I love S4amira 4hmed (don't snitch tag you shitheads) & I don't want to attack her, but there is a matter of grave liberties with the historical record in the 1st ep of her art of Persia show which I feel needs to be addressed in the public domain, however minimally. »

At one point Samira says that the biggest Jewish community in the Middle East is in Iran, and the delivery is this knowing "bet you didn't think Iran was so diverse & progressive" tone/smile. Hard to describe but we all know the cadence. Very C4, very Guardian. VERY selective. »

The remaining Jewish community in Iran is tiny by historical standards - fewer than 10,000 people. It's also under constant surveillance & political harassment. But technically it's true that it is the largest remaining in the middle east, for two very unedifying reasons: »

1. Close to half a million Jews were directly or implicitly (through increased persecution) expelled from the various middle eastern states after 1948. Large, prosperous & ancient communities in Aleppo, Casablanca, Algiers, Alexandria & of course Baghdad (& more) have vanished.

By most measures the destruction of Jewish life in the middle east was more complete than in Europe. It's a human & cultural tragedy, for both Jews & non-Jews. Craftsmanship, scholarship, cuisine, interfaith community that existed for millennia were torn out by the roots. »

2. The Jews who still remain in Iran today are, by & large, prisoners of the regime. Legal emigration to Israel is not an option: it's not allowed, & if the regime lets you out as some kind of political gesture, they will persecute your relatives who stay behind. »

So sure, it's true to say that the Iranian Jewish community is the biggest one in the middle east, but what does it really consist in? A handful of people who were happen to have survived being ethnically cleansed, now held hostage to a totalitarian regime's PR efforts? »

It's just not a statement that should have been made at all. If for some reason the showrunners felt they had to mention Jews, then more context was mandatory. Not least among it, the destruction of the indigenous Baha'i community & the ongoing persecution of the Kurds.

/end

It looks like Iran is exporting its persecution of the tiny remaining Jewish populations of the Middle East to Yemen, too. It's just completely tragic. There used to be a whole large & powerful Jewish *kingdom* in the region during antiquity.

https://twitter.com/chulf_/status/1282893013472161792

For all we know that tiny remaining handful of Jews are a remnant of Yemeni indigenity going back two millennia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyar