As the 2020 presidential election dragged on through Wednesday and voters across the country bit their nails awaiting the results, Los Angeles’ community of Persian Jews came face-to-face with its own internal dynamics of political alignment.
The roughly fifty thousand-strong enclave, whose population ballooned as Jews fled Iran en masse after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has seen spikes in public displays of support for Donald Trump since he announced his campaign in 2015. “Make America Great Again!” is a commonly-heard, if semi-ironic, trope thrown around by relatives at Shabbat dinner; news coverage of Iranian-American Jews’ politics in publications like the Forward and the New York Times has generally highlighted the community’s conservative bent.
This week, in the wake of multiple pro-Trump rallies in Beverly Hills and the start of a contentious election, Persian Jewish voters hoping for a Republican win have only become more outspoken– but so have their counterparts who stand in opposition to Trump.
For Gabriella Kamran, a law student at UCLA, a vote for Biden was a self-evident, albeit frustrating choice between the lesser of two evils. Kamran described Trump’s first term as an “authoritarian, quasi-fascist fever dream.” This election, her focus lies with civil rights– especially those of marginalized groups. “This is an openly violent and racist and xenophobic administration,” she said. “God knows how much further Trump would be able to undermine democratic institutions with another four years in office. I’m interested in administrative agencies, and that’s a really important thing whose integrity and efficacy Trump has just… destroyed. Conversely, because of the people who would surround Biden in his cabinet, that’s an area where he actually might be able to steer the country well, not just ‘less badly.’ ”
LA’s Persian Jewish community is often described as having a large constituency of members who err on the side of the apolitical, with the exception of passionately conservative stances on select issues like American-Israeli relations, which they see as key. But Kamran has noticed a recent increase in decidedly progressive standpoints, especially when it comes to social issues. “During the riots [following the murder of George Floyd] over the summer, I witnessed so many people in the Persian Jewish community who were previously apolitical or somewhat moderate speaking out definitively in support of Black Lives Matter and becoming more politically active.”
People compelled toward a progressive stance in light of the protests circulated long posts criticizing Candace Owens, a Black woman whose viral video, which sought to discredit BLM by denying the existence of racially-motivated police brutality, was frequently shared by conservative Persian Jews. Others compiled anti-racist informational pamphlets to send to their relatives on WhatsApp and Facebook, while hundreds of others, largely in their twenties and early thirties, signed on to join the newly-formed Iranian American Jews for Racial Justice. “People internalized the reality that silence is violence; they understood that when you’re silent in situations of injustice, you take the side of the oppressor,” Kamran said. “I’m less cynical than I used to be about political apathy among young Persian Jews, which was pretty pervasive — almost a given — when I was growing up and going to Jewish day schools.”
Kamran’s UCLA Law classmate Aaron Boudaie also hopes for a Biden win this week. While it’s not uncommon to hear Persian Jewish Angelenos downplay the threat posed by the coronavirus, Boudaie cites the scale of the pandemic as a disqualifying factor against the Trump administration: “Our COVID response is the laughingstock of the world. We have 230,000 deaths and 9 million cases– which is 52 percent more deaths and twice as many cases per capita than Europe. Canada, our neighbor, has ten thousand deaths while we have 23 times that. Trump’s response is ‘it is what it is’ and ‘fire Fauci.’”
Boudaie also views steep levels of wealth inequality in the U.S. as a motivating factor to vote blue. “Class mobility is at a record low if you look at modern history. Where you start shouldn’t dictate where you end,” he said. “To the best of our ability, we should work toward equality of opportunity.”
Kyle Newman, an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, shares Boudaie’s concerns about the fiscal wellbeing of the average American. To him, the possibility of a swing to the left on economic issues under Biden is a necessary change. “I think Trump is taking a toll on the economy in the long run by trying to change the tax bracket and trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “Raising taxes on corporations and eliminating certain tax code loopholes, which have allowed the top one-percent to pool their money, could reverse a lot of damage,” he said.
Newman’s opinions stand in contrast with those of many of his peers, who strongly emphasize their fiscal conservatism, even as many characterize their views on social matters as separately liberal. From his point of view, the class politics of young Persian Jews — especially those who are wealthy — are often informed by the biases and experiences of previous generations. “Young Iranian Jews’ view of government tends to be more libertarian-ish, more inclined toward small government. I think it’s an influence from their parents, who saw a tyrannical dictatorship seize power,” he said. “They’re well aware of their standing in the higher socioeconomic brackets of our society, and a lot of them see the taxation policies of someone like Biden as threats to their families’ wealth and fiscal freedom.”
Like many of his peers, Newman has foreign policy in mind this election, as well. He has his gaze set on international trade agreements, as well as Kurdish and Afghani struggles against ongoing terrorism at the hands of ISIL (he stands in opposition to the Trump administration’s approach on both fronts)– but neither he, nor Kamran nor Boudaie believe that a Biden presidency poses a threat to American-Israeli relations. “The U.S.-Israel relationship is ironclad, rock-solid. Pro-Israel legislation routinely passes unanimously,” Boudaie said. “To vote for one party over another solely on the basis of Israel is misguided when it’s still such a bipartisan issue.” Right-wing, pro-Israel figures commonly insist that a Democratic administration would weaken ties between Israel and the U.S., but Kamran disagrees, citing Biden’s ardent support of AIPAC.
