AMERICA, BEWARE OF THE ISLAMISTS IN YOUR BACKYARD

What I see is what I fear: How can American’s be so blind?

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

Becoming an American citizen ten years ago was one of the most exciting and proud days in my life. It was not simply because I had fled Iran – the country of my birth – where, after becoming a Christian in 1999 I was arrested and sentenced to death for the “crime” of apostacy. Indeed, the ability to live as a Christian without daily fears of arrest or persecution, much less torture and death was life changing. I was also able to vote in a free and democratic election for the first time in my life. It’s impossible for most Americans to imagine not having the freedoms so cherished for us all– and for which Iranians are struggling and dying in order to gain their freedom from the oppression of the Islamic Republic – and being so foreign and unimaginable for me just years earlier as I sat on death row in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.

Often, as an American who was able to flee tyranny, I feel that I cherish America’s freedom’s more than those who were born here and take them for granted. I understand more than most what lack of freedom looks like in an entire country, and for the citizens living under the oppression of Islamic Sharia law.

I don’t dismiss the things that are talking points of American elections, not at all. But for so many Americans living with the freedoms that we have, far too many do not appreciate what they mean. When it comes to women’s rights, of course I stand for that in the American way of thinking. But sometimes I shake my head because I know what it’s really like to live in a society in which misogyny and subjugation of women is in its DNA. I know what it’s like to see women manipulated to become sex workers under the guise of a perverse and institutionally sanctioned Islamic formula of “temporary marriage.”

I know what it’s like to fear being beaten or abused because of not wearing the mandatory hijab “properly,” or to wear makeup, pluck one’s eyebrows, or have nail polish. I know what it’s like to see women brutally tortured, their faces deliberately disfigured and teeth knocked out because in Islam a woman’s life is only worth half of that of a man.

I know what women face daily by way of sexual harassment, assault, and rape both in prison and on the streets. I know that the Islamists are so evil that even before executing women on a variety of trumped-up charges like my best friend Shirin Alamhooli – as I would have been had God not spared me – they rape virgin women and girls to prevent them from going to heaven. No matter how many times you read that sentence, it will never be normal, humane, or tolerable in any way.

**Iranian Injustice**. This photo of Shirin Alamhooli was taken by the writer while in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Shiran was executed on May 9, 2010. (Photo: Marziyeh Amirizadeh)

I even know what it’s like for a brother to tell me after I became a Christian, an Islamic cleric told him to kill me for shaming the family and insulting Islam, and that he would be protected from any legal repercussions. All these and many other ways women suffer in Iran, and under Islam generally, are due to the evils of Sharia law that imposes itself on women, and any non-Muslim, in countless ways.

As a grateful and proud American, I weep as I see a trend happening in the United States that echoes the naïve ignorance that paved the way for the rise of the Islamists in the country of my birth. More than the ignorance of those who protested to bring down the Shah, often what’s known as the Red-Green alliance of Marxists and communists collaborating with the Islamists, Americans are actually electing the Islamists through democratic voting that has been hijacked.

When I see Abdul El Sayid as the Democratic candidate for Senator in Michigan, I see the interrogators and judges I faced and argued with. They repeatedly tried to entrap me and convince me to reject and renounce my faith in Jesus, claiming that I would be forgiven and set free. But I knew the truth that there was no compromise with these evil people and no matter what I did they would still execute me.

**The** **New Left**. Abdul El-Sayed, the anti-Israel Democratic candidate who won the Michigan Senate primary, has called the idea of Jewish state “illiberal”, and said money is only reason Dems who ‘believe in human rights’ support Israel. (Photo: AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

When I see Ilhan Omar who manipulates American freedom to impose radical Islam in Congress, and become rich in schemes that she and her husband/brother are alleged to have concocted, I see the hijab covered women of the Iranian Revolution era, who with their stupidity and self-righteous adherence to Islam, ushered in a society that made them worth only half of their brothers and husbands.

**Menacing Mindset. Already back in 2012,Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s views were clear** when she tweeted “Israel has hypnotized the world”, invoking an old anti-Semitic trope of Jews controlling world events through some sort of mystical power.

When I see Iranian-American Yassamin Ansari serving in Congress representing Arizona’s 3^rd District, I see the fake reformists within Iranian society and those who have been exported by the Islamic regime in order to infiltrate Western society. She makes her handlers at NIAC happy, but turns the stomach of average Iranians who want to see freedom from everything she represents.

**Yassamin Ansari** is an American politician and climate policy advocate who serves as the U.S. representative for Arizona’s 3rd congressional district since 2025. A progressive Democrat, she previously served on the Phoenix City Council from 2021 to 2024.

When I see Adam Hamaway in New Jersey, I see the professionals of Iran who colluded with the Islamic regime to protect themselves and their livelihoods, empowering and enabling the ayatollahs out of fear, or their own conversion to radical Islam. How an Islamist who was an aid to the “blind Sheikh” associated with the World Trade Center bombing could stand for congress in a district just 50 miles from where Islamists brought down the World Trade Center 25 years ago is unthinkable. How can Americans be so blind?

Dr. Adam Hamawy, a trauma surgeon, US Army veteran and former medical volunteer in Ga-za, has emerged as a leading contender in the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.

When I see Ghazala Hashmi as Lt. Governor of Virginia, I see the slavery that has been imposed by Islam over much of the non-Arab world – including the country of her birth – by the steady and deliberate Islamic conquest. Islamists will conquer city by city and state by state, through violent jihad where necessary, or under the stealth manipulation of freedom in the country that they are trying to conquer.

Left: Zohran Mamdani Centre: Rashida Harbi Tlaib Right: Ghazala Hashmi | X

When I see Zohran Mamdani, an unapologetic Islamist extremist as mayor of America’s largest city and financial capital, I see the radical Mahmoud Ahmadiinijad who served as mayor of Tehran before becoming President of Iran, under whom I experienced and witnessed the regime’s savage brutality while in prison. God help us if this is not the beginning and final stop of Mamdani’s political career.

**Suspect Priorities**. What is the true agenda of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani whose first day in office, revoked the City’s recognition of IHRA – the gold standard definition of antisemitism – sending a strong message in word and deed that he is hostile to Israel and a danger to the local Jewish community? (Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP)

When I see hundreds of Democratic leaders pandering to the Islamists, I see leftist Iranian civilians who protested against the Shah and ushered in the Ayatollah’s regime in 1979 before being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, executed, or exiled by their former poster child Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamist backers. It didn’t take long before the Islamists’ true colors were clear, and how the leftists who had been manipulated as the useful idiots they had become became evident and unstoppable.

I love the country of my birth and pray that all Iranians will be free from the heel of Islamic brutality soon. I also love my adopted country, the United States, and the freedoms that we all cherish. But I fear that Americans do not see the threat that’s already in our back yard, and will continue to elevate, enable, and elect Islamists like these and others, and end up seeing our cherished America becoming like the country of my birth.

One Islamic Republic is one too many. We do not ever want that here. America, please do not be fooled, and please do not vote for any of these Islamists or their enablers. Heaven help us all.

About the writer:

Marziyeh (Marzi) Amirizadeh, the founder and president of www.newpersia.org, an author, public speaker, and activist. She has written two books “Captive in Iran,” and “A Love Journey with God” which are available on www.marzisjourney.com. She is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death by hanging in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation in Evin prison- one of the most brutal prisons in the world.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

MENSCHESKEIT, MITZVOT AND THE JEWISH SOUL IN TIMES OF WAR

A sensitive reflection on Jewish ethics, Derech Eretz, preserving life, and how living by Torah values can help protect mental health even in times of conflict.

By Bev Moss-Reilly

There is something deeply rooted in Jewish life that goes beyond law, ritual, or identity alone. It is menscheskeit, that instinctive decency, compassion, and moral accountability that shapes how a Jew is meant to move through the world. It is expressed through mitzvot, through Derech Eretz, and through the understanding that power must never cancel conscience. In times of conflict, when grief, fear, and rage can easily consume the human spirit, these values matter even more. They remind us that to be Jewish is not only to survive, but to remain anchored in holiness, restraint, and compassion.

The Torah teaches that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, and that life itself begins with divine breath. In Bereishit (Book of Genesis), Hashem breathes the breath of life into the human being, and the Talmud teaches that saving a single life is as if one has saved an entire world. These are not abstract ideas. They form the moral architecture of Jewish consciousness. They tell us that a Neshama is never trivial, never ownerless, and never outside the concern of Heaven. When Jews speak about life as sacred, it is because we believe that the soul within a person is entrusted by Hashem and ultimately belongs to Hashem – that we feed our Neshama to afford us a place in Olam Habah (the world to come).

That belief has consequences. It means that even in war, even under unbearable provocation, even when facing an enemy, the Jewish moral instinct is not meant to delight in cruelty or become casual about suffering. Jewish ethics calls on us not to stand idly by the blood of another, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. It also demands that we do not allow pain to turn us into people who no longer recognise the humanity of others. This does not mean abandoning self-defence. It does not mean becoming passive in the face of terror. It means that defence must still be held within a moral framework, because the soul of a people is tested not only by how it suffers, but by how it behaves when it has the strength to act.

International humanitarian law reflects some of these same moral instincts. It prohibits attacks directed at civilians and requires effective advance warning of attacks that may affect civilians when circumstances permit. Whatever political arguments may rage around any specific conflict, the underlying principle is clear, civilians are not to be the object of attack, and precautions matter. For many Jews, that principle does not feel foreign. It resonates with a Torah shaped conscience that recoils from the deliberate targeting of innocents and insists that even necessary force must never become moral carelessness.

