{"id":90316,"date":"2025-11-07T17:35:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=90316"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:35:11","slug":"jewish-iranian-american-sentenced-to-prison-in-iran-for-visiting-israel-13-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/jewish-iranian-american-sentenced-to-prison-in-iran-for-visiting-israel-13-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Iranian-American sentenced to prison in Iran for visiting Israel 13 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By GRACE GILSON<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 A Jewish Iranian-American man has been sentenced to prison in Iran for traveling to Israel 13 years ago for his son\u2019s bar mitzvah, his family members have disclosed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90317\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/evin.avif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90317\" class=\"wp-image-90317\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/evin.avif\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-90317\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Journalists invited to visit Evin Prison the week after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike on June 23, viewed on July 01, 2025 in Tehran, Iran. Evin Prison was among several sites hit by Israel, prior to a cease-fire that came into effect on June 24. (Majid Saeedi\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Kamran Hekmati, 70, of Great Neck, Long Island, which is home to a large Persian Jewish population, traveled to Iran in May for what was supposed to be a brief visit.<\/p>\n<p>But in July, he was detained and sent to Evin prison in Tehran, his relatives told the New York Times, which reported Hekmati\u2019s imprisonment for the first time on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The notorious prison was heavily damaged during Israel\u2019s 12-day war with Iran in June. Directly following the war, Iran arrested 35 members of the Jewish communities in Tehran and Shiraz on charges of having contact with Israel.<\/p>\n<p>It was not clear whether Hekmati was included in that total. But Iranian authorities had realized that he both held an Iranian passport, despite having moved to the United States as a child, and had violated a law barring Iranians from traveling to Israel. (Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.)<\/p>\n<p>In August, he was sentenced to four years in prison by Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Court. His sentence was reduced to two years in September, and a lawyer for his family has filed an appeal seeking his release on humanitarian grounds because he has cancer, according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kamran Hekmati, a 70 yo Jewish Iranian American from New York has been arrested by the Islamic Regime for the crime of traveling to Israel 13 yrs ago for his son&#39;s bar mitzvah.<\/p>\n<p>He was arrested in May while visiting Iran, and is sentenced to 4 years in Evin Prison. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Il3tYaciNo\">pic.twitter.com\/Il3tYaciNo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/persianjewess\/status\/1986644325795831994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 7, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cKamran was the person who glued the family together. He was always there for everyone, his wife, his kids, all his relatives, anyone he met in Iran,\u201d Hekmati\u2019s cousin, Shohreh Nowfar, told the New York Times. \u201cIt\u2019s so ironic that the country he loved so much and tried to help has now imprisoned him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hekmati\u2019s family came to the United States several years before the Iranian Revolution in 1979 caused tens of thousands of Iranian Jews to flee to the United States and Israel. Today, Iran has an estimated 8,000 Jews who are permitted to practice their religion but barred from any contact with Israel or display of support from it.<\/p>\n<p>Hekmati is currently one of four U.S. citizens held in Iranian prison, but appears to be the first case of the country arresting an American Jew in recent years. The Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran, an affiliate of the Human Rights in Iran NGO, reported in July that a second Jewish American had also been imprisoned and released on bail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly and wrongfully detaining other countries\u2019 citizens,\u201d the U.S. State Department said in a statement to the Times. \u201cIran should release these individuals immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Jewish%20Iranian-American%20sentenced%20to%20prison%20in%20Iran%20for%20visiting%20Israel%2013%20years%20ago\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":90317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,27],"tags":[14888,184,8790,8795,14889,3045],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90318,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90316\/revisions\/90318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}