Israel is an area of interest for many American Jewish voters, but it weighs especially heavily on the Iranian vote. Kamran attributes it to the fact that her community’s experience of violent antisemitism and displacement is in more recent memory than that of others. “Israel is seen as this lifeline, as a refuge, an emergency escape route,” she explained. “But I definitely don’t think Trump’s flashy theatrics of pro-Israel ‘achievements,’ if you will, are actually ‘good for Israel’ in the long term, let alone ‘good for the Jews.’”
Together, the latter two phrases have almost become the motto of Persian Jewish Trump supporters. Frequently heard together as the biggest reason to vote red, they operate from the assumption that what is good for Israel is good for Jews, shunning the notion that there might be a distinction between what strengthens the state of Israel and what benefits the domestic well-being of American Jews. In fact, the importance of Israeli prosperity, conceptualized as governmental fortitude, rather than equity at the civilian level, supersedes that of any internal American issue for some Iranian voters. This pattern isn’t unique to Los Angeles, either; almost three thousand miles away, in the country’s second-largest Iranian Jewish enclave in Great Neck, New York, claims abound that “Trump is Mashiach” (the Messiah), and people have circulated Hebrew prayers for his victory.
Boudaie, for his part, believes that devoting thorough attention to domestic and Israel-related policies are not mutually exclusive, and commends those members of his community who toggle both issues in their higher priorities as voters. Kamran is critical of the all-or-nothing stance held by some of her peers: “I think it’s ridiculous to completely throw domestic concerns– people’s lives and rights in the U.S.– under foot, just because Trump changed the location of an embassy,” she said.
Newman agrees. “We have a lot of problems we need to take care of in our country– inequity, access to healthcare, very basic things that are getting worse because of Reagan-era policies that are still around, ” he said. “Besides, I think it would be better for Jews and Israel overall if we supported the demands other countries and organizations have raised in favor of human rights [in Israel / Palestine] and put some pressure on the right wing there.”
Such dissenting opinions are the subject of scorn from other members of the community. In fact, according to Kamran, opposition to Trump is seen by some as a naïve lack of value placed on a foundational collective interest of the Jewish people, even if the criticisms in question don’t mention Israel by name at all. “It’s almost traitorous, I think, in other people’s eyes,” she said.
Still, she wonders to what extent Trump’s Israel policy genuinely won all of these fervent voters to his side. “I think some of the people who justify their votes for Trump with their concern for Israel might just be doing it because it’s a more palatable reason to publicly support him in the context of our community,” she said. “If they were really that torn up about his domestic policy, I don’t think they’d vote for the whole basket of a Trump presidency in the first place.”
When it comes to views on foreign policy, Newman also stands out from the average Persian Jewish voter in that he is more concerned with the ways the Trump administration has harmed the Iranian populace rather than its impact on the regime. Hopeful a Biden presidency would spell the reinstatement of the JCPOA, or the Iran Deal, Newman sees Trump’s aggression toward Iran as counterproductive in working toward the increased freedom and safety of its people.
“I think the sanctions are pretty… unnecessary and brutal,” he said. “Many people in the Iranian [Jewish] community think this promise of regime change relies on sanctions and foreign intervention, whereas I think that the most successful political change happens naturally, from within. Economic pressure, and this kind of torture, will just give the Iranian regime an excuse to continue defending their interests.” He also explained that Persian Jews’ favorable views of the Trump administration have a large part to do with its role in normalizing relations between Israel and Arab League countries like the UAE, because this ratchets up geopolitical pressure against the Iranian regime.
Newman said that at times, his community’s resentment of the Islamic Republic bleeds over into a wariness of Islam itself, which has dovetailed with the platforms of conservative demagogues here in the U.S.. “[Far-right American public figures] have this fear of anything related to Islam or the Arab world as being a threat to Western democracy, and some Iranian Jews buy into that; they bring up terrorist attacks all the time,” he said. “But the bigger threat that a lot of Iranian Jewish voters are ignoring is white supremacy and white nationalists, which are by far the biggest threat to Jews in America. They’ve actually hurt people in the name of their ideology, but I think many people choose to ignore that because they want to think of themselves as white or white-passing. They don’t realize that to the majority of Trump’s base, they’re just not. At all.”
If the politics of many young Persian Jews are still tied to their parents’ opinions, Newman believes that influence will hold less sway as time goes on. “Our parents and grandparents are such recent immigrants,” he said. “The more we become a part of the fabric of American society, the more entropy there will be in our community politically– it’s not going to be static. Now we’re going away to college and meeting people from diverse backgrounds, and we’re seeing American demographics shifting right around us, so that makes change kind of inevitable.”
Boudaie seconded Newman’s projection, expressing some optimism about the community’s future. “I think with each passing generation, we become more civically engaged, more willing to play our part to work toward a ‘more perfect union.’”
“It feels strange to find a lot of hope in these moments of despair, but I do,” Kamran said. “Does our community still skew more conservative than those of my Jewish but non-Persian peers? Yes. But progressivism doesn’t feel like such a minority position anymore.”
Having discovered that she does not stand alone in her convictions, Kamran feels more rooted in a sense of presence, rather than crisis, amid an uncertain political future. “I used to feel so ostracized, so stigmatized and isolated because of my leftist beliefs, whether that’s with regard to domestic issues or to Israel, but I don’t feel like a pariah anymore,” she said. “The network of support I’ve found with other young Persian Jews is small, but it’s really made an immediate difference in our lives. It feels like there’s been a shift in the ground I’m standing on.” ⋄
Photo credit to AZ and Iranian American Jews for Racial Justice (@iaj4racialjustice) for the featured image.