This is also why so many Jews feel deeply moved by examples of medical care given across lines of hostility. Israeli official sources have documented the coordination of medical aid and field hospitals for Gazan civilians, and Israeli hospitals have long described treating Palestinians and even patients from adversarial states. These moments matter far beyond public relations or politics. They express something enduring in Jewish moral life, namely that saving a life is not cancelled by enmity. When an injured person is treated, stabilised, or comforted, even if they come from the other side of a conflict, a line is being drawn in favour of life. A statement is being made that our values do not evaporate under pressure.

**Driving across the Divide**. Prior to the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, around 2,700 Palestinian patients were driven to Israeli hospitals every year by members of the ‘Road to Recovery’ group, breaking physical and language barriers. Seen here was Adam Abu al-Rob, a six-year-old Palestinian eye cancer patient, siting with his father Mamoun in a vehicle driven by Israeli ‘Road to Recovery’ volunteer Yael Noy. (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP)

From a mental health perspective, this matters profoundly. War always leaves emotional scars. There is fear, anticipatory dread, helplessness, grief, and often deep exhaustion. But another burden can enter as well, moral injury. Moral injury occurs when a person feels that a deep moral line has been crossed, whether by what they did, what they witnessed, or what they failed to prevent. It is associated with guilt, shame, disgust, anger, and severe psychological distress. When people feel they have betrayed their deepest values, the inner toll can be devastating. By contrast, acting in ways that remain aligned with conscience, compassion, and restraint may help protect the inner life, even when pain remains. That is an inference, but it is a meaningful one. If violating one’s moral core can wound the psyche, then remaining faithful to that core can help preserve it.

There is research too showing that helping others can reduce stress and improve mood, self-esteem, happiness, and a sense of connection. Kindness does not erase trauma, and compassion does not make war emotionally easy. But it can interrupt the hardening of the heart. It can protect people from becoming consumed by hatred. It can remind them, even in crisis, that they are still capable of good. In that sense, living by Torah values is not only spiritually elevating, but it can also be psychologically protective. It gives suffering meaning, keeps cruelty from colonising the soul, and creates a moral continuity between belief and action.

This is where Derech Eretz becomes more than a beautiful phrase. It becomes an emotional stabiliser. To act with dignity, to show mercy, to preserve life where possible, to warn civilians, to treat the wounded, and to refuse to surrender one’s humanity, these are not signs of weakness. They are signs of spiritual strength. They say that even under siege, even after trauma, even when the heart is broken, the Jewish people are still answerable to something higher than rage.

That does not mean Jews do not suffer. Of course we do. It does not mean Jews are not traumatised by terror, by war, by loss, by hostage crises, or by the constant psychological strain of living under threat. We are. When a people continue to act from mitzvot, from compassion, and from the awareness that every Neshama comes from Hashem, something important is preserved. The body may be exhausted, the heart may ache, and the mind may still need support, but the soul is less fractured when it has not betrayed itself.

Perhaps that is one of the deepest forms of Jewish resilience. Not merely surviving but surviving without letting brutality define us. Not merely fighting but fighting without worshipping force. Not merely mourning our own but recognising the sacredness of life itself. In that lies both holiness and protection. Because when Jews live by Torah, honour the Neshama, and save life wherever they can, they do not only help the other. They help guard their own inner world as well.

About the writer:

Bev Moss -Reilly is a Jewish freelance content writer living in South Africa with a deep and heartfelt focus on mental health, emotional wellbeing, trauma, grief, and the unseen struggles people carry every day. Through her writing and her Mental Health Packs, she aims to bring comfort, awareness, compassion, and practical support to individuals, families, workplaces, and communities. Her work is rooted in empathy, dignity, and the belief that nobody should feel alone in their pain, especially in times of crisis.

WORN DOWN BY WAR

A Jewish perspective of ‘anticipatory grief’, loss and mental health during war.

By Bev Moss-Reilly

(*To assist readers, a glossary appears at the end of the article)

War wounds people long before the final phone call, the funeral, the shattered building, or the unbearable silence. One of its deepest cruelties is anticipatory grief, that aching state of living in fear of loss before the loss is even confirmed. It is the dread that sits in the chest when a loved one is at the front, when a child is missing, when a siren sounds, when a family waits for news, when a mother keeps checking her phone, or when an elderly father looks at the door and wonders who will walk through it next.

It is grief in advance, and it is exhausting.

Anticipatory grief affects mental health profoundly. It keeps the nervous system on constant alert. People struggle to sleep, eat, think clearly, or regulate their emotions. The body remains tense, braced for impact. Anxiety and helplessness grow. So does guilt. People feel guilty for being safe when others are not, guilty for carrying on, guilty for moments of laughter, guilty for not having done more. In war, the mind rarely gets to rest. Even when tragedy has not yet struck, the soul is already trembling.

Then, when loss does come, it often arrives in layers. War does not only take one thing. It can strip a person of home, family, routine, livelihood, identity, faith in the world, bodily safety, and the simple expectation that tomorrow will look like today. This is why grief in wartime is not only about death, although death is devastating enough. It is also about every other form of loss that leaves a person disoriented, raw, and altered.

PHYSICAL LOSS

A person may lose a limb, mobility, eyesight, hearing, strength, or independence. A child may lose the sense of safety that once came from being held by a parent in a familiar room. A family may lose a house filled with photographs, books, toys, mezuzot, candlesticks, wedding gifts, kiddush cups, and all the ordinary holy clutter of Jewish life. Possessions are not merely objects. They hold memory, tradition, continuity, and meaning. When they are gone, part of a person’s story can feel erased.

EMOTIONAL LOSS

People lose trust. They lose innocence. They lose the emotional energy required to keep showing up in the same way. They lose the version of themselves that existed before trauma. Some lose the ability to cry. Others cannot stop crying. Some become numb. Some become irritable, angry, frightened, withdrawn, or hypervigilant. Mental health in these moments is not a neat or tidy thing. It is often about survival. It is getting through the next hour, the next night, the next funeral, the next alert, the next memory.

SPIRITUAL LOSS

This can be especially painful because it is often invisible. War can shake a person’s relationship with Hashem, with prayer, with community, and even with meaning itself. Someone may ask, “Where was God?” Another may feel unable to daven. Someone else may go through the motions while feeling empty inside. Others may feel their emunah deepen, not because they understand suffering, but because faith becomes the only place left to stand. Spiritual grief is real grief. It is the mourning of certainty, of order, of the feeling that the world makes sense.

In Jewish life, however, grief is never meant to be carried alone. This is one of the great strengths of our tradition. Judaism does not deny pain, rush mourning, or ask people to be strong in a performative way. It creates structure around sorrow. It gives the mourner something solid when everything else feels unsteady.

When someone dies, Jewish mourning practices provide an emotional and spiritual container. Sitting shiva is one of the most compassionate responses to grief imaginable. The mourner does not have to host, perform, or explain. The community comes. People bring food. They sit low. They share silence. They tell stories. They cry. They pray. They remember. There is no pressure to be polished. Grief is allowed to be visible. It is witnessed. There is no timeline and it’s not linear, neither is it expected to be. That matters enormously for mental health.

Shiva says to the mourner, “You are not abandoned in this pain.” It acknowledges that loss is not something to “move on” from quickly. It slows life down and lets the heart catch up with reality. Shloshim continues that process, recognising that mourning does not end after one week. The rhythms of aveilut honour the fact that the soul needs time. In a world that often demands productivity and emotional suppression, Judaism insists on presence, tenderness, and community.

This is not incidental. It is the essence of emotional support. In many ways, it is the essence of mental health. To be held by others, to be seen, to have meals arrive without asking, to hear Tehillim being said, to be surrounded by people who understand the sacredness of memory, this is not small comfort. It can be life preserving.

SHAPING SURVIVAL

Jewish tradition also understands that grief belongs not only to the individual, but to the collective. We are a people shaped by memory, by exile, by destruction, by rebuilding, by mourning, and by survival. We know what it means to carry names, stories, and absences across generations. That collective memory can be heavy, but it can also be deeply connecting. Jews inherently know how to show up because we have inherited the language of showing up. Nichum aveilim, comforting mourners, is not an abstract value. It is lived chesed. It is practical love.

During war, that support becomes even more vital. Not everyone is mourning a death. Some are mourning a son who returned from battle alive but changed. Some are grieving a daughter who lost her home. Some are living with the anguish of a hostage situation, not knowing whether to hope or prepare their hearts to break. Some are mourning the loss of livelihood, community, safety, or country. Some are grieving while still in danger, which means there is no neat beginning, middle, or end to the process.

That is why compassion matters so much. People living through wartime grief may not look “grief stricken” in the expected way. They may be functioning, making meals, going to work, caring for children, even laughing at times. But beneath that, they may be carrying terror, heartbreak, and spiritual fatigue. We need to be gentle with one another. We need to understand that trauma and grief can coexist with faith, resilience, and even moments of gratitude.

The Jewish way does not promise that grief will disappear. It offers something truer. It teaches that sorrow can be honoured, shared, ritualised, and held with dignity. It teaches that broken hearts still belong in community. It teaches that when a person cannot stand alone, Am Yisrael stands with them.

In wartime, anticipatory grief, loss, and bereavement can shake mental health to its core. Jewish tradition reminds us that comfort is not found only in answers. Often it is found in presence, prayer, remembrance, community, and love. In the candle lit for a soul. In the hand on a shoulder. In the meal left at the door. In the whispered words, “HaMakom yenachem etchem.” In the quiet, enduring truth that even in unbearable loss, no Jew should ever have to mourn alone.

