The children of the Chief Rabbi of Tehran, Rav Yehuda Gerami, Shlomo, 8, and Sora, 7, were interviewed in honor of Purim by the Hebrew Mishpacha‘s children’s magazine Yeladim. Shlomo told Yeladim that his father travels every year to the kevarim of Mordechai and Esther in the city of Hamadan on Purim but he and his sister haven’t been there yet. Shlomo said that Jews can walk on the streets of Iran safely. “There’s no problem being on the street with a kippah and tzizis and of course, that’s what I do.” “At home we speak Farsi and a little bit of Hebrew,” Shlomo said. “Outside we speak Farsi like everyone else.” Shlomo and Sora said that there are five other Jewish families in the building they live in and one non-Jewish family. “We’re good neighbors that respect one another. Sometimes we have a minyan in the yard and we daven there. My father made an eiruv so that we can carry there on Shabbos.” Shlomo and Sora also told Yeladim a little about their minhagim on Seder night. “There’s a minhag in Iran that when we read Dayeinu in the Haggadah, we give out green onions with leaves [leeks] and everyone beats each other with them.” The minhag is a reminder of the lashes that Bnei Yisrael endured in Mitzrayim and also a way of kindling the children’s interest in the story of Yetziyas Mitzrayim. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

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