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Jewish Iranian-American sentenced to prison in Iran for visiting Israel 13 years ago
A Jewish Iranian-American man has been sentenced to prison in Iran for traveling to Israel 13 years ago for his son’s bar mitzvah, his family members have disclosed.
Kamran Hekmati, 70, of Great Neck, Long Island, which is home to a large Persian Jewish population, traveled to Iran in May for what was supposed to be a brief visit.
But in July, he was detained and sent to Evin prison in Tehran, his relatives told the New York Times, which reported Hekmati’s imprisonment for the first time on Thursday.
The notorious prison was heavily damaged during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June. Directly following the war, Iran arrested 35 members of the Jewish communities in Tehran and Shiraz on charges of having contact with Israel.
It was not clear whether Hekmati was included in that total. But Iranian authorities had realized that he both held an Iranian passport, despite having moved to the United States as a child, and had violated a law barring Iranians from traveling to Israel. (Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.)
In August, he was sentenced to four years in prison by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court. His sentence was reduced to two years in September, and a lawyer for his family has filed an appeal seeking his release on humanitarian grounds because he has cancer, according to the newspaper.
“Kamran was the person who glued the family together. He was always there for everyone, his wife, his kids, all his relatives, anyone he met in Iran,” Hekmati’s cousin, Shohreh Nowfar, told the New York Times. “It’s so ironic that the country he loved so much and tried to help has now imprisoned him.”
Hekmati’s family came to the United States several years before the Iranian Revolution in 1979 caused tens of thousands of Iranian Jews to flee to the United States and Israel. Today, Iran has an estimated 8,000 Jews who are permitted to practice their religion but barred from any contact with Israel or display of support from it.
Hekmati is currently one of four U.S. citizens held in Iranian prison, but appears to be the first case of the country arresting an American Jew in recent years. The Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran, an affiliate of the Human Rights in Iran NGO, reported in July that a second Jewish American had also been imprisoned and released on bail.
“The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly and wrongfully detaining other countries’ citizens,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement to the Times. “Iran should release these individuals immediately.”
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The post Jewish Iranian-American sentenced to prison in Iran for visiting Israel 13 years ago appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.