For when one Jew feels pain, every Jew feels pain, and in that shared sorrow lies the quiet, enduring strength of our people.

Glossary of Hebrew Words and Expressions:

Hashem
Literally “The Name.” A reverent way of referring to G-d.

Shiva
The first seven days of mourning after the burial of a close family member. During this time, mourners remain at home and are supported by family, friends, and community.
Note: “sitting sheva” is commonly intended to mean “sitting shiva.”

Shloshim
The thirty-day mourning period following burial. It includes the first seven days of shiva and continues as a gentler, extended phase of mourning.

Aveilut
Jewish mourning practices and the broader laws and customs of bereavement.

Daven
To pray.

Emunah
Faith, trust, or deep spiritual belief, especially in G-d.

Tehillim
Psalms. These are often recited in times of sorrow, danger, illness, or communal need.

Nichum Aveilim
Comforting mourners. This is considered a deeply important mitzvah, or sacred obligation, in Jewish life.

Chesed
Loving kindness, compassion, and acts of generosity or care toward others.

Am Yisrael
The people of Israel, or the Jewish people as a collective.

HaMakom Yenachem Etchem
A traditional phrase said to mourners, meaning:
“May the Omnipresent comfort you.”
It is part of the fuller condolence expression used during mourning.

Mezuzot
Plural of mezuzah. Small parchment scrolls containing sacred verses, placed in a case and attached to the doorposts of Jewish homes.

Kiddush Cup
A ceremonial cup used when reciting Kiddush, the blessing over wine, usually for Shabbat and festivals.

About the writer:

HAIR-RAISING SITUATION

Surprise discovery of Iranian women’s hair raises serious concerns but reminds – you can imprison a person but not an idea.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran has attempted to convince the world that it represents justice, morality, and the will of the Iranian people. But behind the propaganda lies a brutal reality that millions of Iranians know all too well. The regime’s systematic oppression of women remains one of the clearest examples of its cruelty and fear. For as little as showing a strand of hair, Iranian women are met with intimidation, imprisonment, torture, or worse.

Today, the world is once again witnessing the Islamic Republic’s relentless assault on the dignity and freedom of women.

Recently, reports emerged from Armenia that customs officials intercepted 143 bundles of natural hair weighing approximately 26 kilograms at the Agarak border crossing with Iran. The “best” case is that the hair belonged to impoverished Iranian women selling their hair simply to survive in an economy devastated by corruption, sanctions, and government mismanagement. The “good news” is that women may be seeking ways other than the religiously sanctioned prostitution racket of “temporary marriages” to earn money.

The worst case is that the hair came from women who have been gunned down or executed by the Islamic Republic, in one of the most inhuman forms of human trafficking possible: profiting from women’s bodies after they have been murdered.

Either way, the discovery is deeply symbolic. The Islamic Republic has spent decades subjugating women by forcing them to cover their hair, arresting and torturing them for showing a single misplaced strand. Now, as economic desperation deepens, the very symbol of control over Iranian women has become a commodity.

Whether Iranian women are driven to such severe poverty that they must sell parts of themselves to feed their families, or the regime chops off the emblem of freedom for Iranian women from the corpses of their victims, the bottom line is that a woman showing her hair has never been about morality.

It’s always been about control.

Another shocking example of this oppression has captured international attention. Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi was sentenced to 74 lashes after performing without a hijab during a livestreamed concert. In addition to the flogging sentence, she and members of her production team reportedly received travel bans and restrictions on their artistic activities.

**Iran Lashes Out**. The Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi reportedly sentenced to 74 lashes for singing without hijab. (Photo: Hosseinronaghi)

Think about what this means.

In the twenty-first century, a woman can be sentenced to brutal whipping simply because she sang a song with her hair showing. I witnessed such torture of my husband who was forced to confess to the “crime” of drinking wine, which he never did. Neither the physical nor psychological scars of his 80 lashes ever healed and led to his death at the hands of the Islamic Republic.

The Islamic Republic fears music because music inspires hope.

It fears artists because artists tell the truth.

It fears women because women have become the strongest voice of resistance against tyranny.

Parastoo Ahmadi’s case is not an isolated incident. It is part of a broader campaign against women who refuse to submit. Women have been arrested for removing their hijabs, imprisoned for posting photographs online, and physically assaulted for challenging discriminatory laws. The regime’s “morality police” and Basij militia have become instruments of terror directed primarily at women and girls.

I witnessed this firsthand during my nine-month imprisonment and death sentence for the “crime” of becoming a Christian. Numerous cellmates shared harrowing stories of all kinds of physical and sexual abuse, judges and prosecutors demanding sex in order to receive a favorable verdict, and misogyny so deep seeded in Iranian society that it’s passed off as normal.

No story illustrates this reality more painfully than the death of Mahsa Amini.

“WOMEN,LIFE, FREEDOM”

In September 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, was arrested by Iran’s “morality police” for allegedly violating the country’s mandatory hijab regulations. She was brutally tortured and within days, she was dead. Her death ignited nationwide protests under the powerful slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom.”

Millions of Iranians recognized what had happened. Mahsa Amini was not simply one victim among many. She became a symbol of every woman humiliated, threatened, beaten, or silenced by the regime.

The protests that followed, demonstrated the courage of the Iranian people, especially Iranian women. Young women publicly removed their hijabs. Students challenged government officials. Mothers demanded justice. Despite brutal crackdowns, arrests, executions, and intimidation, the spirit of resistance did not disappear.

**An Iranian ‘Cover Up’**. An Iranian woman walks on a street amid the implementation of the then new hijab surveillance in Tehran in, April 15, 2023. (Photo: Majid Asgaripour/Wana/Reuters)

While I was saved from physical torture, I still bear many scars of my experiences and what I witnessed. My closest friend, Shirin Alamhooli, suffered such severe torture, for days on end she could not walk and every day suffered debilitating headaches because her torturers brutally beat her on the head. Knowing that she was savagely raped (according to Islamic doctrine of not permitting a virgin woman to be executed), is a pain and indignity that Iranian women deal with – causing widespread pain and suffering to survivors like me, as well as the victims.

The Islamic Republic may imprison individuals, but it cannot imprison an idea whose time has come: freedom and the end of the regime.

As someone who personally experienced persecution under the Islamic Republic, I understand the regime’s tactics. Fear is its primary weapon. It sets men in the position of controlling women, and seeks to convince citizens that resistance is futile and that freedom is impossible. Yet history repeatedly proves otherwise.

The courage of Iranian women continues to expose the weakness of the regime. Every woman who walks without a mandatory hijab, every artist who continues to sing, every activist who speaks out, and every family that demands justice for victims like Mahsa Amini represents a challenge to a government built upon coercion.

The discovery of smuggled women’s hair at the Armenian border and the sentencing of Parastoo Ahmadi to 74 lashes may appear to be unconnected. In reality, they are inseparable. Both reveal a regime that exploits, controls, and punishes women while claiming to defend their dignity.

The international community must not look away.

Governments, human rights organizations, churches, and freedom-loving people everywhere should continue to amplify the voices of Iranian women. Silence only emboldens oppressors.

The women of Iran constantly show extraordinary courage. They risk everything for freedom, dignity, and equality. Their struggle is not merely an Iranian issue. It is a human rights issue.

One day, the women of Iran will no longer fear arrest for showing their hair, imprisonment for speaking their minds, or lashes for singing their songs. One day, the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” will no longer be a protest cry but a lived reality.

Until that day arrives, the world must stand with them.

*Feature photo: Armenian customs officers seize 143 bundles of undeclared hair from Iran.

About the writer:

Marziyeh (Marzi) Amirizadeh, the founder and president of www.newpersia.org, an author, public speaker, and activist. She has written two books “Captive in Iran,” and “A Love Journey with God” which are available on www.marzisjourney.com. She is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death by hanging in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation in Evin prison- one of the most brutal prisons in the world.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Any deal that leaves Iran’s Islamic Republic regime intact leaves the threat intact.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

I am not saying the goal of the United States is to do so, but any negotiation with the Islamic Republic only serves to keep the Islamic Republic regime alive.

Another day.

Another month.

Another year.

Another decade.

That, precisely, is the goal of the Islamic Republic. To stay alive. To control 90 million Iranians. To spread its extremist Islamic ideology across the world. And to threaten the United States, Israel, and the West at every turn.

The goal of the United States and the West should be to hasten the Islamic Republic’s demise, not to negotiate and prop it up.

What is happening in Iran today was exactly the plan of the reformists, who have cultivated significant influence inside the United States. Their goal has always been to appear rational, to present themselves to the West as the adults in the room. They are not. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing, designed to subjugate Iranians for decades more while spreading their extremist ideology around the world. In America, that means undermining our values by hijacking the very freedoms they seek to eradicate.

The reformist plot was straightforward: remove Khamenei, capitalize on the deep dissatisfaction inside Iran to create a flicker of hope among its people, and then simply shed the skin of the regime through a cosmetic change in leadership. Put the reformists in charge. Allow America to claim credit for eliminating Khamenei, making him a martyr, while the system itself remains entirely unchanged.

Consider something most observers have missed. With the successful American and Israeli strikes across Iran, targeting Islamic Republic leaders including the former Supreme Leader and commanders of the IRGC and Basij, not a single reformist has been eliminated. Not one. Their agents outside Iran have only grown more influential. How is that possible unless those agents have already deeply infiltrated American and Western institutions? They have been promoted across major media platforms, granted credibility and influence, operating under the guise of being opposition voices while actively working to protect the regime’s survival.

