It was the middle of the night when the regime snuck the statue away. The sculpted figure was of the ancient Sasanian King Shapur I, and the statue, which briefly stood at Tehran’s Enghelab Square, depicted the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before him. Now it is gone after just a matter of weeks.
The statue was part of a broader attempt by the regime to revive a form of Persian nationalism aimed at soothing public discontent and redirecting attention away from the country’s other internal problems.
But it was called out by the Iranian people for the propaganda farce that it was. Because the Iranian people are well aware of their own history.
Iranian history with the Jews
It is a history that dates back over 2,500 years, and, for the majority of that time, the Iranians have enjoyed a special friendship with the Jews. Indeed, it is unlikely there is any other example of two civilizations enjoying such a long and prosperous relationship.
Jews have lived in the region since the Assyrian conquest of the northern Kingdom of Exile, but the friendship was founded two centuries later.
After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, it was the Persian King Cyrus the Great who, in 537 BCE, permitted the Jews to return to their ancestral homeland. Additionally, Cyrus granted the Jewish community freedom of worship, a policy shown in the Cyrus Cylinder, in contrast to the religious restrictions imposed by the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Cyrus is the only non-Jewish monarch in the Jewish Tanakh (scriptures) to be named God’s “anointed one” (mashiach).
Since then, over the course of 2,500 years, there has been a continual Jewish presence in Iran.
Of course, there have been bad times, too. The story of Purim took place entirely in the Persian Empire, and there was also the case of the Mashhad Jews. The Allahdad, literally meaning “God’s Justice,” was a violent anti-Jewish outbreak in 1839 in Mashhad, in Iran’s northeast, then under Qajar rule.
Muslim mobs targeted the city’s Jewish population, killing many and coercing others into conversion to Islam. In the aftermath, most Mashhadi Jews were forced into a life of secrecy, outwardly conforming to Islamic practices while privately maintaining Jewish observance.
Iran is more than the regime that rules it
It is essential to distinguish between Iran and the regime that has ruled it since 1979. The Islamic Republic is not the inheritor of Persian civilization; it is merely a brief interruption in a long chain of comradeship. Its hostility toward Jews and toward Israel is not rooted in Iran’s ancient history, culture, or collective memory. Rather, it stems from an Islamist extremist ideology enforced on the people.
Today, in 2025, the friendship between Jews and ordinary Iranians is alive and well.
It was telling that at the Bondi Beach vigil and hanukkiah lighting in London, one of the most prominent flags seen in the crowd was the Lion and Sun flag, the symbol of imperial Iran. It is a flag that has appeared time and time again at marches or gatherings showing support for Israel or Jewish communities post-October 7.
Many Iranians took to social media after the Bondi attack to express their support with the hashtag #IraniansStandWithIsrael following the terror attack in Australia, which left 15 people murdered.
“Light triumphs over darkness, and the hearts of we Iranians across the world are with you, my Jewish friend,” one social media user wrote, with similar messages of support coming from around the world.
“This regime is the root cause of global terror and instability,” one user wrote on X, as others called for the implementation of the Cyrus Accords and for Israel to destroy the regime.
One Iranian within the country reached out to this writer with the message, “As Iranians, we understand the meaning and cost of terrorism all too well.
For that reason, many of us feel a genuine sense of closeness and solidarity with Jewish communities around the world, and especially with the people and state of Israel. Today has been a difficult day for us as well, much like it has been for you.”
The mullahs who rule Iran seem to be under the impression that 46 years of Islamic rule can wipe out the memories of two millennia of endearment. They seem to think they can sweep away a special bond, the like of which has not been seen anywhere else in the world. But they are mistaken. Iranians know full well their own history. Even if they can’t show it publicly for fear of the Islamic Republic, they live it and breathe it every day.
And in the spirit of that friendship, as Iranians continue to suffer under the regime – and as they continue to be locked away for the smallest of infractions, such as calling for basic freedoms – we must stand with them.
We must call for the release of Bita Shafiei and her mother, Maryam, who have been in the hands of the security apparatus for over a month, and are reportedly being held in solitary confinement and under torture.
We must call for the release of the 40 innocent people who turned out last week for the memorial ceremony of human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi, who died under suspicious circumstances just hours after a visit from security forces.
We must call for the release from incarceration of:
Abolfazl Abri; Ali Adinehzadeh; Hasti Amiri; Javad Alikordi; Akbar Amini; Mohammadreza Babaei; Heydar Chahchamandi; Mohammadali Dehestani; Milad Fattah; Noura Haghi (Vahideh Haghparast); Hamed Hosseini; Javad Jalali; Mahmoud Khanali; Amir Khavari; Narges Mohammadi; Aliyeh Motalebzadeh; Tayyebeh Nazari; Pouran Nazemi; Sepideh Gholian; Hamed Rasoulkhani; Mehdi Rasoulkhani; Amin Vosoughinia; Hamed Zareh; Mohammad Zanganeh; Zahra (Raha) Sharifi
Regimes rise and fall. Statues are erected in the night and quietly removed by morning. But civilizations endure. The bond between Jews and Iranians was forged long before the Islamic Republic and will outlive it as well.