Features
Monitored phone calls and fear of arrest: What life looks like for Iran’s Jews now
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
Amid the war in Iran, one Iranian Jewish woman who lives in the United States, but whose family remains in Iran, has been wracked with fear. Before the ceasefire, she spoke with her parents once a week for exactly one minute — both because of the exorbitant cost, about $50 per minute, and because of the fear of surveillance.
During one call a few days into the war, she said, something felt off.
“I could see that something is so wrong. It’s as if someone was there,” the woman, who moved to the U.S. in 2008, said in an interview with the Forward. “It seemed like my mom was actually reading from a note.”
She later learned that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had come to her parents’ home, questioning why they frequently called an American number. They instructed her parents to download Bale, an Iranian messaging app widely believed to be monitored by authorities, before making any further calls.
“It’s a spy app, and everyone knows that,” the woman said with a wry laugh. Her parents refused. Instead, they were told to call their daughter and read from a script while IRGC members watched.
“Basically, they said to prove that you are with us and not with Israel, read this when you call her,” the woman said. “After that day, they didn’t call for a long time.”
Eventually, she learned that her parents had fled to a safer part of the country to escape bombardment.
Her family are among the estimated 10,000 Jews who still live in Iran, in the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside of Israel. Once numbering around 120,000, the community has dwindled significantly since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when life for religious minorities fundamentally changed. Today, Jews who remain in Iran must carefully navigate life under the regime, publicly expressing loyalty to avoid being falsely accused of Zionist espionage.
Amid Iran’s war with the U.S. and Israel, that pressure has intensified.
With an ongoing internet blackout, communication is limited and closely monitored. To understand what life is like for Iranian Jews today, I spoke with several people in the U.S. who remain in sporadic contact with family members inside Iran. Everyone interviewed requested that they not be identified, fearing repercussions for either themselves or their families.
A synagogue vigil for the Supreme Leader
On April 16, Tehran’s Yusef Abad synagogue held a memorial for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war. The event was attended and reported on by several state-affiliated media channels, filming as participants from Iran’s Jewish community shared their appreciation for the deceased Supreme Leader.
Inside and around the synagogue, posters featuring photos of Khamenei were displayed alongside Farsi slogans like “Unity of Iran’s faiths against aggression — condemnation of the attack on the Tehran synagogue by the child-killing Zionist regime and criminal America” and “The Jewish faith is separate from Zionism.”
Regime media pointed to the vigil as evidence of Jewish support for Iran’s theocratic government. But experts say that interpretation misses the reality.
Beni Sabti, an Iranian-born analyst at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, said displays like the synagogue vigil are often a matter of survival. Jews who remain in Iran are frequently compelled to demonstrate loyalty to the regime — and opposition to Israel — in order to avoid suspicion of having ties to Israel. Allegations of such ties have often led to imprisonment and executions following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
To protect the community, Jewish leaders — especially rabbis — often participate in pro-regime events, including memorials for senior regime figures. In some cases, Iranian rabbis have even sat alongside members of Hamas and Hezbollah to pay their respects to senior IRGC commanders responsible for funding and training terror groups across the Middle East.
The regime exerts significant pressure to stage these displays, Sabti said, “because it’s good for them to show the world, ‘You see, we don’t oppress anyone.’”
Beyond public displays, much of Iran’s economy is tied to the state — what officials often describe as a “resistance economy.” In that system, some say, expressions of loyalty can become intertwined with economic survival.
The woman who left Iran in 2008 said one of her relatives was once pressured to confiscate land from dozens of people and transfer it to the government in order to keep his job — a loyalty test she says was especially harsh because of his Jewish identity. “In the job interview, they told him, you have a Jewish background, so you have to first prove how far you will go,” she explained.
Since the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran in June 2025, the situation has grown even more tense. More than 30 Jewish Iranians were reportedly detained during that conflict because of alleged contact with Israel. While some Jewish community members were arrested during the wave of anti-regime protests that occurred at the beginning of the year, Sabti said he has not heard of a similar wave of arrests during the current war.