People like me who genuinely oppose the regime have been blocked from mainstream media for years. Despite the war and the slaughter of Iranians, we are still prevented from reaching major platforms because the reformists and their agents work to keep us out. I remember this mafia-style system from my childhood in Iran. I know how they play the game. If eliminating someone from a rival faction is what it takes to keep the regime afloat, they will not hesitate. The regime’s survival always comes first.

**‘Deal’ing with Iran**. For the writer the goal of the United States and the West should be to hasten the Islamic Republic’s demise and not to negotiate and prop it up.

So, what is actually at risk from any deal with the Islamic Republic?

When the United States suddenly halted its military operation against the regime, it was clear something was happening behind the scenes. The regime was given a window to reach some arrangement, presumably centered on nuclear concessions and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

But what does “no nukes” actually mean? Will Iranian regime scientists forget what they have already know how to do, enriching uranium and leading toward a bomb? How long before they start up again, assuming that they ever stopped? What happens to the enriched uranium? We are told they already have enough to build ten bombs, and that it takes only weeks to enrich uranium from 60 percent to weapons-grade 90 percent. And what about the ballistic missiles that have struck targets across the Middle East and can now reach Europe. We did not even fully know the range of those missiles until they were already flying. Will the regime stop manufacturing and improving on their missiles just because of a deal on paper?

The West must accept one simple truth: the Iranian regime does not think in terms of coexistence. It is a religious, extremist, fundamentalist cult that is ideologically committed to conquering or destroying all who do not submit to it. Period. They have told us this in writing, in in their preaching, through their media, and via their agents. This is a revolution without borders, not merely one nation seeking its place among others. Americans have been killed for 47 years as a direct result of this regime’s nefarious aspirations.

Assuming a deal could be reached, that the regime could be trusted, and that any deal was not simply a vehicle to prop up the regime, who will enforce it? With any deal, the regime will cheat. It has lied and hidden its activities and violated every agreement it has ever signed. Who will have the political will to respond when they cheat again. Will President Trump as a lame duck? Will any possible successor: 48, 49, 0r 50? Look at how Americans react to a temporary rise in the price of gasoline. Would we have the will to act, even a few years from now?

**Playing for Time**. Operating under the pressures and constraints of time, who will give in first?

Will this deal eviscerate the Islamic Republic’s proxies? Hezbollah is still a potent terrorist force controlling much of Lebanon. Hamas is still standing in Gaza, propped up by Islamists in Turkey and Qatar. The Houthis can do nothing without Iranian support. Even if the Iranian regime promises not to fund them, who is monitoring this? Who will stop it? The Europeans will appease the regime. China and Russia will continue supporting the regime regardless of any deal. North Korea will do the same. Assuming that the regime could be trusted with any deal, there will be no control over their immediate breach of any agreement. Even without a nuclear weapon, the regime already knows the world’s Achilles heel: block Hormoz. They have done it, and will do it again. God help us if they have a nuclear umbrella to protect them.

The Islamic regime in Tehran is lying to the administration, the negotiators, and the world. Do not believe a word they say. It is still the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis are not going away because of any deal signed in a conference room.

**What’s at Stake**. While the current supply and price of oil is on everyone’s mind for the writer it’s the future of mankind.

All the talk about making the best deal, about what will be in the deal, about the art of the deal, only emboldens them. They see it as America wanting a deal more than Iran needs one. When they smell weakness, they grow stronger. That is precisely the lesson I carry from my own life. When the regime threatened me and demanded I renounce my Christian faith, I did not simply refuse. I challenged their theology to their face. Refusing to show weakness is the only model that works. I won. America needs to win.

**Machine guns to Machetes**. How do you ‘deal’ with a leadership that has does not blink as mass murdering its own civilians? Verified images of weapons that massacred thousands of civilian protestors earlier this year in more than 200 cities across Iran.

There is no negotiating with the Islamic Republic. Any deal that leaves the regime intact leaves the threat intact. And a regime that survives today will be back tomorrow, better armed, better funded, and more dangerous than before.

About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh (Marzi) is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.

Marzi also is the founder and president of NEW PERSIA whose mission is to be the voice of persecuted Christians and oppressed women under Islam, expose the lies of the Iranian Islamic regime, and restore the relationships between Persians, Jews, and Christians. www.NewPersia.org.

BIG MOVE IN SMALL TOWN – RECOGNITION, RECONCILIATION AND RESTITUTION

Jewish family supports historic move for Cape Town to rename Strand town square honouring family founder to recognition of local Muslim community.

By Ben Friedman

Ra’anana in central Israel is my home today. It wasn’t always.

I hail from the Strand, a beautiful False Bay town which is part of the area described as the “Fairest Cape”, bracketed by the majestic Hottentots Holland mountains, Somerset West and the turquoise blue of the Atlantic Ocean. Today, this town is making news in South Africa and it involves my family. Of this I am proud – proud of the past and proud of how we are forging a favourable future.

My family surname – Friedman – is so embedded in that town’s history. However, it is not only the past but the message we are sending for the future that is making news.

In a historic gesture of recognition and reconciliation, our family have approved the renaming of Ben Friedman Plain honouring my grandfather and family founder in South Africa to Strand Muslim Square. The exciting and enriching drama unfolding could not – and maybe not unsurprisingly – escape controversy.

It is no secret that today we live in a polarised, post-truth world where narratives are shaped by people’s prejudices and affiliations that cloud facts and the truth. Israelis and Jews know this more than most, given the sustained campaign of lies against Israel in the mainstream media, by influencers, social media, and sinister state-backed NGOs.

So, when local Muslim leader, Ebrahim Rhoda approached my brother, Barry Friedman with the request to approach the city council to rename the square to finally redress the wrongs of the past and to honour the Muslim contribution to the town, Barry expressed enthusiasm, but said that he would need to discuss it with the family. He knew that their only concern would be that the family’s history not be erased. With full understanding and sensitivity, Ebrahim, after some thought and investigation, suggested that if the renaming was approved, the traffic circle in front of our family store could be renamed Ben Friedman Circle. This, our family considered fair and agreed to the renaming of the town square subject to council approval.

**Prime Movers**. Taking a stand in the Strand are (l-r) Ebrahim Rhoda, Barry Friedman and Feisal Daniels at a recent Council meeting. (Photo: Carl Punt.)

The process took a few years and now the renaming will proceed but not without an ugly backlash resulting from the usual ‘culprit’ – misinformation.

There were those trying to frame it as a roughshod attempt to erase the “White” history of the Strand, or to view it in terms of a Muslim/Judeo-Christian conflict issue. It is neither. It is simply the long overdue acknowledgement of the Muslim’s community’s enduring history and contribution to the town that had for too long been neglected. I am sure that my late friend, Oesman Wentzel, who owned a classic diesel-powered fishing boat that I spent many happy hours on in my youth catching mackerel and snoek, would be very happy with this historic restitution — reflecting the harmony and unique community relations that characterised our lives in the Strand, in spite of the policy of Apartheid that tried to disrupt it.

**Roadworthy**. Ben Friedman Plein named after Benjamin Friedman who immigrated from Lithuania to South Africa in 1910 is to be renamed Strand Muslim Square honouring the over 200-year history of the Muslim presence in the town . (Photo: Jamey Gordon).

ENTWINED HISTORY

My grandfather, Benjamin Friedman, who arrived in Cape Town around 1903 as a penniless immigrant from Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, is the man that the Ben Friedman Plein (square) controversy is all about.

Speaking Yiddish without any knowledge of English or Afrikaans, he started work as a labourer at a salary of 2/- (20 cents) per day at the Cape Town docks.

Friedman & Cohen Department Store — “Since 1903”

Once he had acquired some knowledge of English and had enough funds to buy a bicycle, he cycled to Somerset West where a dynamite factory was opening to supply explosives to the mines. He bought a general dealer’s license, and with no funds and amazing divine providence was able to open a line of credit with JW Jagger, a major wholesaler in Cape Town.

**Muslim Festivity**. Friedman & Cohen “Wishing our Muslim Customers and Staff a blessed Eid Mubarak!”

He married Anna Cohen and they had five sons, including my father, and two daughters. The business thrived and eventually became a large department store in the Strand that still stands today. Benjamin played a big role in the development of the Strand and was a leader of the Jewish community, and was instrumental in the founding of the Strand Synagogue in 1930.

**Strand Shul**. The Strand Synagogue which Benjamin (Ben) Friedman laid the foundation stone in 1930

**Strand Synagogue Stone**. This stone was laid by Benjamin Friedman, April 21st 1930.

PARRALEL PIONEERING

Pioneering and building ingrained in the Friedman family was not only confined to South Africa’s developing coastal town of Strand but also in the future Jewish state of Israel. While Benjamin and most of his family were centered at the Strand, his one son, Solly Friedman, my uncle, was a visionary and a Zionist and emigrated to the then British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s. He settled in Haifa, opening a law office in 1939 and went on to develop one of the biggest law practices in Israel specializing in marine law with ZIM shipping company being one of his major clients. Founded in 1945 by the Jewish Agency, the Israel Maritime League and the Histadrut, ZIM’s main task during its first years was transporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the emerging state. Some of the other ships that had been used for clandestine immigration before the establishment of Israel as a state were confiscated by the British Mandate authorities, and later joined the company’s fleet. My uncle would travel abroad negotiating the purchase of ships that formed the basis of Israel’s merchant marine fleet. In the days of the Mandate, he was constantly active in the courts, defending Haganah men brought up on charges by the British and trying to negotiate the release of impounded refugee ships. Emerging as Israel’s expert in maritime law, it would stand him in good stead as the lawyer for ZIM Shipping Company in the ensuing decades as it developed into one of the world’s top 20 cargo carriers. He relates that when the British left Palestine, most of the ships they had impounded were in Haifa harbour and the new Israeli government simply reclaimed them. How poignant that the biblical word ZIM means “a fleet of ships”. (Number 24:24).

