US evangelicals support Jews leaving Iran

On Christmas Day this year, 40 Jews arrived secretly in Israel having defected from Iran, a long time enemy of the world's only Jewish state.

Each of the arriving Jews received a gift of $10,000 from American evangelical Christians.

According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, this year the number of Iranian Jews moving to Israel tripled to reach 200. The agency is a quasi governmental organisation promoting immigration to Israel.

A spokesman for the agency said the increase was the result of a stipend programme financed by donations to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), a Christian Zionist organisation.

Michael Jankelowitz, a spokesman for the agency, said, "The money is a major consideration [for people coming to Israel]. These people come with the clothes on their back and their suitcase. Iranian money has no value," reports Washington Times.

According to AP, the Jewish immigrants were given a warm welcome by family members, who threw candy at them at the reception hall of Ben Gurion International Airport.

Details of the immigrants journey from Iran were not released by the Jewish Agency and their identities were kept secret out of fear that releasing such information could endanger Jews still living in Iran.

The IFCJ has donated a total of $1.4 million for Jewish immigration from Iran and is seen as the most recent example of evangelicals becoming involved in pro-Israel philanthropy, according to the Washington Times. Such charitable actions were previously only undertaken by the Jewish Diaspora.

Iran has the largest Jewish population for a Muslim country, with a total of 28,000 Jews. Generally Jews in Iran have good relations with the rest of the population and have a good standard of living. However, visits to Israel are strictly prohibited and those that do go can have their possessions confiscated.

One immigrant arriving on Christmas Day, Michael, 15, said that when he told his friends where he was going, they wanted to come too. According to AP, he said, "I was scared in Iran as a Jew."

Yechiel Eckstein, an Orthodox rabbi and President of the IFCJ, said that the Jewish Agency approached him earlier in the year about the stipend programme. The idea behind the subsidies is to dispel economic fears among Iranian Jews considering emigrating to Israel.

Eckstein said, "The thing that is blocking them from coming is the fear that they won't have enough money to even rent an apartment."

He added that the situation for Jews in Iran was similar to that of Jews who remained in Germany in the 1930s despite the rise of Nazism.

"My feeling is that they're sitting on a time bomb. All it takes is an Israeli or American strike on Iran, and I am reasonably sure that if that happens in the next few years, the repercussions would come down on the Jewish community," reports the Washington Times.

Last week, the Jewish Agency said that Mr Eckstein could join its leadership in return for $45 million in donations from evangelicals over three years.

Evangelicals who back Israel claim they are following a biblical prophecy in which the creation of a Jewish state would be a step towards a Messianic age. Evangelicals have denied claims by Israeli critics that their true goal is to convert Jews to Christianity.

Meir Javedanfar, an Israel-based Iran analyst warned that publicity of the arrival of the Jews to Israel could end up hurting the Iranian Jewish community by placing them in the middle of a "tug of war" between Israel and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reports Washington Times.

Javedanfar claimed that President Ahmadinejad could point to the existence of the Jewish community in Iran as proof that Iran is not anti-Semitic, but that emigration to Israel could imply that the Jewish community in Iran faced hardship

Javedanfar said, "The more high-profile it is, the more it endangers the Jewish community. It's a positive development for Israel, but let's not throw it in Iran's face. It could have a negative impact on the relationship between the Iranian government and the Jewish community," reports Washington Times.