Web Site Allows Iranian Jews to Mourn

Shahram Farzan poses in his Los Angeles office Dec. 20, 2006, with his website displaying photographs from a Jewish cemetery in Tehran. An Iranian cultural taboo that death and youth should be kept apart prevented Susan Manavi from ever visiting her grandparents' gravesite. But the Internet has allowed her to see her grandparents' headstones for the first time. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) (Nick Ut - AP)

Farzan would often haul buckets of water in the wintry cold of Tehran to wash the graves before snapping shots of them.

"I thought it would be a good gift for the families of these people," Farzan, 51, said. "A mitzvah."

Like many Iranian Jews, Farzan often refers to the rule of Cyrus the Great when explaining how deep his ties are with Iran. In 539 B.C., the emperor invited Jews and all others to become citizens of what was then the Persian Empire and issued what is believed to be the first-known declaration of human rights.

"There are 2,500 years of Jewish Persians," he said. That history "cannot be eradicated completely."

Farzan now hopes to find the financial support and time to go back to other Jewish cemeteries in Iran to add to his Web site.

He's received many letters of support from Jewish Iranians of different generations. A rabbi wrote to Farzan to thank him because his Web site offered him his first opportunity to say the Kaddish over his father's grave. The mourning prayer requires 12 Jewish men to pray at a grave, and the rabbi was able to do so, via Internet.

Others have written letters asking Farzan to help locate their family's graves, including many from California, where more than 160,000 Iranians live.

Iranian Jewish communities dot the globe, with the highest concentrations in Los Angeles, Great Neck, N.Y., and Israel.

For Manavi and many of the estimated 80,000 Iranian Jews who emigrated to the Los Angeles area _ about 20,000 remain in Iran _ the idea of going back, if only for a visit, is never far from their minds.

"I think, before I die, I have to go back. I want to see those places again," Manavi said. "I'm just waiting, hoping."