**Friedman & Friends**. The writer’s uncle (2^nd left), pioneer marine lawyer in Haifa, Solly Friedman with friends in British Army uniform during WWII in Tel Aviv.

In parallel at the Strand, the Cape Malays are an ethnic group descended from enslaved and freed Muslims brought to the Cape from Indonesia and Malaysia in the mid-17th century. They were skilled labourers and political exiles, such as Sheik Yusuf, whose Kramat (a sacred shrine or tomb honoring a holy person in Islam) at nearby Macassar Beach is still a place of pilgrimage. This is undertakable as Sheik Yusuf is credited as the founding father of Islam in South Africa, having established the first enduring Muslim community in the region in 1694, during the governorship of Simon Van der Stel.

**Friedman Family**. Benjamin, his wife Anna and their five sons and two daughters.

Over time, the Cape Malays formed a unique cultural and religious identity with a distinct cuisine and a dialect of the Afrikaans language. They were among the first settlers in the Strand, which was originally called Mostert’s Bay. They were mainly engaged in fishing in False Bay and settled in the area of the current CBD of the Strand, where they had a thriving community of craftsmen, carpenters, builders, small traders, tailors and fishermen.

However, in the 1950s, when Apartheid was being heavily enforced, they were forcibly relocated to an area called Rusthof, located between Strand and Gordons Bay — a low-lying area subject to severe flooding in winter.

**Story of a Store in the Strand**. The staff today of Friedman & Cohen on the beach (top) and the early days of the store in the Strand.

However, the original mosques that were located around the CBD were maintained and remained, so that their physical link to the area endured.

Benjamin, whose small trading store on the Lourens River where the dynamite factory had opened manufacturing explosives for the gold mines, grew and flourished. He invested in properties and land, many of which were in the centre of the Strand, and where the original store was moved to. Over time, it developed into the modern Friedman and Cohen Department Store, which is now 110 years old.

**Family Founder**. What began with a bicycle ride, Benjamin Friedman from Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, founder of the family in South Africa.

The Strand had 25 Jewish families at its peak, but neighbouring Somerset West had 40 Jewish families. Relations between the Jewish and Muslim community was excellent – and many from the Muslim community were, and still are, employees of Friedman and Cohen. Many ‘old-timer’ customers would relate stories of how they used to buy on credit at our store, but when the frequent gale-force south easterly winds used to blow, they were unable to pay their accounts because the fishing boats couldn’t put to sea. Benjamin Friedman would tell them to pay when they could, and never placed any pressure on them.

As the town grew, so did the Jewish community, and Benjamin Friedman was instrumental in founding the Strand Shul (synagogue), where he laid the foundation stone in April 1930. It is interesting to note that the furniture for the new Somerset West shul was made by Muslim carpenters again reinforcing the enriching connection of the two communities.

The writer’s father, Abe Friedman who joined 10,000 South African Jews in the fight against Hitler and Nazism is seen here with his army unit (5th from left back row) on Temple Mount Jerusalem.

ROAD TO RENAMING

A prime mover in the renaming process is local Muslim community leader Ebrahim Rhoda — a school teacher and historian — who when he approached my brother Barry, explained that in spite of their community’s history and contribution to the Strand, there “was not one street name reflecting their heritage.” Most cities and towns name their streets after local residents who have left an enriching legacy and so, “it was time to truly acknowledge the Muslim contribution to the story of the Strand,” said Ebrahim.

Cape Muslim families such as the Rhodas, Gabiers, Wentzels, and Salies were prominent community members, and it is time that their stories and legacies of the Muslim community are honoured.

The proposal to rename Ben Friedman Plein to Strand Muslim Square is rooted in reconciliation and restorative justice — acknowledging a community forcibly removed during the Apartheid era from the Strand CBD under the Group Areas Act in the 1950s, whose 200-year heritage includes three mosques that still anchor the square today: Nurul Anwar, Market Street and Nurul Islam. The first place of worship in Strand, the Market Street Mosque, was built on the square itself.

**Historic Gem**. Constructed between 1850 and 1870 by freed slaves and free blacks, the Javia Mosque stands as the oldest surviving place of worship in Strand and is today a Provincial Heritage Site. The structure is recognized not only as an architectural gem but a cornerstone of the Muslim community’s heritage in the Western Cape.

Eddie Andrews, the City of Cape Town’s acting mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, expressed during this year’s Freedom Day on the 27 April in his address at City Hall, that the proposed renaming of Ben Friedman Plein to Strand Muslim Square adds weight to both history and reconciliation. Said Andrews:

“Ben Friedman Square stands in an area shaped by the long-standing presence of the Strand Muslim community, whose heritage stretches back over two centuries. Importantly, this process has been characterised by cooperation — supported by the Muslim community, endorsed by civic and faith-based organisations, and undertaken with the support of the Friedman family themselves.”

The renaming reflects what Andrews called Cape Town’s unique tradition of interfaith coexistence. “Cape Town is a city where Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and other faith and cultural communities do not simply coexist — but have, over generations, built relationships of respect, partnership, and shared belonging. This renaming reflects that reality.”

**Sheikh’s Shrine**. When Sheikh Yusuf, regarded as the father of Islam in South Africa, passed away in 1699, he was buried not far from the Strand on the hill overlooking Macassar. His Kramat or shrine is a place visited by pilgrims.

The proposal has been endorsed by the Strand Muslim Council, Nurul Islam and Aneeqah Congregation, Rusthof Methodist Church, and the Muslim Judicial Council. Business owners bordering the square raised no objections.

The controversy will pass as it should.

However, what must not pass is the good relations between the communities of the Strand. The Muslim and Jewish contributions to the town go back in time and stand to ensure an enriching future.

I look forward in the future when revisiting from Israel my hometown to see the renamed Strand Muslim Square and Ben Friedman Circle.

Benjamin who began this journey on a bicycle well over a century ago would be pleased and proud.

About the writer

A resident of Ra’anana, Israel, Ben Friedman was born and grew up in the Strand Western cape, South Africa and matriculated at Hottentots Holland High school Somerset West. He completed a BCom degree at UCT which was interrupted in 1967 by the Six Day War where he served as a volunteer on Kibbutz Amir.
Prior to immigrating to Israel with his family in 2010, he served on the Western Province Zionist Council for two years and was vice Chairman of The Phylis Jowell Jewish Day school Cape Town .
Retired after a successful career in fashion retailing, Ben is a lifelong passionate angler and a keen reader especially on Israeli /Jewish and Zionist history.

WHY AMERICANS MUST PROTEST THE IRANIAN SOCCER TEAM’S INCLUSION IN THE WORLD CUP

Beware of what’s under the soccer jerseys the Islamic Republic regime wants to normalize on American soil

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

As the United States prepares to host FIFA, the World Cup, I have an urgent appeal to all Americans. While sports in theory should be above international politics, the inclusion of a soccer team from the Islamic Republic of Iran is an afront to the freedoms we celebrate as Americans. If the Islamic Republic soccer team is participating, it must also be a time to use our freedom to protest their presence and the Islamic regime that they represent. I call on all Americans to join me to do so.

**On the Way to the USA**. Iran supporters cheer during a FIFA World Cup 2026 Asia zone qualifiers between Iran and the North Korea at the Azadi Sports Complex in Tehran on June 10, 2025. (Photo: AFP/ Atta Kenare)

Why is this so important? I was born in Iran just months before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that plunged my beloved homeland into darkness. I grew up under the boot of the ayatollahs’ regime, where being a woman meant living as a second-class citizen, and daring to seek truth outside their intolerant radical Islam could cost you everything. In 1999 I became a Christian and in 2009, my friend Maryam and I were arrested for the “crime” of converting to Christianity. We were thrown into Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, interrogated, tortured, and sentenced to death by hanging for apostasy. Only international pressure secured our release after nine harrowing months. I came to America as a free woman, but my heart still bleeds for the millions left behind.

**Beauties and the Beasts**. For 259 days, the writer (left) and her friend Maryam Rostampour were imprisoned facing execution for spreading Christianity. Their case gained international attention, and human rights advocates around the world began calling for their release until growing pressure eventually led Iranian authorities to free them. After leaving Iran, both women moved to the US.

Today, as the Islamic Republic prepares to send its national soccer team to the 2026 World Cup on American soil, I raise my voice with urgency and conviction: Americans must protest this inclusion loudly, clearly, and without apology. Allowing this team to compete is not a celebration of sport. It is a betrayal of human rights, a whitewashing of tyranny, and an insult to every victim of the regime’s brutality – including the brave women, Christians, Baha’is, Kurds, and dissidents who suffer daily.

The Iranian national team does not represent the Iranian people. It represents the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the oppressive theocracy that has ruled through terror for nearly five decades. That’s why the Islamic Republic is protesting that the team including all its IRGC guards be allowed to come to America. It is literally allowing terrorists to come for a field day in our own backyards.

Players who are not IRGC are also not free. They may not express themselves, or think of defecting, lest the threats they have been made clear to them against their families be realized. God help them if they dare show solidarity with the protests sweeping Iran, or thank their American hosts for helping to free Iran. In past tournaments, we saw courageous gestures of players refusing to sing the regime’s anthem only to be met with intimidation from the IRGC. This is no game; it is propaganda. The regime uses the unifying sport of soccer and the World Cup to project an image of normalcy while executing prisoners by the hundreds, brutalizing and disfiguring women who do not wear the hijab “properly,” and funding terrorism across the Middle East.

