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American Jews can’t agree about anything — except Iran
Jews around the world have set aside their deep differences and come together in support of the protests in Iran.
“This never happens,” Rachel Sumekh, an Iranian-American nonprofit consultant in Los Angeles, told me. “You never had a coalition this diverse, because people get so stuck in politics.”
It’s easy to see why the protests — which began in response to a plunge in the value of Iran’s currency, and have ballooned into a widespread outpouring of rage at the Iranian regime — have drawn together all parts of the Jewish world. For the left, it’s a human rights struggle; for the right, it’s a chance for the regional balance to reset in favor of Israel.
But it’s difficult to say with certainty that unity between left and right, Zionist and anti-Zionist, will survive the tough decisions the protests will demand.
‘Progressives should care about human rights’
Since the 1979 revolution that brought the religious Islamic mullahs into power, Iranians have seen their rights and freedoms stripped away.
Millions took to the streets in the 2009 Green Movement to dispute a rigged election. Regime forces killed at least 550 protesters during the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” marches for women’s rights.
The brutality of the new crackdown has been on full display during the new protests; thousands are feared dead, with accounts of many killed by direct shots to the head. Amid that environment of fear and violence, protesters “deserve the support of progressives,” wrote Peter Beinart, an outspoken anti-Zionist, in his Substack newsletter, “because progressives should care about human rights.”
Many on the left are leery of supporting a cause that may lead to U.S. military intervention — or one they see as covertly backing Israel’s interests.
That may explain the silence of many so-called human rights activists who have stayed mum. But Jews are bucking that trend. “I have anti-Zionist Jewish friends who are posting in support of Iran, even though they know the base doesn’t like it,” said Sumekh.
Beinart, who has written that he “no longer believes in a Jewish state,” reminded his hundreds of thousands of followers of something that, well, should be pretty obvious.
“It’s as wrong to give countries a pass when they brutally violate human rights because they’re anti-American,” he said in a posted video, “as it is to give them a pass when they brutally violate human rights, because they’re pro-American.”
Not ‘death to Israel,’ but ‘long live Iran’
For many Jews, any revolt against Iran’s theocratic government is personal. The majority of the 60,000-odd Jews who lived in Iran at the time of the 1979 revolution fled, settling mostly in Israel and the United States. In both countries, those exiles have become integral to the Jewish community.
Some have family still in Iran, where about 15,000 Jews remain. In sharing their culture, stories and concerns, they have made Iranian freedom a tangible and pressing Jewish cause.
Plus, an overthrow of the regime could be a reason for relief in the Jewish state. The Iranian opposition, said policy analyst Karim Sadjadpour on the Call Me Back podcast, “is trying to replace, ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ with ‘Long Live Iran.”
The human rights issue matters to the right as well. But Israel’s staunchest supporters are also hoping for the downfall of a regime that has sworn to achieve Israel’s destruction.
Iran has funded the terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas and pursued a missile and nuclear weapons program that threatened and attacked Israel — even at the cost of crippling Iran’s own economy. The regime also funneled funds to Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian government in Syria, which served as a conduit to supply weapons to Hezbollah.
Republican Jews are saying a successful regime overthrow would expiate the original sin made by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, whom they blame for not supporting the Shah of Iran during the 1979 revolution, which swept the mullahs into power.
President Donald Trump, to them, is the anti-Carter. Trump has publicly supported the protesters, and threatened to use American power to protect them. Trump has not ordered any military intervention, but on Tuesday he posted a message on his Truth Social platform, “KEEP PROTESTING! TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!”
As Elie Cohanim, Trump’s former deputy envoy to combat antisemitism, said on Fox News, Trump is the first president to threaten the Iranian regime that if they kill protesters, “we’re going to hit you hard and we’ll hit you where it hurts.”
‘We actually have the same enemy’
If the U.S. does intervene militarily, the Jewish response is likely to be less unified.
We have been bitterly divided over Iran policy in the past. Slightly more than 60% of American Jews supported the 2015 agreement then-President Barack Obama spearheaded to limit Iran’s nuclear development, but the opposition was organized and vocal, leading to deep fissures in the community.
Those cracks may reappear if America intervenes militarily.
“When the United States gives itself the right to intervene militarily in the internal affairs of another country,” Beinart cautioned, “that emboldens other powers, China and Russia in particular, to do exactly the same thing.”
Yet many liberal American Jews backed Trump’s decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. Those strikes made “Israel, the Jewish people and the world safer, ”Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told the Forward at the time.
What will decide the extent to which Jews agree on the wisdom of intervention? Probably the duration of any operation; a long-term involvement in Iran would likely be much more controversial than any quick, one-time strike.
A worse outcome, said Sumekh, would be for Trump to attempt to negotiate with the regime, ultimately leaving it in place. The mullahs would likely use negotiations as a way to buy time and reassert control, making waste of the rare opportunity for real change.
It is too early to tell if the courageous Iranians facing bullets and batons will bring down their repressive regime. And should that happy day come to pass, we will surely find ways to argue over who should get credit, who should get blame, and how we can best help a free Iran repair its economy and find stability.
