Karmel Melamed Archives - JNS.org

Follow us

© 2023 JNS, All Rights Reserved Concept, design & development by RGB Media. Powered by Salamandra

Karmel Melamed

Uyghur people in the streets of Kashgar in west Xinjiang, China, on Sept. 17, 2005. Photo by Matanya Tausig/Flash90.

Uyghur activists: ‘We will never forget’ Jewish support in US, UK

“Our own Muslim brothers in America and in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia are not speaking out against the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs,” an activist told JNS.

June 13, 2023

Social-media app icons on a smartphone screen. Credit: Thomas Ulrich/Pixabay.

Young Iranians increasingly emboldened to talk with Israelis on social media

They do so over the regime’s objections and under the threat of imprisonment or death.

April 11, 2023

From left: Iranian Jewish activist George Haroonian; Iranian American journalist Lisa Daftari; Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and Bijan Khalili, a founder of the nonprofit group No to Antisemitism. Photo by Karmel Melamed.

Iranian Americans and Jews have ‘natural allyship,’ can work more closely, LA event suggests

“Members of the Jewish community were the first to help us ... they realized the evil nature of the Iranian regime’s dictatorship,” said Gazelle Sharmahd, whose father faces a death sentence in Iran.

March 13, 2023

Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh, the American Jewish University’s vice president for Jewish engagement. Courtesy of the American Jewish University.

L.A.’s Jewish groups hold event supporting protesters in Iran

“The female-led uprising is the most consequential fight for human rights of our generation,” says activist Sam Yebri.

December 4, 2022

From left: Em Habanim Board of Trustees Member Richard Elgrich, Em Habanim President Albert Ifrah, Dr. Aomar Boum and Rabbi Joshua Bittan. Photo courtesy of Em Habanim.

Los Angeles Jews honor Muslim scholar of Moroccan Jewry

UCLA’s Aomar Boum has spent 22 years championing interfaith familiarity and amity

November 22, 2022

A protester holds a picture of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman whose death in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” has sparked widespread unrest. Source: Twitter.

‘They’re not alone in their struggle:’ Iranian-Americans support protesters in Iran calling for regime change

Maurice Motamed, a Jewish former member of Iran’s parliament who currently lives in Los Angeles, sparked controversy by meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in New York.

October 4, 2022

A billboard displaying Iranian Ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei. Credit: Erdalislakphotography/Shutterstock.

Iranian Americans denounce ramped-up persecution of Baha’is in Iran

“If the media of the world would support the opponents of the regime and show the true face of this criminal cult, they [Iranian repressive leaders] will be forced to retreat,” said Mitra Jashni, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Farashgard Foundation.

August 24, 2022

Jimmy Delshad, first Iranian American mayor of Beverly Hills, Calif. Credit: Wikipedia.

Iranian American Jews make strides in politics on both coasts, relishing their US freedom

“The more we in the Iranian community get involved in government, the more integrated we become into the fabric of this country,” said attorney Makan Delrahim.

August 9, 2022

Roozbeh Farahanipour, a former student activist, leader in the movement for an Iranian cultural renaissance and chairman of the Marz-e Por Gohar (“Glorious Frontiers”) resistance movement, (left) with Iranian activist Frank (Faryar) Nikbakht. Credit: Courtesy.

Frank Nikbakht, Iranian American Jewish activist, dies at 68

“[His] satisfaction in life, even to the last hours of his life, was to community work. He did it for what he believed was a noble cause,” said George Haroonian, a Los Angeles-based Iranian Jewish activist.

June 20, 2022