**Crackdown to Kickoff**. Is it acceptable that the regime responsible for mass murdering its own citizens during a crackdown of protests, should be permitted to normalize its crimes by being allowed to participate at the World Cup in the US? Seen here are families searching for their loved ones among bodies outside the Kahrizak forensic center in the suburbs of Tehran, Iran, January 13, 2026. (Photo: SIPA)

I know this evil firsthand. In Evin Prison, I endured conditions designed to break the human body and spirit. Solitary confinement, psychological torment, and the constant threat of execution were tools to silence faith and freedom. Thousands of political prisoners, including Christians like me, have faced the same. The regime hangs people for “enmity against God.” Women are beaten and killed for “improper hijab,” as we saw with Mahsa Amini in 2022. Young girls are imprisoned, and minorities are persecuted. Women are raped before execution because the religion of peace does not allow execution of virgins, and so, according to their perverted Islamic ideology, they will not go to heaven. This is what’s under the soccer jerseys the Islamic Republic regime wants to normalize on American soil.

**Sing to Survive**. In March 2026, fears mounted for members of the Iranian women’s soccer team following being branded “wartime traitors” by Iranian state media for refusing to sing their national anthem in Australia. (Photo: AP)

My fellow Americans, we live in a land of liberty, founded on principles of God-given rights, where faith is protected and dissent is a cornerstone of democracy. How can you welcome representatives of a regime that executes Christians, stones adulterers (by their laws), subjugates women in every way – including as sex slaves under the banner of Islamic “temporary marriages” – and which calls for the destruction of Israel and America? FIFA officials speak of “inclusion” and “sports diplomacy,” but there can be no diplomacy with evil that slaughters its own citizens and seeks to annihilate other countries. Protesting the Islamic Republic’s participation honors the true spirit of competition one rooted in fair play, not state-sponsored terror.

Our protest also sends an urgent message to the Iranian diaspora and freedom-loving people inside Iran. Many Iranian-Americans fled this very regime. They wave the old Lion and Sun flag, not the blood-soaked emblem of the Islamic Republic. By allowing the team entry, America normalizes the mullahs’ lies. It tells protesters in Tehran – risking their lives in the streets behind an internet blackout – that the world prefers games over justice. It dishonors the memory of those executed, those blinded and disfigured by pellets, those raped in custody, and those who simply wanted to live without fear. It’s all a big show because Iranians living behind the internet blackout won’t even be able to watch an uncensored broadcast of a soccer game, only able to see what the regime allows them.

Most recently, and in an affront to all Americans, FIFA has barred people from displaying the original Lion and Sun Iranian flag which was hijacked and perverted by the flag of the Islamic Republic since 1979. Not only is this an obscene whitewashing of the presence of the Islamic Republic team on US soil, it undermines the First Amendment in a peaceful display of protest. If allowed to be enforced, it’s tantamount to America ceding territory and our freedoms to the Islamic Republic by giving ownership and authority of our rights to FIFA as the gatekeeper. There are and must be an infinite number of ways for Americans to assert that FIFA may be the organizer, but they have no authority on matters of freedom of expression. Would they do what the Islamic Republic does in such an instance: shoot down protesters? The Lion and Sun must be present inside and outside the stadiums and all Americans must resist this violation of our inalienable rights for which Iranians are being slaughtered in the streets.

**Football Façade**. Crowds gather for a public farewell ceremony for Iran’s national soccer team as they prepare to depart for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, in Enghelab Square in Tehran, Iran, on May 13, 2026. (Photo: Behnam Tofighi/UPI)

My faith in Jesus sustained me through Evin’s darkness. He taught us to stand for the oppressed, to speak truth to power. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). The Iranian people are crying out for freedom. Women lead the revolution with the cry “Woman, Life, Freedom.” Christians worship in secret house churches, risking everything for their faith. Jews, Baha’is, Kurds and other minorities face systemic erasure. Americans who value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have a moral duty to stand with them.

Protesting does not mean hating Iranian athletes as individuals. Many are victims themselves, coerced by a system that controls their careers and families. True solidarity would be demanding FIFA ban the team until the regime releases political prisoners, ends executions, grants religious freedom, and stops its nuclear ambitions and terror sponsorship. Sport should unite humanity, not provide cover and whitewashing of systematic evil.

As an American citizen now, I urge my fellow citizens: Do not let commercial interests or diplomatic niceties silence you. Organize at stadiums. Rally in cities hosting matches. Protest any hotel that gives lodging to the Islamic Republic team. Contact your representatives. Flood social media with the truth. Demand visas be denied to regime-linked officials and IRGC affiliates. Support true Iranian opposition voices who envision a free, secular, democratic Iran at peace with its neighbors, including Israel. Support Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to return to Iran and lead the country to freedom and prosperity, the one name millions of Iranians support to do so.

I pray that the regime’s days are numbered, that its collapse is coming, through internal revolution and decisive external pressure. But while it clings to power, we must not legitimize it on the world stage, or on the soccer field.

The World Cup on American soil provides a moment of truth. Will we choose silence and spectacle, or courage and conscience? I survived Evin because people around the world raised their voices. My captors were angered by the broad international support and voices which ultimately made a difference in my being released. Now, I ask Americans to raise your voice. Protest the Iranian team’s inclusion. Stand for the Iranian people. Stand for freedom. The God who delivered me from death can deliver an entire nation – if we act with faith and boldness.

Let the games begin without the Islamic Republic’s symbol of oppression. Let the world hear the true voice of Iran: the voice of the oppressed, calling for liberty.

About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.
Marzi also is the founder and president of NEW PERSIA whose mission is to be the voice of persecuted Christians and oppressed women under Islam, expose the lies of the Iranian Islamic regime, and restore the relationships between Persians, Jews, and Christians. www.NewPersia.org.

SACRED GROUND, SACRED SAFETY – HOLY SEPHULCHRE NEEDS A SHELTER NOW

The Church should be a protected sanctuary rather than a site for political standoffs- sanctity of life over frictions of the past.

By David Nekrutman and Jonathan Feldstein

The images from last month’s Iranian missile barrage remain seared into our collective memory, specifically the sight of ballistic streaks over Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst this high-stakes war, a localized controversy erupted that touched the very heart of the faith communities with whom we spend our time building bridges. During Holy Week, Israeli police barred Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for a private, livestreamed Palm Sunday service.

**Cardinal Issue**. Need to provide a bomb shelter following the issue with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem who is seen here holding a prayer service to mark Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, March 29, 2026. (Photo: Ammar Awad/Pool Photo via AP)

Predictably, the incident became a Rorschach test for the region’s geopolitics. Critics of Israel seized upon it as evidence of anti-Christian bias, while defenders pointed to the genuine threat of falling shrapnel, noting that religious gatherings for Jews and Muslims were also restricted. The fallout was significant enough that Israeli government leaders, including the Prime Minister himself, condemned the police decision and intervened to ensure a solution was found for future services.

**Targeting Jerusalem**. Israel intercepts an Iranian missile above Jerusalem’s Old City on March 1, 2026. (Photo: AP/Mahmoud Illean)

While high-level political fixes can salvage a holiday, they do not address the underlying infrastructure failure. As leaders of The Isaiah Projects and the Genesis 123 Foundation, we believe the time has come to ask a glaring, practical question:

Why does one of the most significant religious sites on Earth, in a place that has been targeted by terrorist missiles, lack a bomb shelter?

STREAMLINING SECURITY FOR THE CLERGY

The absence of a shelter doesn’t just impact pilgrims; it hamstrings the ability of Israel’s Home Front Command to make nuanced security calls. When the sirens wail and the threat level is raised, as we experienced during last month’s state of war, the military’s default position must be the total shutdown of unprotected spaces.

**Under Fire**. Smoke in the Old City shows where fragments from an Iranian missile fell near the holy sites of all the three major religions. (Photo: IDF)

If the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had an on-site shelter, the logistical calculus would change overnight. It would provide the Home Front Command with the safety “cushion” needed to allow the Cardinal and his clergy into the building even during high-alert periods. While a shelter might not allow for full congregational attendance, it would alleviate some of the safety concerns that currently lead to total bans on public holy sites. A shelter turns a high-risk security gamble into a manageable situation, ensuring the liturgy does not have to go dark while protecting lives — a value central to both Judaism and Christianity.

A COALTION OF WILLING NEIGHBORS

Recognizing this gap between spiritual necessity and physical safety, our organizations have publicly offered to donate and install a bomb shelter within or adjacent to the church premises. We would be working in tandem with Operation Lifeshield, an Israeli organization with decades of specialized experience installing shelters for both Jewish and non-Jewish communities across Israel.

To date, however, the Church has yet to accept our offer. We understand the complexity of the “Status Quo” — the centuries-old web of agreements between different denominations that govern the Holy Sites. Historically, even moving a ladder can trigger an internal Christian crisis. Yet, as the region prepares for a potential “Phase 3” escalation with Iran and the lack of a long-term solution becomes glaring, the absence of modern safety infrastructure is a liability that prayer alone may not solve.

BEYOND THE STATUS QUO

The threats last month in Jerusalem and across Israel were real. While any physical change requires a delicate consensus among the various Christian denominations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, “bureaucracy as usual” is a luxury we can no longer afford when the stakes are human lives.