But for now, Jews know that overthrowing the regime is the most important goal. Iranians deserve liberation, and that freedom will be beneficial for the entire Middle East, if not the world.
“Through what’s happening right now, people can finally understand and see the connection between the Iranian people and the Jewish people and the people of Israel,” Natalie Sanandaji, an Iranian-Israeli survivor of the Nova massacre, said in a video posted to X, “They can see that not only are we not enemies, but we actually have the same enemy, the Islamic regime of Iran.”
The post American Jews can’t agree about anything — except Iran appeared first on The Forward.
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High-Stakes US Special Forces Mission Rescues Airman From Iran After F-15 Crash
FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft takes off for a mission supporting Operation Epic Fury during the Iran war at an undisclosed location, March 9, 2026. U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
US forces staged the audacious rescue of an airman behind enemy lines after Iran downed his fighter jet, officials said on Sunday, resolving a crisis for President Donald Trump as he weighs escalating the war, now in its sixth week.
The airman rescued by special operations forces, who Trump said was a colonel, was the weapons-systems officer on the downed F-15, a US official told Reuters.
“Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the airman was injured but “he will be just fine.”
The officer was the second of two crew members on the warplane that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defenses. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several aircraft were destroyed during the US rescue mission, Tasnim news agency reported.
Reuters reported on Friday that the first crew member had been retrieved, triggering a high-profile search by both Iran and the United States for the remaining airman.
Iranian officials had urged citizens to help find him, hoping to gain leverage against Washington in the war Trump and Israel launched on February 28.
Trump has threatened to escalate the conflict in the coming days with attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Had Iran captured the airman, the ensuing hostage crisis could have shifted American public perception of a conflict that opinion polls show was already unpopular.
Trump said the airman was rescued “in the treacherous mountains of Iran” in what he said was the first time in military memory that two US pilots had been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory.
The official told Reuters that as the weapons-systems officer was moved from near a mountain to a transport aircraft parked within Iran, US forces had to destroy at least one of the aircraft because it had malfunctioned.
U.S. AIRCRAFT HIT
The rescue effort, involving dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search were hit by Iranian fire but escaped from Iranian airspace.
Separately, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.
Still, Trump was triumphant.
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue.
The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.
While Trump has repeatedly sought to portray the Iranian military as being in tatters, they have repeatedly been able to hit US aircraft.
Reuters reported on US intelligence showing that Iran retains large amounts of missile and drone capability. Until just over a week ago, the US could only determine with certainty that it had destroyed about one-third of Iran’s missile arsenal.
The status of about another third was less clear, but bombings probably damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, Reuters sources said.
The US and Israeli war on Iran has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the global economy with soaring energy prices that are fueling fears of inflation.
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On Easter, Pope Leo Urges World Leaders to End Wars, Renounce Conquest
Pope Leo XIV waves from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after delivering his “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) message, on Easter Sunday at the Vatican, April 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Leo urged global leaders in his Easter message on Sunday to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination.
The pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, lamented in a special message to the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that people “are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.”
“Let those who have weapons lay them down!” the first US pope exhorted. “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!”
Leo did not mention any specific conflicts in the message, known as the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing. It was unusually brief and direct.
The pope said that the story of Easter, when the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead three days after not resisting his execution by crucifixion, shows that Christ was “entirely nonviolent.”
“On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars,” Leo urged.
Leo, who is known for choosing his words carefully, has been forcefully decrying the world’s violent conflicts in recent weeks and ramping up his criticism of the Iran war.
In a sermon for the Easter vigil on Saturday night, he urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world but to work for peace.
The pope made a rare direct appeal to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, urging him to find an “off-ramp” to end the Iran war.
In his address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday to the Square below, decorated with thousands of brightly colored flowers for the holiday, Leo offered brief Easter greetings in ten languages, including Latin, Arabic and Chinese.
The pope also announced he would return to the Basilica on April 11 to host a prayer vigil for peace.
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Temple Mount Set for Limited Reopening to Jews and Muslims
Israeli National Security Minister and head of Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement to members of the press, ahead of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
i24 News – Israeli authorities are preparing to partially reopen the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to both Jewish and Muslim worshipers for the first time since the start of the war with Iran, under a tightly controlled and highly restricted security arrangement, i24NEWS has learned.
According to details obtained by i24NEWS, the Israeli police, backed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, are also expected to permit limited access for Jewish worshipers to the Western Wall as part of the same phased plan.
Under the framework, access to the Temple Mount and surrounding holy sites would be restricted to small groups of up to 150 people at a time. In the event of a missile alert, all visitors would be immediately evacuated in accordance with emergency protocols.
The decision follows a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing demonstrations in a limited format. Police argue that a consistent standard must apply across both civic gatherings and religious sites, with Ben-Gvir insisting that “there cannot be one rule for demonstrations and another for the Temple Mount.”
However, the reopening contradicts recommendations from the Home Front Command, which has advised keeping sensitive sites closed due to the ongoing risk of missile attacks.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin has proposed transferring authority over such security-related decisions exclusively to defense officials, an initiative that could reshape the balance between the judiciary and security establishment regarding restrictions on public access.