I just finished reading Roya Hakakian's editorial in the NY Times, "Reading the Holocaust Cartoons in Tehran", for the third time.  I kept trying to come away with a better understanding what she was trying to say, but each time I read it I became more and more disgusted.

First of all, she goes beyond the point that Jews should be treated equally and proclaims that the greatest accomplishment is for the Iranian Jew to make sure that nobody knows that they're Jewish at all.  I'm as proud as anyone to be American (just ask my Argentine in-laws) but I'll be damned if I have to hide my Jewishness to be considered American.

Secondly, she seems to take pride in her own community's differences with others in the global Jewish community when one of the things that makes me most proud of my Judaism is our ability to be comfortable in a synagogue or Jewish home anywhere in the World.

Thirdly, just change all references to Iran or Persia with "Germany" or "The Fatherland" and you'll have a pretty good sense of the German Jew's mentality during the rise of Nazism.  I'm sure the Jews of Germany thought they were well assimilated and that their "wit and wisdom" had alwasy served them well through centuries of anti-Semitism.  Until the final solution came. 

Finally, to claim some sort of pride that the Iranian Jewish community is the second largest in the Middle East as some sort of proof of Iranian leniency is just absurd.  There are only 25,000 Jews in Iran.  Since 1948, 76,244 Iranian Jews have emigrated to Israel.  There are three synagogues in Teheran, but since 1994, there has been no rabbi in Iran, and the bet din does not function.  What a vibrant community!

Needless to say, I guess Ms. Hakakian has no problem with Iran's support for Hizbollah and their attacks on Israel, and their involvement in their bombings of Jewish targets in Argentina in the 1990s.

Perhaps she should return to Iran where she can practice her cat and mouse games with the rest of Iranian society.