Younes Hamami Lalehzar, a prominent figure in Iran’s Jewish community, publicly pledged allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei during a rally in Tehran on Wednesday, according to social media footage circulating Thursday.
“We are happy that the members of the Khamenei Council, who are the followers of Imam Shaheed, have reached this important position and responsibility,” Lalehzar said in the video. He stated that Iran’s Jewish community “supports their election and leadership.”
“We hope that they will be successful in this important responsibility and that they will be a witness to the victory, success, and prosperity of our beloved country, Iran,” he added.
The public declaration represents one of the most visible shows of support from Iran’s Jewish leadership for the country’s political establishment. Iran’s Jewish population, once substantially larger before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, now represents a fraction of its historical size, yet is still the Middle East’s largest Jewish community outside Israel.
Under the constraints of Iran’s Islamic system, the community’s public representatives have historically navigated a delicate balance between maintaining their religious and cultural identity while demonstrating loyalty to the state. Iranian Jewish leadership regularly makes public statements critical of Israeli policy, a dynamic that reflects the political environment in which they operate.
For instance, last month, after a Tehran shul sustained damage from a U.S. missile strike, Homayoun Sameh, the Jewish representative in Iran’s parliament, condemned what he described as Israeli aggression. “The Zionist regime showed no mercy towards this community during the Jewish holidays and attacked one of our ancient and holy synagogues,” Sameh said.
Similarly, following Israeli airstrikes in June 2025, Lalehzar published a statement characterizing Israeli military action as “the murder of civilians, women and children by the criminal Zionist regime and the evil Netanyahu, [which] must be met with decisive force.”
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
