persian Jewish community in Great Neck, NY, and I have relatives from Mashhad and Tehran. I love Persian Jewish culture, its music, its cuisine, its warmth.
The pain over Iran is compounded by the ugly hypocrisy of much of the global left, which cannot bring itself to support Iranians. No campus protests. Barely any Hollywood voices. No Jews, no news.
But Jewish tradition offers no such luxury of looking away. This week’s parasha, Vaera, reframes what is at stake. It teaches that tyranny is not a foreign tragedy we merely witness, but a moral reality that makes a claim on us.
To be a Jew is to belong to a tradition that denies divine status to human power. To be a Jew is to refuse........