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Posted on 09/21/2026 2:49:59 PM PDT by Morgana
United States-Israeli strikes have “completely destroyed” a synagogue in Tehran, according to Iranian media, as the attacks across Iran killed more than a dozen people overnight.
“According to preliminary information, the Rafi-Nia Synagogue … was completely destroyed in this morning’s attacks,” the Shargh newspaper reported on Tuesday.
According to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency, the synagogue was destroyed when an adjacent residential building in central Tehran was attacked.
Footage showed civil defence workers amid the rubble, with Hebrew-language books scattered on the ground.
The report said that due to the narrowness of the streets surrounding the building attacked, the exterior and interior of the nearby buildings were also “severely damaged”. There was no immediate report on casualties.
In a video published on Telegram by Iran’s official IRIB News outlet, Homayoun Sameh, a Jewish representative in the country’s Islamic Consultative Assembly, said “the Zionist regime showed no mercy to this community during the Jewish holidays and targeted one of our ancient and holy synagogues.
“Unfortunately, during this attack, the synagogue building was completely destroyed and our Torah scrolls were left under the rubble,” he said. Iran’s Jewish community
Judaism is one of Iran’s legally recognised minority religions, and the country has a small Jewish community, although many members fled in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
There are no publicly available official numbers, but there are thought to be a few thousand Jewish people in Iran.
Shargh called the synagogue “one of the most important places for Khorasan Jews to gather and celebrate”, referring to the northeastern province of Iran.
(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com ...
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Opps! Don’t care.
Probably a few things this Al Jazeera propaganda story is leaving out.
Yeah. Iranians would never lie. They would never blow up a synogauge and blame it on the USA.
Yas go n build bombs next to something sacred don t’tink y’all are safe!
Saw “this morning’s attacks” and got my hopes up — but then I saw the article is five months stale.
“Opps! Don’t care.”
Why don’t you care? Because they are Jews or Iranians?
BTW I knew that was coming, that was quick.
Don’t suppose anyone here will start a Givesendgo or GoFundMe to help these people build a new Synagogue and buy new Toroahs?
I said in the first comment about in case you missed this.
We have this thing called the internet. Time to put Trumps brain at work to find a format that entertains and informs at the same time.
Tehran’s embattled Jewish community endures despite Israeli bombing of synagogue
On the evening of 6 April, Asef, 65, and other members of Tehran’s Jewish community braved the US-Israeli bombing campaign to celebrate an evening Passover service at the Rafi’ Nia synagogue in the centre of the Iranian capital.
Inside the dim hall, lined with Persian carpets and mint green curtains, Torah verses were recited and prayers murmured under the breath. Asef, his shirt neatly tucked into his trousers and a kippah on his head, sat among the men, while the women sat separately on the other side. The atmosphere was reverent but subdued.
“We didn’t let the conflict stop us from celebrating,” he said, adding that the community had made an effort to hold on to their Passover traditions even amid the difficulties of war.
It was already dark when he headed home that night; the streets were quiet, with only a few people out.
By the time he got up the next morning to get ready for work, an Israeli airstrike had completely destroyed the synagogue.
The Israeli army described the destruction as “collateral damage” from a strike targeting a commander, but members of the Jewish community expressed anger and outrage. Nobody was injured, although a staff member had been in the synagogue’s office at the time.
The morning after the bombing, synagogue members sifted through rubble and debris, trying to recover what they could: a handful of religious books and three Torah scrolls were pulled from the shatter brick and rebar, but much was lost.
“It’s all under the rubble, including some of our historical volumes,” said Homayoun Sameh, a member of parliament and the head of the Jewish Association of Iran, who visited the site.
“We condemn this attack. It disrespects our faith. Iran’s Jewish community doesn’t have good relations with the Zionist Israeli government,” he said.
Iran’s Jewish community is the largest and oldest in the Middle East outside Israel, dating back about 2,500 years to when Jews were exiled eastwards by Assyrian and Babylonian rulers.
Iranian officials have long used antisemitic language to express their hostility to Israel – former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once described the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis as “myth” – but the government maintains that its stance is directed at Israel as a state, not Jews as people.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has highlighted the unique dual identity of a community that has itself become collateral damage in a conflict that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, asserts has been fought to protect Jews.
Until 1979, Iran – under the pro-western monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – was Israel’s closest ally in the region. After the Islamic revolution, the country’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, severed diplomatic ties and the two countries have been locked in confrontation ever since.
“Some speak of a so-called golden era before the 1979 revolution, when Tehran and Tel Aviv were close friends, but this was also a period when Israel backed, armed and trained the brutal shah regime,” said Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory, who has spent time with the Jewish community in Tehran.
After the revolution, emigration meant the country’s Jewish population dropped from about 100,000 to 10,000-15,000, mostly focused in the bigger cities of Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz.
“In the early years after the revolution, society was in turmoil and many people confused us with Zionists. Jewish properties were confiscated, and many Jews were afraid and sought refuge [in Israel],” said Sameh.
Others decided to stay, such as the family of the community’s chief rabbi, Younes Hamami Lalehzar, 61, an internal medicine doctor who has long worked at Tehran’s Jewish hospital. His family, merchants originally from the city of Yazd in central Iran, had always been proudly both Iranian and Jewish.
Today, the vibrant community maintains about 30 synagogues, as well as schools, kosher restaurants and supermarkets.
Judaism is constitutionally recognised and protected in Iran, although Jews are barred from holding certain high government or military positions.
It is a community that defies easy categorisation.
“Many in the Jewish community are understandably cautious of outsiders, self-censorship is common, some are what I’d call quiet Zionists while others are fiercely critical of Israeli crimes against Palestinians and opposed to Zionism,” said Loewenstein.
“Many are deeply opposed to the Trump administration and Israeli destruction of Iranian infrastructure during the recent war. The Israeli airstrike that destroyed a prominent synagogue in Tehran confirmed the fears of many Iranian Jews that Israel and Netanyahu don’t really care about their fate.”
♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️
You may read the rest on the link but this gets the point
April 7th.
Why?
Plenty of target practice here.
One down, many to go.
I know! Those wascally Joooos are playing 7D chess to screw the Christians! That’s why they bombed a synagogue?!?!!!!
A SYNAGOGUE? In TEHRAN?
Or that the IRGC launched a traceable attack from a synagogue.
She hates Jews and has the gall to call herself prolife. She’s a Jew hater and is happy this happened IMO.
“”According to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency, the synagogue was destroyed when an adjacent residential building in central Tehran was attacked.””
***
These Iranian morons must really think that people are stupid. Stupid enough to believe one damned word that they bleat. Not bloody likely... but the Bagdad/Tehran Bobs there will keep lying, nevertheless. It’s in their DNA.
“”You may read the rest on the link but this gets the point””
***
The point is... that they’re lying, as usual...
and if you are presenting this crap as truthful, you’re lying, too. Get it?
“One down, many to go.”
Sorry, but I read this as “mosque”. No way to I condone ruining a Synagogue. Again, apologies. I loathe Iran and its despicable religion.
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