**Nowhere is Safe**. Following an Iranian missile exploding over Jerusalem’s Old City, its fragments fell on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Armenian Patriarchate, the Jewish Quarter and on the Temple Mount near the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Iranian regime is firing missiles toward Jerusalem’s holy sites, endangering Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. Israel, meanwhile, acts to protect worshippers of all faiths in its capital city.

Moving beyond these administrative hurdles would signal a profound shift in interfaith relations, especially as an initiative of two Jewish-led organizations supported by both Jews and Christians. We are currently sixty years post-Nostra Aetate, the landmark declaration that reshaped the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people. We speak often of “rapprochement”, but it is often confined to high-level summits and theological papers.

We believe a bomb shelter for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, facilitated by Jewish neighbors with a proven track record of protecting all citizens, would be the ultimate modern manifestation of that vision. It would be a tangible, “concrete” sign of a brotherhood that prioritizes the sanctity of life over the friction of the past.

**Holy Sepulchre in the ‘Cross’hairs**. Missile debris from an Iranian attack landed just feet from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – one of the most sacred sites in Christianity, believed to be the place of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

LOOKING AHEAD TO PHASE III

As tensions with Iran threaten to escalate into a “Phase III” conflict, the issue of shutdowns in public and even sacred spaces will only intensify. Israel has recently appointed a new Christian envoy; while he is still getting his feet wet in this complex space, he cannot carry the burden of the Church’s safety alone.

The Church leadership must step up. It is easy to blame security forces for restrictions, but it is much harder to justify the lack of basic safety infrastructure in a high-profile target area frequently caught in the crosshairs of regional conflict.

Our offer stands. We are ready to work with the Church to navigate the technical and diplomatic hurdles. Accepting this shelter would ensure that when the next barrage of missiles from Iran, Hezbollah, or the Houthis comes, the Church remains a protected sanctuary rather than a site for political standoffs. Let us work together to ensure that the prayers at the Holy Sepulchre never have to be silenced by the sound of sirens.

To learn more about this initiative, please visit Shelters for Christian Holy Sites.

About the writers:

David Nekrutman is the Executive Director of The Isaiah Projects.

Jonathan Feldstein is the President of the Genesis 123 Foundation.

THE TALMUD OF THE SURVIVORS

“Where was God during the Shoah ?’’ asked soul-searching survivors in DP camps. Three rabbis came together to provide some answers.

By Michel Levine

At the end of the Second World War, the defeat of Nazism was celebrated worldwide with outpourings of joy. At the same time, thousands of Jewish survivors of the Nazi camps were being gathered in Germany, Austria, and Italy in temporary structures known as “Displaced Persons” camps (DP camps). Their material situation there was deeply precarious, as evidenced by the letter that American President Harry Truman sent to General Dwight Eisenhower on August 31, 1945, addressing more specifically the DP camps located in the American occupation zone in Germany. The President expressed outrage at the deplorable living conditions of the Jewish residents — some of whom were even housed in the very places where they had suffered persecution, such as Bergen-Belsen.

While their material situation in these camps gradually improved, many suffered from isolation, a lack of any vision for their future, and ignorance of the fate of their loved ones. They were also burdened by the feeling that their own survival constituted an injustice toward the companions who had died at their side. The belief that God had abandoned them — which had tormented them during their detention — remained powerful. Some asked themselves:

What had God done throughout all these trials? Why had He remained so silent, so distant? And, more desperately: how could one still believe in His existence?

Confronted with this distress, three rabbis began to consider how they might help these troubled souls. Who were these three men of faith? Two were Lithuanian: the first, Samuel Abba Snieg, Chief Rabbi of the American occupation zone, had served as a chaplain during the war. His wife had died at Dachau, where he himself had also been deported.

Appointed by President Truman to work with U.S. Army commanders in post-war Europe to alleviate the conditions of Holocaust survivors, American Reform rabbi Philip Sidney Bernstein played a major role in the “Survivors’Talmud” project leading to its printing in Germany, the very country who had only a few years earlier burned all books relating to Jews.

The second, Samuel Jakob Rose, likewise a survivor of Dachau, held the delicate position of mediator between the Jewish populations of the DP camps and the American administrative authorities. Both men had persuaded a third, an American — Philip Sidney Bernstein — to join their project. This Reform rabbi of the American zone served as adviser to the Military Governor (Militar Gouverneur). During the war, he had overseen the activities of some 300 of his colleagues embedded within the armed forces. The guiding idea behind the three rabbis’ initiative was to invoke emunah — a Hebrew term expressing deep and living trust in God. It is less an abstract or dogmatic assertion than an inner conviction that guides the actions of daily life. And the best means of strengthening Jewish consciences was to reinforce their faith by offering them the reading of holy books (seforim).

Rabbi Samuel Jakob Rose, a survivor of Dachau, examines the galleys of the first postwar edition of the Talmud to be printed in Germany in 1947. (Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via the National Archives and Records Administration),

But where were such books to be found?

Hundreds of thousands had been dispersed, destroyed, or burned. Contact was made with two organizations active in the camps: the JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), which, in addition to organizing the distribution of food and medicine, was contributing to the creation of Jewish schools; and the Vaad Hatzalah, an Orthodox organization founded in 1939 to assist rabbis and yeshiva students from Poland and Lithuania. One of its innovations had been the creation of “traveling synagogues” circulating through the displaced persons camps. Both organizations were already printing a modest number of prayer books, and their experience would prove valuable. During their meetings, the question arose:

Which work should be printed?

The answer came to them almost immediately: the Talmud.

Jewish displaced persons (DPs) put up signs demanding open immigration into Palestine in a DP camp in Germany after 1945.

Much as the Shoah represented a catastrophe of historic proportions, the Talmud — literally “study” or “learning” in Hebrew — was itself born of a catastrophe: the destruction by the Romans of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE, marking the beginning of nineteen centuries of diaspora. The rabbinic authorities of the time decided, in the interest of the survival of their faith, to commit to writing the various laws and precepts that governed it, which had until then been transmitted orally. Thus, was constituted a “portable temple” in the form of a book, enabling the Jewish people — despite their dispersion and wherever they might find themselves — to continue living according to their religion.

The first complete edition of the Talmud was produced in Venice between 1519 and 1523 by the Antwerp printer Daniel Bomberg. It comprised 63 tractates across 2,711 double-sided folios, and was subsequently enriched by the Vilna edition (1880–1886), which established a universal standard.

Under Nazi rule, possession of such books was forbidden in Germany and in the occupied countries. They fed the bonfires, alongside the works of great thinkers deemed contrary to the dominant ideology — whether or not their authors were Jewish.

But where was a copy of the Vilna edition to be found that could serve as a model? After considerable searching, word came of two volumes printed in that city in the nineteenth century, said to have been hidden in 1945 in the Benedictine monastery of Sankt Ottilien, southwest of Munich. Upon investigation, it emerged that these two copies were now… in New York. Not without difficulty, they were eventually brought back to Germany. The work could now begin.

Paper had first to be found — vast quantities of paper — at a time when this commodity was rationed across Europe and in extremely high demand, particularly by governments seeking to resume the production of schoolbooks to replace those the Nazis had imposed. Special attention had to be paid to the quality of the paper that could be obtained, in order to ensure the quality of the printing. There was also a shortage of the materials required for printing — inks, and especially collodion. The latter was indispensable for the transfer of images onto zinc photographic plates, of which 1,800 were needed for each complete volume. Banned during the war, collodion was available only in the city of Zwickau, in the Soviet occupation zone. Since the Cold War had already begun, Zwickau refused all assistance, and the precious substance ultimately had to be ordered from the United States. At the same time, finding a printing house in Germany proved arduous. Those that had survived the bombing raids were few, closely monitored, and already prioritized — they too — for administrative and educational needs. Eventually, the American military authorities authorized access to a printing establishment — one of the rare facilities, complicating matters further, capable of producing large-format works. There was a certain irony in the outcome: this firm was located in Heidelberg, cradle of German culture but also a cultural stronghold of Nazism. As for the printing itself, it proved far from straightforward. Nearly one million Hebrew characters were required, obliging the typesetters — some of whom had worked on the production of antisemitic books — to undertake extensive searches for surviving old matrices, and in some cases to fabricate new ones. They also had to respect the distinctive layout of the Talmud — a central text surrounded by commentaries. Pagination, justification, spacing, and notes each presented their own set of problems.

At the bottom of the page is a depiction of a Nazi slave labor camp flanked by barbed wire; above are the palm trees and the landscape of the Holy Land. The legend reads: “From bondage to freedom; from deep darkness to a great light” (Hebraic Section, Library of Congress Photo).

The work was carried out under the watchful eye of a rabbinical committee. During the proofreading of the galley proofs, numerous errors were corrected; those that remained would be eliminated in subsequent editions. As for the photogravure reproduction, it too proceeded with difficulty, not least on account of the incessant power cuts. Approximately 500 complete folio sets, each comprising 19 volumes, eventually came off the presses.

This Talmud would henceforth bear the Hebrew name Talmud She’erit ha-Pletah, which might be translated as the “Talmud of the Survivors.” The cover page of each volume depicts a Nazi labor camp surrounded by barbed wire alongside an idyllic Mediterranean landscape evoking the Land of Israel. A few words in Hebrew give meaning to these images: “From slavery to freedom, from darkness to a great light.” The Joint Distribution Committee, bringing together the various organizations that had participated in the endeavor, decided — with the agreement of the German government — to allocate 40 copies to German Jewish libraries and institutions, and to send the remainder to those throughout the world, including in Mandatory Palestine. Paradoxically, those for whom it had originally been intended numbered no more than 10,000 to 15,000 by 1950, as the displaced persons camps had gradually emptied.