Still, the fear remains.
Synagogues as shelter
Some Iranian Jews have managed to stay in touch with relatives via landline phones, although calls are expensive and likely monitored. Most avoid discussing politics, using their limited time simply to confirm they are alive.
“After the 12-Day War, people really didn’t talk on the phone,” said the woman who moved to the U.S. in 2008. “We do talk, it’s not like they literally cannot, it’s just like they realized that the scrutiny was so high that no one has meaningful conversations.”
Even so, fragments of sentiment emerge.
One 25-year-old Iranian Jew from Los Angeles said his Jewish cousins in Iran cried tears of joy when they heard of the Ayatollah’s death.
He said his great uncle and cousin told him over the phone, “I don’t care, whatever the cost. If you can eliminate Khamenei, if you can eliminate Mojtaba, his son, if you can eliminate any threat… do it.” He added, “Most Persian Jews in Iran are happy, is what I hear.”
Amid the current ceasefire, a 64-year-old Iranian Jewish woman from LA said her Jewish friends in Iran have expressed relief. “They are happy that the situation is calm, but on the other hand, nobody is happy. They all want it to get finished,” she said, adding that they hope for “regime change.”
For Nora, an Iranian Jew living in New York, the war has come at a time of crisis for her family in Iran. She says her aunt has been focused on caring for her son, who is suffering from bone marrow cancer. Because the family keeps kosher, her aunt has had to leave the house — even during bombardments — to ensure he has food and other necessities.
Around three weeks into the war, her house in Tehran was destroyed after a nearby police station was struck. She briefly moved into a local synagogue; now, she lives with another Jewish family who opened their home to her. Her son remains too sick to leave the hospital.
A synagogue destroyed
Nora’s aunt is not the only Iranian Jew to find shelter in a synagogue. Sabti heard from another Jewish family inside Iran that Jewish communities have been using synagogues as bomb shelters throughout the war. He recalled doing the same during his youth at the time of the Iran-Iraq war that began in 1980.
Beyond using the space for physical safety, synagogues have also become a place for Jews to be together during the difficult time. “They come just to gather there, passing the time, meeting and having a little bit better time together,” he said.
For members of the Rafi’ Nia synagogue, a 150-year-old religious institution in Tehran, this sense of comfort has disappeared. On April 6, the community gathered there for Passover services. The next morning, they learned the building had been destroyed by an Israeli strike.
The Israel Defense Forces said that the target of the strike was not the synagogue, but rather a top commander from Khatam al-Anbiya, Iran’s military emergency command. But Iranian media suggested that the IDF had intentionally targeted the building. The head of the synagogue made a statement condemning the attacks and wishing the Iranian regime success in the war.
The woman who immigrated in 2008 had visited the Rafi’ Nia synagogue during Passover around 10 years ago. She described it as a beautiful old building. Seeing images of its destruction brought back painful memories of her family’s past.
She and her family were forcibly converted to Islam around 70 years ago, she said, with one uncle publicly hanged after he refused to convert. Her family continued practicing Judaism in secret — celebrating Shabbat behind locked doors and in her grandmother’s basement, always afraid.
She believes her family became a target for conversion after the synagogue in their area was destroyed, leaving them without formal affiliation to a recognized religious institution. On two occasions, she said, the IRGC raided their home during Jewish holidays, searching for evidence of religious practice. When they found a menorah, her father was detained. “When my dad came back, he was a ghost.” She fears that members of the destroyed synagogue could now face a similar vulnerability.
In Iran, certain religious minorities, including Jews, are constitutionally recognized. But she says that their protection is closely tied to existing institutions.
“When we talk about the lack of protection, it has a very nuanced meaning. In Iran, this doesn’t mean that the synagogues cannot exist, but it means that the existing synagogues are the only legal protection that Jews do have,” she said. “Good luck with rebuilding that place. Good luck with asking for a new synagogue.”
