February 9, 2008 | 3:11 pm

New Iranian Jewish podcast on this blog!

Posted by Karmel Melamed

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It is with great honor and pleasure that I announce the launching of the first podcast on this blog that will literally give new voice to Iranian Jews living in the U.S. The new podcast can be found here:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/audio/karmelmelamedpodcast.mp3

Since 2000, as a journalist I have had the unique privilege to share the exciting activities of the successful Iranian Jewish community living in Southern California and New York. This journey has been exciting for me because I’ve been able to witness history in the making and record our community’s achievements in this great nation. We have been able to flourish in America after our families were uprooted by radical Islamic elements and forced to flee Iran following the 1979 revolution. It often makes me emotional when I think of how far we’ve come today after our ancestors for 2,500 years were able to endure forced mass conversions, wars, pogroms, diseases, famines, and other calamities in Iran. And yet they still retained their Judaism and passed it onto us today. Never did our ancestors in Iran ever imagine that we would be able to hold our heads up proud in a free country and equally participate in a free society without constantly looking over our shoulders to worry about those seeking to destroy us!

I take the responsibility of accurately reporting on Iranian American Jewry seriously and my hope is that this new podcast will give me yet another venue to so. Through this on going podcast my hope is to educate those who are unfamiliar with our community and bring about Jewish unity in the process. The Iranian Jewish community in the U.S. is still in its infancy compared to other American Jewish groups, but we have plenty to contribute.

This podcast will reveal our community’s pride in our rich history and deliver our message of hope to the rest of the world. I urge you to regularly listen in to our podcast and spread the word about it. Together we can educate one another and help heal the world.