“In Iran, he was everything to us,” remembers Eliyahu Dadashi, who moved to Israel eighteen years ago. “Rabbi, posek, dayan, mohel, chazan, baal koreh, m’sader kiddushin, and a famed lecturer.” Adds Avishai Bar-Osher, also formerly of Iran, “He was the undisputed leader in the communal sense, as well as Torah leader. Along with the esteem of the community, he also gained the trust of the government, because of his unique personality and the genuine respect he accorded to everyone.” Despite his greatness, he displayed great humility, especially when he moved to Israel. His students felt that this prevented him from receiving due respect when in Israel, as an elderly, weary rabbi who had spent his best years serving the Jewish community of Iran.

Prophecies and Passports
It’s no wonder that he seemed worn out. Throughout his youth in the village of Consair, the decades he served as rabbi in Tehran, and even during his final years in Jerusalem, Rabbi Uriel Davidi devoted his every moment and considerable talents to furthering the physical and spiritual well-being of his fellow Iranian Jews.

Until the fall of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Jews of Iran lived like citizens of any Western country. But beginning on the winter day in 1979 when the Shah ran for his life, and the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from France to take over the reins of the country, life changed for the Jews.

The new government expropriated many industries and properties. Extreme fundamentalist practices of Islam became law in all areas of religion and culture; all opposition was squelched. The Jews of Iran, who had grown accustomed to a westernized lifestyle, realized that while Khomeini might allow them freedom of religion, their lives were now bound by strict limits. Their footsteps were dogged; they were forbidden from emigrating, not to mention moving to Israel. Those who applied to the immigra-tion authorities for passports were turned down outright, or instructed to fill out mountains of paperwork. For all intents and purposes, the Jews were hostages in their own country, held against their will, and all had to pledge their loyalty to the new establishment.

Very quickly, the tzaddik Rabbi Uriel Davidi comprehended the new and confusing reality. The relatively good times under the Shah had come to an end. Now they had to submit to the whims of the fundamentalist government. Bar-Osher is sure that Rabbi Davidi was able to sense the oncoming revolution, but he didn’t think of himself. Instead, he expended all his efforts on getting Jews out of the country. It was Rabbi Davidi who enabled the Iranian Jews to deal with the new reality and with the new government. Leaving a meeting with several top government officials, including the Ayatollah Khomeini, then-Prime Minister Mir- Hossein Mousavi; and then-Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani, Rabbi Davidi looked at Rafsanjani and said, “I can see on the face of the honorable speaker that he is destined for greatness. You will be the steward of the country.” Rafsanjani modestly dismissed the compliment with the words, “We have many leaders.” But the rabbi insisted, “We will yet meet you as a leader.”

 Ashort while later, Iran passed legislation and Rafsanjani became president of Iran. The next time the rabbi met with the government officials, Rafsanjani approached him and said, “I remember his honor, and what he told me at the previous meeting … ”

 Realizing that this was an opportune moment, Rabbi Davidi said, “It can’t be that we Jews, who pray for the government’s stability and who are known to be loyal citizens, do not receive passports. There are many Jewish families here with parents or children abroad, in Turkey or Europe, who wish to visit their relatives. What a shame that the world can sense the stench of anti-Semitism rising from the very Islamic country that permits freedom of religion …” Rabbi Davidi refrained from mentioning other countries, besides Turkey or Europe.

Rafsanjani promised to help out, and he was true to his word. The Jews were issued passports which identified the bearers as Jews, but allowed them to travel to neutral countries. From there, they could continue to the rest of the world.

The Golden Tongue
“Chacham Uriel” was a major force in strengthening the Iranian community, which steadily dwindled with the mass emigration after the fall of the Shah. Estimates of the Jewish population before the fall are about 100,000, dwindling afterwards to some 25,000 or less. From a weakened, lessobservant community, Chacham Uriel toiled to build a strong Torah-based one, with its center in Tehran. “The rabbi took an almost-abandoned synagogue and transformed it into a spiritual lighthouse,” remembers Eliyahu Dadashi. “At the time, there were Jewish shopkeepers who conducted business on Shabbat. When Rabbi Davidi entered the picture, he swept everyone along. The community began to observe Shabbat and take greater pains to observe mitzvot. Every Shabbat, more than 500 people made their way to the synagogue where he prayed and lectured. The overflow crowds would stand on the stairs to listen to him. People often said that the two hours that passed most quickly were the two hours of his Shabbat lecture. More and more people came each week.”

No matter what the subject of the lecture, all agree that no one could listen to Rabbi Davidi speak and remain unmoved. “A small child might have wondered why everyone started crying when Abba would speak, but not I,” says his son Rav Meir. “Even as a young child, I well understood the reason for the sobbing. It was the force of a soul acting on other souls. He was a master of the style and words that pierced deep into the heart.”