Sabti said the regime has already used the synagogue’s destruction as propaganda, publicly condemning the attack while reinforcing the state narrative of religious inclusion. “The head of the Islamic clerics condemned Israel and paid condolences to the Jews,” he said. “Everyone pays condolences and says, ‘Oh, sorry, we are in this together’ … but everyone knows that the other one also is lying.”
An American Jewish detainee
For one Iranian American Jew, the war has made a dire situation worse.
Kamran Hekmati, a 70-year-old Iranian American from Great Neck, New York, traveled to Iran in June 2025 and was detained during the 12-Day War. According to advocates, his alleged crime was traveling to Israel 13 years earlier for his grandson’s bar mitzvah.
Kieran Ramsey of the Global Reach advocacy group, who represents Hekmati’s family, said in an interview that Kamran being the Iranian regime’s only Jewish American prisoner puts him in a particularly precarious position. “There can be risk of retribution or reprisals against him at any moment,” Ramsey said, “from prison guards or other prisoners…his identity certainly puts him at higher risk.”
On March 16, almost three weeks into the war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Hekmati as wrongfully detained, a status that allows the federal government to deploy all possible levers — diplomatic, legal, and economic — to secure his release. Ramsey says that change in designation is helpful, but only goes so far.
His organization is now pushing for the release of all American prisoners in Iran to be an integral part of the U.S.-Iran negotiations to end the war.
“Our hope is that Kamran Hekmati and the other Americans that are being held are put to the front of the list in terms of issues to decide, and not as a deal sweetener,” he said adding, “We know the U.S. negotiators have a list of American names. We know Kamran is at the top of that list…. We also know there are some very rational actors inside the regime, and we are trying to convince them that you have a no-cost way to open doors. Use Kamran as that no-cost way.”
The last time the woman who emigrated in 2008 visited Iran was two years ago. Even then, she worried that photos taken of her in the U.S. wearing a Jewish star necklace might draw the regime’s suspicion.
Now, she believes whatever space existed for quiet concessions from the Iranian government to Jews may disappear. The regime’s efforts to retain a firm grip on the Iranian people following January’s massive anti-regime protest wave and the war pose new risks.
“Just because of everything that has happened… I’m sure that any type of like ‘OK, let this go,’ ‘Let this person go,’ will end,” she said.
“Now I know that I could not go back,” she added. “I really feel if the Islamic Republic stays — and they probably have a good chance of staying — I feel like I lost Iran.”
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
What Is Next for Israel and Hezbollah?
By HENRY SREBRNIK During Operation Rising Lion in 2025, the Iranians discovered that the proxies they had built up for years failed to provide the assistance expected of them. Hezbollah, their most important ally, refrained from opening a front against Israel.
But in the current war, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem responded to pressure from Tehran and carried out his threat to open fire on Israel. It sent tens of thousands of Israelis in the Galilee into shelters several times a day. This time Hezbollah proved effective. What now?
On June 26, after a series of five bilateral meetings hosted by the United States, representatives of the Israeli, Lebanese, and U.S. governments signed the Trilateral Framework Agreement, declaring their shared “ambition to end conflict between them, ensure the sovereignty and security of both countries, and establish peaceful neighborly relations between the two countries.”
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a framework which would include the disarming of Hezbollah, the phased withdrawal of Israel from areas conquered over the last three years of war, and the deployment of the Western supported Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to the areas evacuated by Israel. So far, three “pilot zones” have been established, in the areas of Faroun, Srifa and Zawtar al-Gharbiya. “It’s the beginning of the beginning. There’s a lot of work ahead,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after the signing ceremony. That’s an understatement!
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, a Maronite Christian, made his first ever White House visit on July 21. The Washington meeting with President Donald Trump, the first for a Lebanese president since 2009, was meant to move forward on the project to sever Lebanon from Iran’s orbit, disarm Tehran’s proxy Hezbollah, and pave a way toward Lebanon-Israel peace.
Aoun recalled that the army’s collapse in 1975 led to the emergence of militia groups, a civil war and the Palestinian takeover of the country’s south, which was used to launch attacks on Israel.
But there remain legitimate doubts about Beirut’s willingness to follow through on promises to disarm and dismantle Hezbollah. The last round of such efforts in late 2025 failed. Lebanese leaders have promised to disarm Hezbollah multiple times over the past thirty-five years, without success. The United States has sent the LAF more than $3 billion in aid since 2006. And yet two decades later, Hezbollah is still armed and still on Israel’s northern border.
“America needs to support the LAF,” Aoun told Trump. “Without the LAF,” he continued, “everything will collapse.” And as he told a group after his meeting with Trump, the aid must be “immediate and unconditional.” Could the army plausibly disarm Hezbollah? Since 2022 Washington has been paying LAF salaries directly, yet there has been no change.
The LAF is generally thought to consist of about 50 per cent Shia Lebanese among its rank and file, and around 30 per cent in its officer corps. Such a force would split along sectarian lines were it to be deployed against Hezbollah. Until Hezbollah’s control over the Shiite community weakens, it remains unclear whether the army can perform the task.
Anyhow, eliminating Hezbollah is virtually impossible, because its very existence is just part of what makes Lebanon an ongoing failed state. Hezbollah is not merely a military organization. It is the product of a particular geopolitical environment, a particular historical experience, and a particular understanding of survival.
Over the past four decades, it has evolved into a political party, social welfare provider, military force and ideological movement deeply rooted in Lebanon’s Shia communities. While military action can weaken it, the social and political foundations that sustain Hezbollah are much harder to remove.
The people who demand Hezbollah’s disarmament often begin with an idealized image of Lebanon rather than the Lebanon that exists. They imagine a state capable of protecting all its citizens equally and defending its borders independently. That is very far from reality.
Modern Lebanon was constructed around a delicate sectarian formula that sought to balance competing communities rather than forge a single national project. Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing arrangement was formed under the National Pact of 1943 and the Taif Agreement of 1989. Different factions cultivated different external patrons, be they France, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Syria. Political identity often became intertwined with foreign sponsorship and external alliances. The result was a state that never succeeded in creating a unified national consciousness.
For much of the country’s history, the Shia Muslims were widely regarded as the country’s most politically and economically marginalized community. They were often viewed with suspicion by the authorities and lacked the institutional recognition enjoyed by other religious communities.
So, for the Shia population, Hezbollah is not merely a political party or an armed movement. It is an insurance policy against annihilation. The Shia community in Lebanon looks around the region today and sees opponents everywhere — not just Israel, but Sunni Muslim militants ruling Syria, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia as well – states that consider Shia Islam a heresy to be extinguished. (Lebanon’s own Sunnis also fit that description.) Under such conditions, disarmament begins to look like suicide.
President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Syria might get involved in Lebanon again is ridiculous. Any Syrian intervention under its new Sunni rulers would allow Hezbollah to claim credibly that Lebanon faces a new external threat. Whereas many Lebanese question Hezbollah’s claims that it is protecting Lebanon from Israel, there would likely be greater agreement that a Syrian incursion merits resistance. Many Lebanese would view it through the lens of Syria’s 29-year occupation of Lebanon, fuelling concerns about a return of Syrian influence over the country.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Hezbollah has portrayed the new government in Damascus as a jihadi organization that seeks to carry out sectarian massacres against the Shias. This has actually increased Hezbollah’s legitimacy within its own support base – those who already view Hezbollah as a resistance movement that seeks to fight against any external actor.
Nonetheless, in the recent conflict Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah. The organization since the Gaza war began has lost most of its long-range and heavy missiles, and about 8,000 of its fighters and commanders have been killed, out of roughly 30,000.
But Hezbollah has not been decisively defeated, nor will it be. The problem is that when a state is faced with an armed force on its soil that doesn’t want to disarm, the usual recourse available to the state is coercion. The Lebanese state has neither the will nor capacity to do so and is no longer sovereign, in any meaningful sense.
As long as the conditions that created Hezbollah remain intact, the expectation that it will voluntarily surrender its weapons will remain a fantasy. It is up to Israel alone to keep Hezbollah north of the Litani River, where the group’s short-distance missiles and drones cannot reach Israel’s population centres.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
WINNIPEG EMPLOYERS SHOULD USE AI TO TRAIN, NOT JUST TRIM
By Dr. GLEB TSIPURSKY Generative AI has already entered everyday Canadian work. Statistics Canada reported that 35.9% of workers used generative AI in the previous 12 months. For Winnipeg employers, the important question is no longer whether staff will use these tools. The more consequential question is what kind of workforce employers will build while they use them.
An updated Stanford University analysis found employment among workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations 19% below where it would be had it kept pace with less-exposed peers, with the gap widening over time. That trend should concern Winnipeg employers because the work most exposed to automation often overlaps with the work through which beginners develop professional judgment.
Entry-level employees do more than produce first drafts, conduct basic research, summarize information, prepare routine analyses, or handle standard customer questions. Those tasks are also training. Repetition teaches people what good work looks like, where common mistakes appear, when a situation is routine, and when something unusual requires escalation.
If employers simply remove that work, they may save time today while weakening the pipeline of people capable of handling harder work tomorrow. A firm can automate a junior task quickly. Rebuilding several years of missing experience later is much harder.
The better approach is to redesign entry-level work around AI-assisted apprenticeship. New employees can use AI to produce a first draft, but they should also verify the output against reliable sources. They can use AI to summarize a customer issue, but they should explain which facts matter and what remains uncertain. They can use AI to analyze routine information, but they should flag exceptions and bring consequential decisions to experienced colleagues.
That changes the role of junior employees without eliminating the learning built into the role. Instead of rewarding people for producing routine work manually, employers can reward them for checking AI output, spotting edge cases, asking better questions, and knowing when human judgment is required.
Managers also need to change how they supervise. If a junior employee submits an AI-assisted answer, the manager should ask how the employee verified it, what assumptions the system made, what could go wrong, and what would cause the employee to escalate the issue. Those questions turn AI use into a training process rather than a shortcut around learning.
Winnipeg’s small and mid-sized employers may be especially well positioned to take this approach. They often cannot afford to separate technology adoption, training, and talent development into different departments. The same manager who wants more productivity today also needs capable employees next year. That makes it practical to connect AI use directly to coaching and skill development.
Employers should also resist measuring AI adoption only by time saved or tasks completed. Those metrics matter, but they can hide whether the organization is developing stronger judgment. A more useful set of questions is whether employees are catching more errors, escalating the right exceptions, becoming more independent over time, and learning which decisions should remain human-led.
None of this requires employers to preserve every old task exactly as it was. Some routine work should disappear. The goal should be to preserve the learning function, not the old workflow. If AI removes one form of repetition, employers should deliberately replace it with another way for junior staff to practice, receive feedback, and encounter progressively harder decisions.
Winnipeg businesses can gain real productivity from AI without turning entry-level work into a dead end. The strongest employers will use AI to accelerate the development of beginners rather than treating beginners as the easiest cost to remove. That approach can improve productivity now while still producing the experienced professionals Winnipeg will need in the years ahead.
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Adapted from: The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press, 2026). https://disasteravoidanceexperts.com/aibook
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a behavioral scientist called the “Office Whisperer” by The New York Times, helps tech-forward leaders stop overpaying for AI while boosting engagement and innovation. He serves as the CEO of the AI consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, and wrote eight books, including The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press, 2026).