The “Survivors’ Talmud” (or U.S. Army Talmud) is a 19-volume edition of the Babylonian Talmud published in Germany (1946–1949) for Holocaust survivors in displaced person (DP) camps. Initiated by survivor rabbis and funded by the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), it was printed in Bavaria on presses that formerly produced Nazi propaganda, symbolizing the triumph of Jewish resilience.

Today, the standard reference Talmud (nussach, or authoritative text) remains the Vilna edition of the nineteenth century. It is readily accessible to all, benefiting from the contributions of scholarly research and the most modern techniques, including digital technology. The “Talmud of the Survivors,” by contrast, is now found only in a handful of museums and private collections. And yet the memory of the work accomplished remains vivid. This transmission of knowledge embodies the resilience of the “People of the Book” in the face of the Shoah, and stands as a testament to its rebirth from the very ruins of its suffering.

A DP camp in Vienna with survivors from across Eastern Europe.

About the writer:

Michel Levine is a historian of Human Rights and the author of a work dedicated to the major cases of the League of Human Rights (Unclassified Cases. Unpublished Archives of the League of Human Rights, Paris, Fayard, 1973).
Further publications include a historical investigation on the repression of Algerian demonstrations in Paris in October 1961 (The October Ratonnades. A Collective Murder in Paris in 1961, Paris, Ramsay, 1985; reissue Jean- Claude Gawsewitch Publisher, 2001.)

THE CONTEXT BEHIND THE CARDINAL DENIED ENTRY TO JERUSALEM’S HOLY SEPULCHRE

Sometimes missile attacks from Iran can not only shatter buildings and lives, but even a status quo.

By Jonathan Feldstein

As soon as I read reports of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa being prevented from entering Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre my heart sank.

My immediate reaction was affirming something I have long believed and articulated frequently: that the State of Israel has a unique responsibility and obligation to protect Christian holy sites and ensure freedom of worship for Christians throughout Israel.

**Cardinal Error**. Ignoring the security situation in a time of war with missiles raining over Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa quickly jumped to characterize a life-saving restriction as an “extreme departure … of reasonableness” and “freedom of worship.”

My second reaction was dismay in knowing that whatever transpired and why, Israeli officials probably could and should have done better. Both because we have that obligation, but also because it could have prevented the inevitable bad PR. Yes, we’re at war and things slip through the cracks, but still.

Third was seeing the reflexive negative and even antisemitic reactions from across the world, some that added fuel to the fire of repeated (and false) accusations that Israel discriminates against Christians, and some that were simply another excuse to find fault with the current government and Prime Minister.

Make no mistake, Israel can and should have done better. But through this mistake, lessons have been learned and will hopefully prevent future such mistakes. As of writing this, an agreement for which has been reached between the parties.

As I am writing on the anniversary of the murder of the Christian Israeli Arab policeman Amir Khoury who is still celebrated as an Israeli hero, I know that while a small minority, Christians in Israel are not only not discriminated against but are the only community of Christians in the Middle East whose population is growing steadily, and can worship and live freely without fear of persecution.

In case you didn’t hear, on Palm Sunday, March 29, Israeli police prevented Cardinal Pizzaballa, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Mass. The negative international response was immediate and widespread. Church authorities described it as the first such denial of the senior Catholic leader in Jerusalem from entering the site on the day commemorating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

Initial reports were only of his refused entry, without any context. But context matters, and subsequent reports shed light on this. The incident occurred amid heightened security restrictions related to Israel’s ongoing war with Iran, and subsequent Iranian missile attacks across Israel and on Jerusalem specifically. These measures include strict limits on public gatherings across the Old City, affecting Christian Holy Week observances, as well as Jewish Passover and Islamic Ramadan celebrations.

Missile Fragments Rain Down Near Jerusalem’s Holiest Sites

Israel’s Home Front Command imposed sweeping rules: gatherings limited to 50 people in locations with adequate bomb shelter access. Jerusalem’s Old City’s narrow streets further complicate emergency vehicle access in the event of a mass-casualty event. It’s important to note that since the 1990s, when bomb shelters became mandatory in new construction, the Christian denominations that control the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and cannot agree who has the authority to move a ladder in a window for centuries, could not come together to create a safe room in the holy site to protect against modern threats. A bomb shelter could have precluded this conflict.

**Ladder of Revelations**. It is revealing that while bomb shelters are mandatory in all new construction in Israel, the Christian denominations that control the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and cannot agree who has the authority to move a ladder in a window that has been here for centuries (see above), are as well unable to collectively agree to create a safe room to protect against modern threats. Instead, blame Israel! (Photo: Wikipedia)

Security precautions limit the number of people who can assemble for public gatherings including Passover prayers. Israeli Jews are being told to limit the number of guests at their Passover Seders to safely correspond with enough places in their bomb shelters. The traditional Festival “Birkat Kohanim”, (Priestly Blessing) has also been restricted from what can draw thousands.

**Hardly Enlightening**. Light may well shine over the Edicule, traditionally believed to be the burial site of Jesus Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem, however very little media ‘light’ was shone by the international press on the true nature of the incident, playing down the dangers from incoming Iranian missiles. (Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP / Getty)

The context is even broader. Since February 28, Israeli authorities closed major holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City — including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound — for security reasons. Iranian missiles had targeted the area, with shrapnel striking near the Holy Sepulchre in one incident, and near the Al Aksa Mosque in another.

Just as many Jewish events have been canceled, the traditional public Palm Sunday procession was canceled. Other events have been shifted to private or virtual formats for Easter. Despite reported prior coordination, police reconsidered and halted the Cardinal’s group en route under the prevailing security guidelines. The Patriarchate issued a statement describing this as “manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate.” Cardinal Pizzaballa later led an alternative prayer service at the Church of Gethsemane, outside the Old City.

**Unholy Alliance**. One of the holiest sites in Christianity, the Holy Sepulchre does not have a bomb shelter/ safe room due to internal disagreements within the church management that might have prevented the restriction. This however was not disclosed by the international media who was more inclined to find reasons to besmirch Israel.

Israeli authorities defended the decision on safety grounds. Police cited the Old City’s vulnerability to mass-casualty incidents. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office stated there was “no malicious intent whatsoever, only concern for his safety and that of his party.” It acknowledged the symbolic importance of Holy Week and announced that security agencies were developing a plan to be announced imminently to allow church leaders limited worship access.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog not only commented publicly but called the Cardinal privately. “The incident stemmed from security concerns due to the continuous threat of missile attacks from the Iranian terror regime against the civilian population in Israel, following previous incidents in which Iranian missiles fell in the area of the Old City of Jerusalem in recent days.” He called Pizzaballa to “express my great sorrow over this unfortunate incident in the Old City of Jerusalem,” and “reaffirmed the State of Israel’s unwavering commitment to freedom of religion for all faiths and to upholding the status quo at the holy sites of Jerusalem.”

Later Cardinal Pizzaballa sounded a conciliatory tone, noting:

“There were no clashes, everything was done in a very polite manner… we want to use this situation to clarify better in the coming days what to do in respect for everyone’s safety but also in respect for the right to prayer.”

**Church in the ‘Cross’hairs**. Firing missiles toward Jerusalem shows a dangerous disregard for the sanctity of holy sites and the people who gather there to pray as evident here (see above) when missile debris from an Iranian attack landed just feet from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. (Photo: Israel police)

Before any context and clarifications, the damage was done. Swift international condemnation followed. The Vatican, Catholic leaders worldwide, and European governments voiced concern, even condemnation. Arab officials predictably decried it as further encroachment on “Christian rights in occupied East Jerusalem.” Critics argued that while security is paramount, the blanket application of rules to a handful of senior clergy undermine the delicate status quo governing Jerusalem’s holy sites, shared among Christian denominations and long protected under international norms.

This incident was placed under the microscope of those who claim that Christians and Christian rights are under attack, but without the broader context and reality of the war and necessary security precautions. The Palm Sunday incident highlighted how even minimal, pre-approved religious observance can clash with emergency protocols amid active missile threats from Iran. Unfortunately, sometimes missile attacks from Iran can not only shatter buildings and lives, but even a status quo.

An agreement for the remainder of Holy Week, learning from this incident and potentially easing access for clergy while maintaining crowd limits is imminent. The problem, as this incident showed, is that if God forbid there were to be a security incident and mass casualty event at one of the Christian sites, Israel would be blamed by the same people who are now criticizing it for maintaining these security precautions to begin with.

That’s just some of the context with Passover and Easter around the corner. Hopefully when the war is behind us and things get “normal” again, protocol can be developed to prevent any similar future conflicts.

About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Journal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.

*Donations to provide bomb shelters in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter and other sites can be made here.

Category: Religions

AMERICA, BEWARE OF THE ISLAMISTS IN YOUR BACKYARD

Like this:

MENSCHESKEIT, MITZVOT AND THE JEWISH SOUL IN TIMES OF WAR

Like this:

WORN DOWN BY WAR

Like this:

HAIR-RAISING SITUATION

Like this:

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Like this:

BIG MOVE IN SMALL TOWN – RECOGNITION, RECONCILIATION AND RESTITUTION

Like this:

WHY AMERICANS MUST PROTEST THE IRANIAN SOCCER TEAM’S INCLUSION IN THE WORLD CUP

Like this:

SACRED GROUND, SACRED SAFETY – HOLY SEPHULCHRE NEEDS A SHELTER NOW

Like this:

THE TALMUD OF THE SURVIVORS

Like this:

THE CONTEXT BEHIND THE CARDINAL DENIED ENTRY TO JERUSALEM’S HOLY SEPULCHRE

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: