Karmel Melamed is an award-winning Iranian Jewish journalist, activist and attorney based in Southern California.
Karmel Melamed
By Karmel Melamed
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News Younes Nazarian, an Iranian Jewish philanthropist who galvanized Israel support, dies at 91
Younes Nazarian, an Iranian-Jewish community leader and self-made billionaire philanthropist, died March 18 in Los Angeles. He was 91. Local Iranian-Jewish community members remembered Nazarian as a pro-Israel advocate who gave millions to organizations in Israel as well as to Jewish and non-Jewish causes in Southern California. “He truly believed that strengthening Israel was the…
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Food An L.A. doctor revives the tradition of Persian Jewish winemaking
Wine flows freely in the ancient story of Purim, which takes place in ancient Persian. Buzzed on wine, King Ahasuerus asks the beautiful Vashti to come party. At two other wine-soaked feasts, the heroine Esther sways the king against the evil Haman. Wine all but disappeared from modern-day Iran following the country’s takeover by Muslim…
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News Family of executed Iranian Jewish businessman still seeks justice, 40 years later
Fakhri Gedooshim, an 85-year-old Iranian Jewish widow and grandmother living in Beverly Hills, still weeps uncontrollably when recalling the horror she and her family faced when her late husband Mansour was executed by Iran’s Islamic regime 40 years ago this month. With the anniversary of her husband’s killing on September 20, Gedooshim said she decided…
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News Iranian and Jewish activists in U.S. voice support for striking workers in Iran
Iranian American and Jewish activists are voicing support for striking Iranian oil workers who are demanding Iranian regime’s state-owned companies pay their past due wages, pay higher wages, and provide other benefits. Iranian American activists who are not Jewish said the latest Iranian energy workers’ latest nationwide strike, now entering its third week,has been a…
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News A non-Jewish Iranian opposition group reaches out to American Jews
The grassroots Iranian opposition group that posted an anti-regime billboard in Times Square is now turning to the American Jewish community for help. “The American Jewish community has had a proud history of supporting social justice and human rights causes,” said Ali Ebrahimzadeh, a Muslim-born opposition activist to the Iranian regime. “We are now asking…
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News A virtual tour of Esther’s tomb? In L.A., one man’s lonely mission to archive Iranian Jewish culture
Celebrating Purim is bittersweet for Fariborz Moradzadeh, an Iranian Jewish businessman in Los Angeles. In the 43 years since arriving in L.A., he has been unable to return to his birth city of Hamedan in Iran and visit the burial site of Purim’s heroine Esther and hero Mordechai located nearby. The Iranian regime’s random arrests…
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News L.A.’s Iranian Jews denounce Iran Foreign Minister Zarif’s use of derogatory word for Jews
Los Angeles-area Iranian Jewish activists are condemning Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif for his use of an antisemitic term in describing Jews during an online Farsi language interview. In the Dec. 9 program, which was posted by the Iran-based Arman Media YouTube channel, Iranian journalist Mehdi Nasiri asks Zarif various questions about the future of…
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News LAPD release photo of suspect in murder of Iranian Jewish businessman
Following last month’s violent stabbing that left a 62-year-old Iranian Jewish businessman dead in his downtown Los Angeles jewelry store, Los Angeles police have recently released photos and information about the potential suspect in the case. According to a brief LAPD report, the suspect was inside the victim’s store for approximately six minutes where he…
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