Friday, April 28, 2006

Update on Iranian Muslim who went to Israel

The BBC has finally picked up on this story, featured originally on 'Point of no return' in February (with thanks: Albert):

"My biggest surprise was when I found myself with two other Iranians, completely randomly, on the same minibus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I had no idea that Israel had the world's largest proportion of Iranians in its population, outside Iran itself.

"It was only then I could digest the fact that Israel's President Moshe Katsaf and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, despite their hardline stances against the Iranian government, were originally from Iran. I began to share with my blog's readers what I was observing, by posting entries, pictures, videos, and podcasts. I shared stories about an Israeli woman who knew the works of Persian classical poet Saadi by heart; an Iranian professor whose wife's family were killed in Holocaust; an Israeli actor who invited me to watch rehearsals of the play he was appearing in ; a young Israeli academic who had studied Ayatollah Khomeini's ideas; an Iranian veteran engineer whose biggest wish was to see Iran again.

"I encountered some hostile Iranians in Jerusalem who saw me as a representative of a government of which they didn't have good memories. But I also wrote about an Iranian family man who generously invited me to his suburban Tel Aviv house, and in return I helped him become the first Iranian to write a blog from Israel."

Read article in full

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