Features
IPL 2026/27 Preview: Beer Sheva Defends Its Crown
Israeli football enters the 2026/27 season with a genuinely open title race for the first time in years. Hapoel Beer Sheva claimed a dramatic sixth championship last May, edging Beitar Jerusalem by just three points after a campaign interrupted by regional conflict and settled almost entirely on head-to-head form. That kind of finish leaves scores unsettled, and every major club has spent the summer either reinforcing a title push or plotting revenge. With four Israeli sides now competing in European qualifiers simultaneously, the new Ligat ha’Al campaign carries more weight than it has in years.
How Beer Sheva Won It
Ran Kozuk’s side did not simply outscore the league last season; they won the moments that mattered against the team chasing them hardest. Beitar Jerusalem lost twice to Beersheba across the regular campaign and could only draw both playoff meetings, a pattern one report summed up bluntly: if you want to be champions, you have to beat the champions, and Beitar never managed it. Kings Kangwa was named the league’s most valuable player, while captain Miguel Vitor and goalkeeper Ofir Marciano anchored a squad that closed out the title with a 4-2 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv. Owner Alona Barkat has kept that core together, giving Beersheba a real shot at back-to-back titles, assuming Champions League fixtures don’t wear the squad down.
Beitar’s Response and the Chase Pack
Losing a title race by three points after leading for large stretches tends to force change, and Beitar Jerusalem has responded accordingly. Almog Cohen, previously the club’s sporting director, has stepped into the head coach role, replacing Barak Itzhaki after the campaign ended in disappointment. Captain Yarden Shua, veteran forward Omer Atzili and Dor Hugi remain the attacking core, though the club opens the season without injured midfielder Adi Yona, a blow given how much Beitar leaned on midfield control last year. Maccabi Tel Aviv arrives with a different kind of statement: despite finishing outside the top two domestically, they won the Israel State Cup in a chaotic 2-1 final against Beersheba that produced six red cards, suggesting the squad has quality to challenge again even if consistency remains the question mark.
The Return of European Football on a Bigger Scale
What separates this season from recent ones is the sheer number of Israeli clubs competing for continental places at once. Beersheba enters Champions League qualifying as domestic champions, though for security reasons their ties have been relocated to Szombathely, Hungary rather than played at home. Maccabi Tel Aviv, seeded thanks to a healthy UEFA coefficient, goes into Europa League qualifying against the winner of Sheriff Tiraspol and Aluminij. Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv both enter Conference League qualifying, the latter having secured their spot via a fourth-place playoff finish. Playing qualifiers on neutral ground has become routine for Israeli clubs, and it hasn’t stopped them from competing credibly.
Mid-Table Ambition and the Promotion Effect
Beyond the four clubs chasing European nights, the middle of the table looks unusually competitive heading into August. Hapoel Petah Tikva and Hapoel Tel Aviv both returned to the top flight after a season away, and Hapoel Tel Aviv’s playoff run last term shows promoted clubs can climb quickly rather than simply survive. Maccabi Haifa and Ironi Kiryat Shmona, both capable of springing results against the traditional big three, will look to use a full pre-season to close the gap. That added depth tends to produce the unpredictable midweek results that make a 14-team division worth following from the opening whistle.
What to Watch as the Season Kicks Off
Beersheba’s fixture list is the one to track first, since balancing Champions League qualifying with league form in August and September will say a great deal about whether this squad has the depth to go back-to-back. Beitar’s response under a rookie head coach is the second storyline, particularly whether Cohen can get more out of a group that dominated possession last season but couldn’t finish off the champions when it counted. For fans following these storylines match by match, tracking how the market prices each side into the opening rounds is a useful gauge of who bookmakers actually rate, and anyone comparing options for the season ahead can check out the best betting sites in Canada for a sense of how odds and coverage are shaping up before a ball is kicked.
Between a defending champion carrying continental fixture congestion, a rival reshaping its coaching staff, and a deepening mid-table, Ligat ha’Al enters the new season with more storylines running in parallel than it has had in years. Whether Beer Sheva backs up their sixth title or Beitar finally converts near misses into silverware, the opening weeks should offer the first real clues.
