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Meet Tehran Von Ghasri, a Persian Jewish African-American comic
For an American Jewish comedian, Tehran Von Ghasri has an interesting story to tell, as his name suggests. The son of an Iranian-Jewish immigrant father and an African-American mother, Tehran’s heritage includes a mix of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Zoroastrian, and any part of that mix is fair game for Von Ghasri’s standup.
Yet despite Von Ghasri’s many identities, he has a strong sense of self. In our interview, he discusses how young Jews can also navigate through their own multiple identities and come out stronger.
You juggle so many identities. You’re African-American, you’re Jewish, you’re Persian. How do you think of yourself on any given day?
I don’t think about it often because it’s just a natural part of who I am. Everyone else thinks about it way more than I do. I don’t realize that I’m black or Persian or Jewish or not. I just think of myself as a human being. My family’s mixed ethnicities and race and religion becomes a Venn diagram and I’m stuck in the middle. People often ask me things like, “What religion are you?” Very rarely do they ever ask me if I’m just a good person. There are times when it’s almost as if some people don’t see you as black enough. Some people don’t see you as Persian enough. Some people don’t see you as Jewish enough. And the only thing I simply remind myself is that I’m always enough because I’m just always me.
One other thing that you are is a comedian. But some comedians have found themselves in trouble recently because they perpetuate tropes or stereotypes. Does comedy really need to deal in stereotypes of Jews or African Americans?
When the comedians that you’re mentioning get in trouble, it’s honestly not because they perpetuate stereotypes but because they reach for the low-hanging fruit. They use the stereotype in a very negative way. There’s a way to do comedy where you have fun with people. You don’t make fun of people. And there’s a big difference there. Maybe because I have such a unique, diverse background, when I say something, it comes from such a good place that people usually tend not to get offended. They understand I’m speaking about me. And I push the absurdity, so you realize how silly they often are. But pushing these stereotypes? That’s not funny anymore. Boxes are meant for things and not people. Let’s expand, let’s grow.
Let’s talk about one of your identities, which is African-American. There was a time when African Americans and Jews worked together in the struggle for civil rights. Are those days gone? Or is it just that some of the more divisive voices are finding a platform?
What we see is this loud minority who speaks up as if they’re speaking on behalf of everyone else. And it happens all the time. It’s usually the good people who just stay silent. We need to speak up; we need to show that the black and Jewish communities still very much work together. In the ’60s, Martin Luther King was standing side by side with a rabbi. That’s how it worked. Somewhere along the line, we were privileged enough to not think that anymore; we became a little bit divisive. I think future generations are going to be much different. I think that there’s a new generation coming up that’s realizing we all have way more in common.
What about the Jewish part of you? Where is that in your life?
It’s part of me in every way simply because it is a part of who I am. It’s a part of how I grew up. And that’s why it’s so hard to define. I didn’t see it as if it was something I was, for example, programmed to do or was being written into my life. It just became a blanket of things that were. But the biggest thing that my family taught me was respect. It was one of the things of being diverse, that they respected all the parts of me. And they didn’t define one as better or worse.
The Z3 conference is focused on creating a positive Jewish identity. In light of the current rise in antisemitism, how do we achieve this?
There are 15 million Jews in the entire world. Most people, when you go past New York or the West Coast, they haven’t even seen a Jewish person. So, it’s easy to point at the unknown boogeyman. I think that goes to education. When you know better, you do better. For example, Americans who have traveled outside of the United States have a tendency to be way less racist, way less antisemitic.
You have a strong sense of identity. But there are a lot of Jews on campus now who are dealing with issues like taking blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or assumptions about wealth. What’s your advice to Jewish kids in college?
My advice to all the kids in college is to be proud of who you are. Being proud and having pride are two different things. Pride is part of the fall. Having pride means I think I’m good, but you’re bad. But being proud means, “I think I’m good and you can be good as well.” Be proud of who you are, never hide that identity. The fact that this is happening in college institutions is even more sad because that’s where we’re supposed to be enlightened and learn. So, get out there and be part of the outreach. Get to know people, and that’s how we will grow and know the rest of the world. We will make it better. But don’t let the antisemitic bullies bully you. And there should be nothing anti-Palestinian about being pro-Israeli, and there should be nothing anti-Israeli about being pro-Palestinian. If anyone has a conversation with me where they hate the other in favor of one, then already we’ve started off on the wrong foot.
What do you plan on talking about at the Z3 conference?
I’m going to be speaking on my personal experiences of intersectionality and how that plays into the history of Jews, especially Jewish people of color, and we have to remember how important a role we continue to play in the identity of Judaism and what it means for the diversity of Judaism. Because Jewish isn’t just a religion, it’s also an ethnicity and race. And that race, by the way, encompasses people of so many different shades and different looks and different ethnicities. Ultimately, we’re also going to be exploring how comedy plays a huge part in that. Who has taught us more about politics in the last twenty years other than comedians — whether it’s Jon Stewart or Trevor Noah? Who has made us think about race in different ways more than Dave Chappelle, for example, or Wanda Sykes? Who has been the face of Jewish identity more than Larry David? I just want people to realize that, honestly, we’re all in this together. That’s the biggest thing that we can push out no matter what your background is, what your religion is, whoever you are—we are all in this together.
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The post Meet Tehran Von Ghasri, a Persian Jewish African-American comic appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Targeted With Death Threat Letter After Arson Attack on Home
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has been targeted the second attack in under a week after receiving a death threat, sparking outrage and prompting local authorities to launch a full investigation.
According to the German newspaper Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (PNN), the Brandenburg state parliament received a letter on Monday threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
State security police have examined the anonymous letter under strict safety measures, determining that a gray substance inside was harmless. Authorities are now probing the incident as part of an ongoing investigation into threats against the German official.
Ulrike Liedtke, president of the Brandenburg state parliament, condemned the latest attack on Büttner, describing the death threats and harassment as “completely unacceptable.”
“Threats and violence are not a form of political discourse, but crimes against humanity,” Liedtke said. “Andreas Büttner has our complete support and solidarity.”
A former police officer and member of the Left Party, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
On Sunday night, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town located approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
The home of Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Andreas Büttner, was set on fire overnight in a targeted attack.
His family was inside the house at the time.
This is the second attack against Büttner in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas. This… pic.twitter.com/cAbFnMIwQ7
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 5, 2026
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking the latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
“The symbol sends a clear message. The red Hamas triangle is widely recognized as a sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement,” Büttner said in a statement after the incident.
“Anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest, it is a threat,” he continued.
Hamas uses inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. The symbol, a common staple at pro-Hamas rallies, has come to represent the Palestinian terrorist group and glorify its use of violence.
In August 2024, swastikas and other symbols and threats were also spray-painted on Büttner’s personal car.
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Harvard President Blasts Scholar Activism, Calls for ‘Restoring Balance’ in Higher Ed
Harvard University President Alan Garber speaks during the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University president Alan Garber, fresh off a resounding endorsement in which the Harvard Corporation elected to keep him on the job “indefinitely,” criticized progressive faculty in a recent podcast interview for turning the university classroom into a pulpit for the airing of their personal views on contentious political issues.
Garber made the comments last week on the “Identity/Crisis Podcast,” a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish think tank which specializes in education research.
“I think that’s where we went wrong,” Garber said, speaking to Yehuda Kurtzer. “Because think about it, if a professor in a classroom says, ‘This is what I believe about this issue,’ how many students — some of you probably would be prepared to deal with this, but most people wouldn’t — how many students would actually be willing to go toe to toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?”
Garber continued, saying he believes higher education, facing a popular backlash against what critics have described as political indoctrination, is now seeing a “movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom.”
He added, “What we need to arm our students with is a set of facts and a set of analytic tools and cultivation of rigor in analyzing these issues.”
Coming during winter recess and the Jewish and Christian holidays, Garber’s interview fell under the radar after it was first aired but has been noticed this week, with some observers pointing to it as evidence that Harvard is leading an effort to restore trust in the university even as it resists conceding to the Trump administration everything it has demanded regarding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), viewpoint diversity, and expressive activity such as protests.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Garber has spent the past two years fighting factions from within and without the university that have demanded to steer its policies and culture — from organizers of an illegal anti-Israel encampment to US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year canceled $2.26 billion in public money for Harvard after it refused to grant his wishlist of reforms for which the conservative movement has clamored for decades.
Even as Harvard tells Trump “no,” it has enacted several policies as a direct response to criticisms that the institution is too permissive of antisemitism for having allowed anti-Zionist extremism to reach the point of antisemitic harassment and discrimination. In 2025, the school agreed to incorporate into its policies a definition of antisemitism supported by most of the Jewish community, established new rules governing campus protests, and announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions. Harvard even shuttered a DEI office and transferred its staff to what will become, according to a previous report by The Harvard Crimson, a “new Office of Culture and Community.” The paper added that Harvard has even “worked to strip all references to DEI from its website.”
Appointed in January 2024 as interim president, Garber — who previously served in roles as Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer — rose to the top position at America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious institution at a time when the job was least desirable. At the time, Harvard was being pilloried over some of its students cheering Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and even forming gangs which mobbed Jewish students wending their way through campus; the university had suffered the embarrassment of its first Black president being outed as a serial plagiarist, a stunning disclosure which called into question its vetting procedures as well as its embrace of affirmative action; and anti-Israel activists on campus were disrupting classes and calling for others to “globalize the intifada.”
Garber has since won over the Harvard Corporation, which has refused to replace him during a moment that has been described as the most challenging in its history.
“Alan’s humble, resilient, and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times, but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression,” Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker said in a statement issued on behalf of the body, which is the equivalent of a board of trustees. “From restoring a sense of community during a period of intense scrutiny and division to launching vital new programs on viewpoint diversity and civil discourses and instituting new actions to fight antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, Alan has not only stabilized the university but brought us together in support of our shared mission.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Holocaust Survivors Sent Care Packages to Oct. 7 Hostages for Hanukkah
The Menorah for Hanukkah on the Square 2025 in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom, Dec. 14, 2025. Photo: Matthew Chattle/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Survivors of the Holocaust spread holiday cheer this Hanukkah by delivering care packages to a group of 20 hostages whom the terrorist group Hamas recently released from captivity to fulfill the requirements of a ceasefire which suspended hostilities with Israel.
The gifts, dropped off at the Israeli consulate office in New York City, was made possible by The Blue Card, the only US-based charity organization which provides financial assistance and other services to survivors of the Holocaust. Originally founded in 1934 to assist Jews who had fled Germany to escape Hitler’s persecution of the country’s Jews, it has operated ceaselessly for nearly a century.
Over the past two years, the world has seen a revival of antisemitism unlike any since the period in which The Blue Card was founded, sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that claimed the lives over of 1,200 Israelis and stole years and even more lives from 251 more who were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.
Some of the hostages who survived captivity have been released in stages since Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in October, and on Monday, Blue Card executive director Masha Pearl said the organization felt it necessary to reach out to them due to their having experienced a plight that is painfully familiar to what its clients endured in Europe during the Holocaust. Pearl also discussed the Bondi Beach mass shooting, in which a father and son inspired by Islamism opened fire on Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah, murdering 15 people and injuring 40 others.
“Holocaust survivors and former hostages share a uniquely painful bond shaped by survival and resilience,” Pearl said. “After witnessing a mass shooting at a Chanukah event in Sydney, it felt even more urgent for our survivors to deliver these care packages now, spreading light at a moment that feels dark for the entire Jewish world. The resilience of the Holocaust survivors we assist, the former hostages, and now the survivors of the attack in Australia remind us that even in the face of hatred and violence, the Jewish people remain united.”
In a press release Blue Card said the care packages “carried profound meaning,” being filled to the brim with goods of all sorts, from blankets and water bottles to chap stick and even handwritten notes from the Holocaust survivors who sent them.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.