Climbing mountains, making history

History was made yesterday. And I was there to witness it. My colleague, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, was invited to stand before the congregation of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Tehran, Iran. And as I should have realized she would, Lynn claimed the prophetic mantle. Not only did she express gratitude to the Yusef Abbat congregation for their hospitality to her and to us, and that she was proud to be there as the first woman rabbi to ever visit Iran -- and "probably the first woman rabbi that many of you have ever seen!" -- but she also stated forthrightly, "I hope that the next time that I come to visit, there will be a woman rabbi in this place to welcome me!"

Lynn began a mountain-climbing process, theologically and socially, that evening. And she was received warmly with a round of applause -- not everyone, of course, but the women in the congregation were especially enthusiastic and many men joined them.

We had already climbed a couple mountains, earlier that afternoon.  First was a visit to the Alborz Mountain range, where our delegation spent a couple hours partway up that striking snowcapped range, hiking and talking with ordinary Iranians. Although the nation is officially titled the Islamic Republic of Iran, and a significant part of our delegation is focused on religious aspects of the society (as hosted by the Department of Interfaith Dialogue), many Iranians are secular in their life -- especially the younger generation. Since it was a Friday, the sabbath day of prayers for religious Muslims, it is also the "weekend" day that non-religious Iranians look to get out and enjoy themselves. The mountains are a popular place to do so -- out of the eyes of most of the "morality police."

That was very evident in our brief time on the mountainside. I took the opportunity to have a vigorous hike up about a mile on a fairly steep incline, and was greeted more than once with "Hello! Where are you from?!" by those heading the opposite way. (There is a ski lift-like cable car that goes well up the mountain, so many people take that up and then walk down.) A group of teenagers was especially delighted to meet me, and fortunately the combined English of the 8 of them well exceeded the half-dozen Farsi words I've been using, so we managed to communicate for about 15 minutes before I had to head on my way.

The fact that my fellow delegates and I are from the U.S. makes for many excited conversations with young folks -- often with an interesting twist. A couple examples: one of our young delegates spoke on the mountain with a hip-hop artist who, despite being an army veteran (military service is mandatory for young men in Iran), writes music with anti-war themes. And one of the eight youth who laughed and chattered at me -- in fact, the one with the best English -- was a somewhat punk-haired woman who had completely removed her hijab (scarf that women are required to cover their hair with) as she hiked down the mountain. As the nine of us took a couple photos together, she was scolded by a middle-aged man who was watching us ... so she put it back on for the photo.

Having recently begun the process of moving my home from the city to the mountains, it was truly wonderful for me to be up on a mountain, working up a good sweat and looking out at the massive city of Tehran below -- even if I was wearing the wrong clothes (shoes, a button-down shirt, and a sport jacket -- due to our meetings that day) and even if it was a fairly high-smog-alert day in the city.

In between the Alborz outdoor stint and the Shabbat service at the synagogue was an extraordinary meeting with two members of the Iranian Parliament -- the outgoing M.P. representing the nation's Jewish community, Mr. Morris Motamed, and his replacement, Ciamak Morsathegh, who is also the chairman of the Tehran Jewish Community and Sapir Charity Hospital. (All four religious minority communities are constitutionally allocated members of parliament -- one each for the Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Assyrian communities, and two for the larger Armenian Orthodox community.) The Jewish population nationwide, which has been present in the country for some 2,700 years, is estimated at about 30,000, which makes it the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside of Israel.

Our conversation with these two community leaders was deep, with a frank exchange about such touchy issues as the Holocaust and genocide worldwide, interfaith collaboration, migration and the Iranian Jewish diaspora, democracy, and Israel and Zionism. I was so thankful that two members of our delegation were able to videotape almost the entire meeting, so we will be able to share this conversation with our communities back at home in the future.

I won't write about specifics of the dialogue now because I am out of time on this internet connection in Tehran, and also because I know that Rabbi Lynn wants to offer her own perspective on what it meant for her to be in that place and moment. I will say that we see a great opportunity before us for helping to raise up the voices of this ancient yet ignored community within our own country -- there voices are certainly not heard in the debates at home on tensions between Muslims and Jews and between Iran and Israel.

We are scheduled to fly to Shiraz on Sunday evening, and from there we will travel to Isfahan on Tuesday. Hopefully we'll have decent internet access in both cities.