(Jewish Group) Amid revolution, her Jewish grandfather refused to leave Iran. Why?

On March 15, 1979, Habib Elghanian, a leading Iranian Jewish industrialist, was arrested in Tehran by his country’s new government.

Scores of his peers had already fled Iran as political protests swelled and then toppled the monarchy; revolutionary committees were now detaining people associated with the deposed shah’s regime. Elghanian had assets and family abroad and multiple opportunities to leave. Even after the new government forbade him to exit the country, the Israeli ambassador offered him a seat on one of the last El Al flights out, no ticket or passport necessary. Elghanian told his older brother and sister-in-law to get on the plane; he stayed put.

In “Titan of Tehran: From Jewish Ghetto to Corporate Colossus to Firing Squad — My Grandfather’s Life,” journalist Shahrzad Elghanayan endeavors to understand why her 67-year-old grandfather stayed behind. She was 7 when, two months after his arrest, the government announced that he had been shot, on charges that included “friendship with the enemies of God,” “corruption on earth” and “spying for the Zionistic State of Israel.” He was the first prominent civilian and member of a minority religious group to fall victim to Iran’s bloody post-revolution purges.

The news chilled Iran’s Jewish community. If a well-known entrepreneur and philanthropist such as Elghanian could be tried with no counsel and executed, then the country’s 80,000 to 100,000 Jews were on shakier ground than many had imagined.

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