Iranian Americans in Southern California, the largest such diaspora community in the nation, are feeling both joy and grief after U.S. and Israeli strikes over the weekend killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many other regime leaders, and reportedly destroyed half of the Islamic Republic’s missile launch sites.
“This is a moment that every Iranian around the world has hoped and prayed for—that this 47-year, hellish nightmare under this regime might end,” Sam Yebri, an Iranian Jewish leader in Los Angeles, told JNS. “Every Iranian feels a mix of anxiety and hope, not unlike what many Israelis are feeling at the same time.”
Yebri, who was 1 when he fled Iran with his family and who has been involved in nonprofits and politics in Los Angeles, sees the removal of the regime’s leaders as “our generation’s Berlin Wall—the opportunity to completely transform Iran, the Middle East and the world.”
“Unfortunately, it does take military action to achieve that, because the people of Iran don’t have weapons and don’t have internet,” he told JNS. “But now they have hope.”
Tabby Refael, a writer and activist who was born in Tehran in the 1980s and came to the United States with her family as refugees in 1989, told JNS that she felt “mostly elation and excitement” over the weekend, “because I never thought I would live to see Khamenei eliminated.” (Refael has written for JNS in the past.)
Grief has tempered that excitement for Refael after Iran killed four U.S. servicemembers in counterattacks and after she saw the ballistic missile attacks on Israel. “So many children and families were wiped out, even in Israeli bomb shelters,” she said.
She has a “very mixed feeling” as she sees images of her home city, Tehran, being attacked. “On the ground in Iran, I’m extremely worried about my loved ones and innocent Iranians getting caught in crossfire,” she said.
Some of Refael’s friends are hosting dance parties. “When I considered putting on my favorite Persian music and dancing my heart out in my home, because many of these monsters have been eliminated, I had to measure my joy with sorrow over so much loss in Israel and Iran,” she told JNS.
When things have calmed down and she can reestablish contact with loved ones in Iran, she hopes to celebrate more.
“We can’t reach them, and it’s scary,” she told JNS. “At this point, I’m sitting in Los Angeles, wondering what the collateral related to such a historic joint mission is.”
Arezo Rashidian, a healthcare professional in Orange County and an activist for a free and secular Iran, told JNS that during rallies that she helped organize outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles over the weekend, “we were more emotional at first and then joyous.”
“It was a combination of celebration and emotions, because I think we couldn’t believe it,” she said. “We’ve been fighting for regime change and for targeted attacks such as this.”
More than 5,000 people showed up to a rally on Saturday, and more than 10,000 came to one on Sunday, according to Rashidian. “We shut down Wilshire,” she said, of a major boulevard in the city.
‘Incredibly naive’
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, have been among those who have criticized the attacks on the Iranian regime.
Although the regime needs to go, that doesn’t justify U.S. President Donald Trump “engaging in an illegal, dangerous war that will risk the lives of our American service members and our friends without justification to the American people,” Newsom said. And Mamdani called the strikes “a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression.”
“Americans do not want this,” he stated. “I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city. You are our neighbors, small-business owners, students, artists, workers and community leaders. You will be safe here.”
Yebri told JNS that Newsom is “incredibly naive or is trying to have it both ways” when he says that the Iranian regime must go without supporting the “courageous effort” to remove it.
Mamdani’s “promise to keep Iranian New Yorkers safe is laughable,” he said. “The only thing that Iranian Americans need safety from is the sense of euphoria that we have and the sense of hope, not the partisan word salad that he put out that showed no moral clarity or leadership whatsoever.”
Yebri added that politicians ought to lead in their statements with “gratitude to the brave men and women of the U.S. military and with unequivocal solidarity with the oppressed people of Iran.”
“For many Iranian Americans, we’ve been horrified to see the lack of moral clarity by political leaders who have failed to see what this moment is,” he said. “It’s about liberty for 91 million Iranians and gratitude for the brave women and men of the U.S. military who are willing to risk their lives to try and achieve that.”
Rashidian, the protest organizer, told JNS that she is glad that Newsom has supported the attacks but thinks that “he has taken a weak stance on the largest community of Iranian Americans.”
“This is the largest diaspora, so he could have chosen to stand with us a little bit closer,” she told JNS.
Politicians have neglected to mention the Iranians in Iran begging Trump to attack the regime.
“This is a country of 90 million people that have been trapped, held hostage by a regime inside of Iran,” she said. “We have family members—even with money, they cannot leave that country.”
She is a “little disappointed” that Mamdani didn’t stand with Iranian Americans decrying the regime. “I think that that’s a mistake,” she said. “I wish that our elected officials could simply mark this historic moment without immediately adding a jab at anyone.”
“Let us have at least one day where your statement simply says, ‘Khamenei and his ilk were among the most evil, repulsive people in the world and the world is a better place for not having them in it,’ without ‘and here’s a jab at someone,’” Refael told JNS.
