14 thoughts on “Dissident Ayatollah Offers High Holiday Blessings – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. this letter is so beautiful and full of blessings. the content of the letter made me imagine an ideal world full of love and harmony and everyone sends their greetings to everyone who are from different religions. i like it.

  2. Thanks for posting this most beautiful greeting for our new year.

    This corresponds well with what Muslim individuals I knew (Sunni and Shiite, born-Muslims and converts) told me — that Islam is first and foremost about promoting tolerance, justice and respect to all.

    What a shame so many clerics, of all creeds, abuse their positions and followers’ trust to promote the opposite.

  3. Richard, something seems to be going wrong with these comments’ time-stamps.

    My earlier comment is stamped:
    — September 30, 2011 at 10:37 AM

    While my later one’s stamp is:
    — September 30, 2011 at 7:01 AM

    Is it related to those lately-detected apparent flaws in uncle Albert’s time-space?

  4. This was a sweet gesture and a true showing of what core Iranian values are supposed to espouse – and the fact is, Iranians espouse these values by the millions. Thank you very much for publishing this. It is important that we bridge our civilizations instead of create fake clashes.

    As for putting him in danger, he would be in none. The Qu’uran demands that the people of the book be respected, and that includes Jews (Shiism was, in part, a sect that became a permanent Islamic fixture from the Iranian peoples’ will to force the inclusion of Zoroastrianism within this principle). Sharia law in Iran follows suit.

    This notion that even the Iranian government is anti-Jewish is hocus pocus. Iran has a Chief Rabbi. There are synagogues inside Tehran. Jews in Iran are not prejudiced against in that society for being Jewish. The Iranian government does not persecute Jews. The differentiation between Zionism, a political principle, and Judaism is unquestionable amongst Iranians — the lines being blurred in the West so as to scapegoat Judaism for wrongs committed by a criminal few. Those in Iran who are racist against other Iranians for religious beliefs are not being IRANIAN. The same goes for Jews who preach murder (they aren’t being JEWISH). Or the criminal class that has hijacked America – they say they’re American, but they certainly don’t act American.

    It’s a chauvinism, a human one, that transfers this guilt of prejudice from actual racists in Europe and other parts to a people that never really had such hatred. This is not an Iranian facet of life, not for 10,000+ years, not now. Neither is racial purity. We are proud of our various intersecting ethnic origins, united several millennia before Europe ever came to prominence. It’s a wrong calculus to think that these factions can be separated – it will only result in the opposite, but I digress…

    I agree that the government of Iran does many things wrong, but I believe more strongly in the line from Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.” This Ayatollah is in prison for something other than sending blessings to Jews (the separation of church and state is the undoing of the clerical establishment – an overthrow of a government – a revolution). He is the paradigm of Iranian thought.

  5. Richard I would suggest that the ‘ranting’ is not a two-way thing.

    From Israel, it is ranting.

    From Iran, it is rational concern for its security: two of its neighbours conquered and destroyed – Iraq and Afghanistan – with itself openly talked about as the next target by Israel and the US – both nuclear states.

    Add to this that Pakistan, India, Russia and China all have nukes, Iran is being encircled.

    Any ‘ranting’ from Tehran is, I would suggest, merely an expression of the dire situation in which Iran finds itself and its frustration that any effort to assure its own security is bewailed as ‘extremism’, ‘terror’ and what have you.

    All that said, you’re right to praise statements like those from this cleric.

    More of him and less of Rabbi Lior and Awlaki, I say. Though I guess we don’t have to worry about the latter anymore.

  6. This is obviously a fake.We have to seriously ask ourselves one important question : why would the Iranian regime even release this statement if it was indeed true.It is a hoax & nothing more.Just a nasty game to fool us all as to how “human” the regime in Iran wants to appear!

    1. I’d say the only fake here is you. The “regime” didn’t release anything. The ayatollah’s supporters did. Please don’t insult us with your lack of intelligence about the nature of Iran.

  7. I’m surprised to read this.

    Where is the evidence that his captors were angered by his offering greetings to Jews?

    Ahmedinejad is on goods terms with his own Jews.

    Being Jewish and being Zionist is not necessarily the same thing in Iran.

    1. Chayma,
      I’m afraid there was a misunderstanding:
      Ayatollah Borujerdi is not in jail for this greeting. He’s been incarcerated for 1800 days now for endorsing the separation of church (well, mosque) and state.

  8. Fred,

    You need to remember that anti Zionists are not necessarily anti Jewish. That is something that the left, or extreme left tie together, and of course the right wing Zionist wingnuts (read MEMRI crowd) Not so, with us Muslims,

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