Rabbi Davidi’s words made a deep and lasting impression. According to his students, everyone of Iranian origin who is learning in a yeshivah today is there as the result of his lectures, which implanted love for Torah and fear of G-d within the listeners. “Throughout the shivah, we received telephone calls and visits from avreichim now living in Israel and abroad, who tell us that it is only due to him that they are now learning in yeshivah,” Rav Meir continues. “They emphasize that they benefited not only from his lectures, but that he was like a warm and caring father to them, in every way. “Yesterday an avreich telephoned and told us that before his bar mitzvah, he didn’t have any tefillin. He was deeply saddened and didn’t know how his parents would find tefillin for him. ‘One clear morning,’ he said, ‘the Rabbi came over to me, like an angel from Heaven, and set before me a pair of new tefillin. I have no idea how he learned that I needed tefillin …’”

Rabbi Davidi’s sensitivity toward his surroundings, even to small children, caused the Iranian youth to find him very approachable. “He was the rav of all of us, including the small children,” says S., formerly of Tehran. She relates that, for many years, she was an only child. “One Shabbat, I saw the rabbi leaving the synagogue. I went over to him and asked with pain, ‘Honored rabbi, why do all the children have brothers and sisters, and only I do not?’The rabbi nodded his head and blessed me, ‘With Hashem’s help, you will have, and soon.’ Less than a year later, my brother was born.”

“Take My Twenty Minutes”
A few months after the rise of Khomeini, a prominent ayatollah died. Khomeini proclaimed a national day of mourning, and called on all Iranian citizens to attend the public eulogies to be held throughout the country. The Jewish community also scheduled a eulogy in the central synagogue. “To maintain the peace, we have to show that we’re taking part in their mourning,” the Jewish rabbi explained to his flock. “Jewish rabbis attended the eulogy ceremony along with, l’havdil, ayatollahs sent by the new government,” recounts Rabbi Eliyahu Kahanian, a student of Rabbi Davidi who was present at the gathering. “Each of the speakers was allotted twenty minutes for his speech. Rabbi Davidi was the third speaker summoned to the podium. We were all curious to hear how our rabbi, in full view of the government representatives, would eulogize an extremist Iranian ayatollah! “The first verse he quoted was, ‘I am the Lord, your G-d … ’ He spoke about the fact that we Jews are relatives of the Muslims. We all believe in G-d and try to fulfill His will during our lifetimes, for ‘we all will give an accounting of our deeds after our deaths.’

And so, in a diplomatic fashion and with much wisdom, he continued this combined eulogy/ lecture. His voice grew louder and then softer, his style and tone varied from sentence to sentence. He spoke straight to our hearts. We kept stealing glances at the government representatives, who were sitting entranced. “As his twenty allotted minutes drew to a close, the rabbi descended from the podium, vacating his place for the ayatollah who had come to represent Khomeini. But suddenly we realized that the ayatollah was incapable of speaking, because of the sobs that had overtaken him. All those present looked at each other in amazement, waiting with quaking hearts to see what would happen. Only after the ayatollah calmed down was he able to take the stand. He grabbed the microphone and asked, ‘Honored rabbi! Please continue your speech! You gave such a beautiful eulogy! I’m sure that I’ll never manage to speak as you did. Twice over the course of your speech, I burst out crying from my great emotion. I’m giving you the twenty minutes allotted to me, on condition that you continue speaking.’”

“Abba, ztz”l, was a master at these things,” Rabbi Davidi’s son, Rav Shem Tov, remembers. “Even when we were little children, I remember that when he sat and taught us Chumash with Rashi’s commentary, he would tell us, ‘I have a difficulty with Rashi’s words, but I also have a difficulty with those words that he didn’t write. When I can’t find a commentary for a specific verse, I try to think, ‘Why didn’t Rashi write a commentary
for this?’You see, we also have to know what to explain and what to talk about and what to say. And we must learn from Rashi and know that in certain cases, we should remain silent. And it takes great thought to know when …’”

The Jewish Chacham
Life in Tehran presented Rabbi Davidi with endless dilemmas of this sort: what to do, what to say,  when to say it, when to remain silent. As local rabbi, he had to deliver the community’s birthday wishes and New Year’s wishes to Khomeini. “At those two events we used to watch how he entered the lions’ den,” Rabbi Kahanian recounts. “He had an amazing ability to say suitable words of Torah which would find a listening ear in our enemy. He also appeared on Iranian television, alongside the Iranian ruler. Of course, the television’s mainstay was fundamentalist-religious propaganda. He often visited the Majlis, the Parliament, and delivered Torah-based lectures that entranced all the Parliament members and ministers.” Rachamim Yaakovian remembers the profundity of Rabbi Davidi’s words. “The Muslims would be openmouthed. How was it that the Jewish chacham was so learned and well versed in their own issues? We often heard them praising our chacham.”

