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Rouhani accommodates Iran's Jewish students

President Hassan Rouhani's administration has taken steps to address the concerns of Iranian Jews, who wish to observe the holy Sabbath without sacrificing their education.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY CYRIL JULIEN
Homayoun Sameyah Najaf Abadi, head of Iran's 8,500-strong Jewish community, poses in front of a new memorial for Iran's Jewish people engraved with 10 names -five died fighting in the 1980-88 war against Iraq, three were killed by Saddam Hussein's bombing of Tehran and the other two died in the tumultuous early days of the revolution that ended the shah's rule- at the Beheshtieh Jewish cemetery in southern Tehran, on January 9, 2015. The eight-acre space in south Tehran

Thanks to the government of President Hassan Rouhani, as of Feb. 4, Jewish students officially no longer have to attend school on the Sabbath. This is an important step by the Rouhani administration to welcome Iranian Jews.

There are numerous reasons why my family left Iran in 1987, but an important one was the decision by the Iranian government that year not to officially recognize the holy Sabbath as a religious day off for Jewish students. There was no choice: The Iranian school week ran from Saturday to Thursday so we either attended school on the Sabbath or we were failed and had to repeat the year.

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