When talking with Nissan Soleimani about what it was like living in Iran before the Islamic Revolution he says: "All my memories from that period are good ones."
Soleimani, 55, arrived in Israel in October 1979, several months after the overthrowing of the monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the creation of a Shiite theocracy.
The Islamic Republic of Iran was founded on in April, but Soleimani, who was a teenager at the time, still remembers his former home as a pro-Western place where one could live in freedom. "Iran was at the cutting edge of technology," he said. "Iran had ATMs and color TV in the 1970s, when those things were considered novel. I can still remember watching the 1974 World Cup in color."
"Under the Shah, a Jew would not feel different, because the education system was pluralistic and we studied with Muslims. My best friend was a Muslim called Rashidi, it was the most natural thing," he said.
Soleimani, who now lives in Rishon Lezion and is a father of three, says the decision to make Aliyah was his. "My friends began making aliyah one after another and I was practically left alone," Soleimani says. "Over the past 40 years, I have become convinced that my decision was correct, and the thank God everything turned out fine."
Koby Shaulian, 47, made aliyah after the revolution when he was 15, purely for Zionist reasons. He says that the founder of the republic, Ruhollah Ayatollah Khomeini "was against the Zionists, but had no problem with Iran's Jews so long as they accepted the Iranian flag." According to Shaulian, he has only fond memories of growing up in Isfahan.
"We a had a very strong community, the synagogue was the center of life," he recalls. "Every afternoon I would play soccer with my Muslim friends, even though there was occasional anti-Semitism. Once when I was on my way to synagogue, with a kippah on my head, I was accosted and beaten, but I never thought about it too much as a child."
Shaulian said his journey to Israel was fraught with danger. "I ran away to the Pakistani border by paying a trafficker, and then one night the Iranian authorities spotted us and began shooting at us, but we miraculously survived."
Shaulian lives in Rishon Lezion and is a father of two. "Making aliyah is a life-changing event, I am very connected to this place and today I fully understand that Jews should make Israel their home."
