Hasan Sarbakhshian and Parvaneh Vahidmanesh

ALEISA FISHMAN: Welcome to Voices on Antisemitism, a podcast series from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, made possible by generous support from the Elizabeth and Oliver Stanton Foundation. I'm Aleisa Fishman. Every month, we invite a guest to reflect about the many ways antisemitism and hatred influence our world today.

This month we hear from Iranian photographer and documentary producer Hasan Sarbakhshian, and human rights activist Parvaneh Vahidmanesh. In 2006, Sarbakhshian and Vahidmanesh began gathering stories and photographs from Iran's dwindling Jewish population for their book Iranian Jews. The effort would eventually cause the two of them to flee Iran for the United States. In this interview, they speak about why they began the project and why they continue to exhibit this work despite the hardships it has brought them.

HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN: I am Hasan Sarbakhshian, photographer and documentary producer, living in Virginia now.

PARVANEH VAHIDMANESH: I am Parvaneh Vahidmanesh. I am program officer at Freedom House in Washington, D.C.

HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN: I was born as a Muslim in Tabriz, northeast of Tehran. I worked for Associated Press for ten years in Iran.

PARVANEH VAHIDMANESH: I was born in Tehran in 1980, three months after the war between Iran and Iraq. And my family was Muslim, but my grandmother was a Jew who converted to Islam by force about ninety years ago. They lived in a city called Damavand; the government of that city forced all the Jewish people to convert. So I have a complicated family. And I started working with Hasan to document Jewish people in Iran, and then I moved to the United States in 2009.

ALEISA FISHMAN: Sarbakhshian says he's always been drawn toward taking pictures of minorities and communities that are invisible within the mainstream, as Jews are increasingly becoming in Iran. Jewish women are required to wear hijab in public. And synagogues cautiously guard their identity by concealing their signage. Vahidmanesh was motivated by the discovery of her grandmother's Jewish heritage, a family secret she did not discover until age 16.

PARVANEH VAHIDMANESH: When I understood about my grandmother's background and I started studying history at university I wanted to work on my thesis about Iranian Jews after the revolution. And my professor at university said, "Don't do that, because it's a very dangerous subject and maybe make problem for you." So I couldn't work on my thesis about this, but for myself I continue researching.

And during my research and meeting the Jewish people and Jewish communities, I understood that the heritage of these people is going to be vanished, because they leave the country, because of the problem they have, and nowadays the number of Jews in Iran is about twenty-five thousand. And before the revolution in Iran it was more than a hundred thousand. So I think this is the time that we can document the life of these people.

ALEISA FISHMAN: Overcoming distrust from many in the Jewish community, Sarbakhshian and Vahidmanesh were allowed to document intimate moments of family life and celebration. They also documented the difficulties of public life amid restrictions, anti-Jewish rhetoric, and a diminishing Jewish population.

HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN: It was the time exactly when Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust. What happened with the Jewish people in Iran is they are living in a country which all the time propaganda through the government is real. And what I photographed? All the life, all the moments: just praying, you know, cemetery, weddings, traveling with them. How they travel, you know, how travel is hard for them, because there are no restaurants for them in the other cities, because of the many restrictions. This is what's happening in Iran.

PARVANEH VAHIDMANESH: Maybe after ten years this book can be a heritage, a history. Because I think in about ten years we don't have any Jews in Iran. I am sure they leave the country. Maybe just old, old people will still want to stay. The young people want to leave. The marriage is very difficult nowadays for them. They cannot find a wife for themselves or a good husband. So we don't have the Jewish community in ten years.

ALEISA FISHMAN: When Sarbakhshian and Vahidmanesh approached the Iranian Cultural Ministry for permission to publish their book, they were met first with silence, and then with threats and accusations.

HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN: In April 2008, I submitted this book to the Cultural Ministry. We needed to publish this book in Iran, because to show the people how the Jewish people are living. For a year we waited. There wasn't any answer. When I met the Culture Minister in February 2009, I handed the exact same copy of this to the Minister myself, just reminding him this is a book we need to publish and we are waiting for it a year.

ALEISA FISHMAN: Two months later, Sarbakhshian and Vahidmanesh were accused of pro-Israel propaganda and spying. They watched as others around them were executed for similar charges. Vahidmanesh was accused of converting to Judaism, a capital crime under Islamic law. And Sarbakhshian was interrogated and warned that he should, quote "think about his children." He was no longer allowed to work.

HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN: They revoked my press pass in May 2009. And many interrogations. And when you can't do anything you are forced to leave the country. So now we are here in Washington, because of this punishment.

PARVANEH VAHIDMANESH: During the time that the investigating started, they told me that I am trying to have propaganda for Judaism. And according to Islamic law, if you change your religion from Islam to Judaism or Christianity, they can kill you. They can execute you, because this is forbidden. And this is the biggest crime in Islam. So they told me that I have done that: I changed my religion and I'm trying to have propaganda for Israel. So I was really scared. And when I was invited by the University of Virginia—it was April 2009—I applied for asylum here. Because Hasan told me that it's very dangerous there and I should stay. And I thought that it's a good choice; don't go back, because for sure they'd arrest me. And maybe kill me, I don't know.

ALEISA FISHMAN: Both living in the United States now, Sarbakhshian and Vahidmanesh continue to exhibit their work on Iranian Jews. Photographs from the project are currently on display at UCLA's Fowler Museum until March 2013. Despite great personal cost, they feel their efforts to continue documenting Jews of Iran and the Iranian Jewish diaspora to be urgent and important.

PARVANEH VAHIDMANESH: I think that the most reason that I continue working on this project was to save the history of the country and the history of people who for a period are invisible. And I decided to document the life of these people who are going to be vanished.

ALEISA FISHMAN: That was Parvaneh Vahidmanesh and Hasan Sarbakhshian in Washington DC.

Voices on Antisemitism is a podcast series of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Join us every month to hear a new perspective on the continuing threat of antisemitism in our world today. We would appreciate your feedback on this series. Please visit our website, www.ushmm.org.