22 October 2007
Evangelical Christians in the United States have reportedly helped to convince dozens of Iranian Jews to move to Israel in recent months by offering them cash incentives. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that funnels millions of dollars in evangelical donations to Israel every year, is promising US$ 10,000 to every Iranian Jew who comes to Israel, the group's director, Yechiel Eckstein, told the “Associated Press” news service. Eckstein said his group has helped bring 82 Jews to Israel from Iran since the project began this year, and hopes to bring 60 more by year's end. About 25,000 Jews are left in Iran - an overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 65 million - the remnants of a community with origins dating to biblical times. Most Iranian Jews left for Israel or the United States over the last 50 years, but the Jewish community is still the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel. Israel and Iran do not have diplomatic relations. Repeated calls by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map, coupled with Iran's reported nuclear weapons program, represented a danger, Eckstein said. "Is this not similar to the situation in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, where they [the Jews] also felt they could weather the storm?" he asked. However, some Iran experts say that most Jews in Iran do not feel immediately threatened.
