Published: 28 August 2020
Last updated: 5 March 2024
LIOR STERNFELD IS DISMISSIVE of the Israeli drama series Tehran. In contrast to many others, Sternfeld, a historian who specialises in modern Iran, wasn’t bothered by the final episode of the popular show, in which our aircraft turn back – and not safely – from their mission to bomb a nuclear reactor.
What irked Sternfeld was the episode in which the protagonist, Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan, takes shelter with her Jewish aunt, who remained in Tehran even after the 1979 revolution.
The aunt broke off her ties with the rest of her family, all of whom immigrated to Israel, and she established a model Muslim family with a husband who holds a senior government job and a daughter who demonstrates in support of the regime.
However, at the moment of truth, when the relative – the Zionist spy – needs help, she opens the door and hides her from the authorities.
“It’s absolutely enough to make your blood boil – it’s a scene that is irresponsible in so many ways,” Professor Sternfeld says in an interview to mark the publication of the Hebrew version of his book, Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran (Stanford University Press, 2018).
What riles him, he says, is the stereotypical, one-dimensional depiction of the only local Jew who’s seen on the screen.
FULL STORY The Iranian Jews who joined the Islamic revolution (Haaretz)
Photo: The Islamic Revolution in Iran, 1978
