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A Jewish Journalist's Exclusive Look Inside Iran

Summarizing Forward · Published Wednesday, August 12, 2015
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JL;DR SUMMARY Jewish reporter Larry Cohler-Esses journeys to Iran, providing a unique perspective as the first journalist from a Jewish, pro-Israel publication to be granted access since the 1979 Revolution. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Iran  Human Rights  Jewish Journalist  Tehran  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  Ruhollah Khomeini  Iranian Jews  Nuclear Negotiations  Cyrus The Great  Sufism 

Places mentioned

Tehran, Fars, Iran
"Thirty-six years after a vast and diverse movement of Iranians coalesced around the elderly Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to overthrow the shahs corrupt rule, the unique, theocratically controlled electoral polity he established sits today on the precipice of a huge change."
New York City, New York, United States
"That afternoon at Cyruss tomb, the Iranian expatriate, a gemologist from New York Citys Upper East Side, with her suspect reverence for ancient Persias founder, was just an early sample of the flood of people that will come."
Shiraz, Fars, Iran
"The people of Iran want in some way to show the world that whats going on in the last years is not the will of the Iranian people but of the Iranian government, Nader Qaderi told me as I filmed him with my phone outside his butcher shop in North Tehrans Tajrish Market."
Shiraz, East Azerbaijan, Iran
"At the same time, there were ineffable moments of beauty that are hard to imagine today. Every Wednesday night, one of my housemates, a young American woman studying Sufism with the Nematollahi order centered in Shiraz, invited a poet to our spacious house in a Jewish neighborhood of that city."
Isfahan, East Azerbaijan, Iran
"But for me, my visit was special for another reason. I had lived in Iran for almost two years in the late 1970s, just before the revolution. There, shortly after having finished college, I taught English as a second language in Shiraz and Isfahan, two of the countrys most beautiful cities."
Qom, South Khorasan, Iran
"Meanwhile, in the conservative holy city of Qom, I spoke with two of Irans handful of living grand ayatollahs."
Saadat Abad, Fars, Iran
"Piling into my hired taxi, we drove at her direction to what looked like a small house in the town of Saadat Abad, a dot on the map about 20 miles north of Cyruss tomb."
Pasargadae, East Azerbaijan, Iran
"Pasagardae, Iran In the heart of Fars Province on Irans high desert plateau in the South, a stark and bare large limestone tomb juts out of the landscape."
East Azerbaijan, Iran
"In Shiraz, in south-central Iran, Hassan Shaaeri, a locksmith who appeared to be in his 60s with a shop on Zand Street, the towns main thoroughfare, told me: Generally speaking, people are in favor of the agreement."

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