Leaders from different religions paid tribute to Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was eliminated in a US air strike in Baghdad two years ago.
These included the archbishop of the Armenian Christians in Iran and also a member of the Iranian Jewish community - Rabbi Hamnami Lalehzar.
“General Soleimani played a key role in serving other religious communities who lived in Iraq in Syria,” Lalehzar told PressTV. “A case in point is the Yazidis in Iraq, whose women were brutally raped and tortured by Daesh (the Arabic name for ISIS -ed.) terrorists, and thanks to General Soleimani’s efforts, they now live in peace and security.”
Lalehzar is the second member of the Iranian Jewish community to have praised Soleimani. Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, a representative of the Iranian Jewish community in Iran’s parliament, condemned the killing of Soleimani and offered his condolences to the general’s family.
In a statement on the second anniversary of Soleimani’s death, Najafabadi wrote that the Jewish community in Iran lamented Soleimani’s killing, and offers its condolences to Soleimani’s family.
Najafabadi lauded Soleimani as an “officer of peace and security, the symbol of honor, zealousness, the opposite of arrogance, and a symbol of the defense of the weak and the homeland.”
The Jewish community in Iran, numbering about 8,000, lives in the country in the shadow of fear of harassment or accusations of espionage. Its leaders are constantly trying to differentiate between Judaism and Zionism.
While Iranian leaders regularly call for Israel’s destruction, the Jewish community there is on good terms with the authorities.