Menashe Amir, an Israel Radio commentator and expert on Iranian Jewry, feels that Rabbi Davidi’s effectiveness in this area stemmed from his familiarity with Islam, which enabled him to present Jewish ideals in terms familiar to Muslims, and allow them to gain an understanding
of the essence of Judaism. “In this way, he made a tremendous contribution to the battle against anti-Semitism and against the negative image of Judaism that the extremist Iranian clerics presented. His lectures in the synagogues were formulated with Muslim listeners in mind, as well, because top government officials would visit the synagogue on Jewish festivals to bless the community.”

Amir relates that when the Tehran community tried to open a kosher slaughterhouse, extremist Muslims opposed the idea. “There were some Muslims who viewed Jews as ‘impure’ and opposed the establishment of such a slaughterhouse near their own slaughterhouse,” he explains. “Rabbi Davidi discussed the matter with the authorities, and delivered a typically charismatic speech. Once again, he facilitated an understanding between the Jewish organization and the establishment, and the
slaughterhouse was approved.”

Building from the Ground Up
Rav Meir remembers how, throughout the reign of the ayatollahs, his father worked
in every area to direct his flock toward a life of Torah, no matter where they lived, For example, he delivered pedagogy courses at the teachers’ seminary. “All the Jewish teachers currently teaching in Iran, whether they teach Jewish subjects, history, or pedagogy, are his students,” says Rav Meir. “The entire spiritual edifice that he built, he built from the ground up,” Bar-Osher emphasizes, “in a land completely disconnected from other Jewish strongholds.”

The following story illustrates just how disconnected Iranian Jewry was from the rest of the world: Once, Rabbi
Davidi received a case-file from the London Rabbinical Court, describing a case in which one spouse lived in London and the other in Tehran. When he received the letter, Rabbi Davidi wrote back, “I want to know, what kind of rabbinical court are you? Are you an Orthodox court following
the tradition of Moshe and Yisrael? Or are you perhaps a Reform or Conservative court? If you are associated with the latter groups, I hereby inform you that I will have nothing to do with you.” The head of the rabbinical court responded, “How is it that you don’t recognize
my name? I was ordained by Rav …” (He mentioned that name of a famous Torah leader, who lived in the United States.) Rabbi Davidi responded, “Without meaning to insult the honor of the Torah, I do not recognize these names … All I wanted was to verify the extent that your court is stringent to the letter of the Law … ” Obviously, this correspondence made a great impression on the London court. Bar-Osher recounts that in his capacity
as dayan, Rabbi Davidi refused to accepted any payment. Moreover, he covered all operating expenses of the court. “All the items, from his typewriter to the paper and stamps, were financed from his own pocket. He didn’t receive a salary — not from the government and not from the community. He refused to take a cent for his work as rabbi, for his lectures, or for the other services he performed.” His sons say that he made a living from the lectures he delivered in the teachers’ seminaries, as well as from conducting marriages ceremonies, for which the government required the collection of a token fee. The court was housed in Rabbi Davidi’s home, for lack of any other suitable location. “We witnessed the tears he shed
in his attempts to bring about marital harmony, shalom bayit,” his sons remember. “We couldn’t help but overhear the negotiations that were conducted in our home, and see how he virtually spilled his blood on the public behalf.”

Leaving Iran
Rabbi Davidi did everything he could on behalf of his flock, helping those who were entangled in difficulties with the government to “escape the hangman’s noose,” as his students repeatedly phrased it. He expended every effort to help Jews who were caught attempting to escape. These activities required a very fine balance and great diplomacy, in order to avoid conflicts between the government, with whom he maintained warm ties, and his flock, some of whom hoped to leave the country.

Eliyahu Dadashi remembers his painful parting from Rabbi Davidi: “It was terribly hard for me to leave him. I was tied to him with bonds of love. He had been my spiritual mentor for years. It was he who had advised me in all areas of life, from halachic questions to family and personal matters. When I arrived in Israel, I so desperately wanted to hear his warm, soothing words. I missed him so much. But each time I dialed his number, I hung up. I knew that it was very possible that his telephone was tapped. My love for him overcame the powerful yearning … “I received my recompense a few years after Rabbi Davidi moved to Israel, when my son became bar mitzvah. Rabbi Davidi attended, weary and spent, and we merited hearing a lecture that paid us back for all those six years of distance and yearning.”

When Rabbi Davidi moved to Israel, eleven years ago, he was reunited with Dadashi, Kahanian, and many other members of the community that he so loved. He had agreed to leave the land of his birth only after he felt that his community there was settled from a spiritual standpoint. First, Rabbi Davidi and his son Rav Meir, who remained with him until the last moment in Iran, taught ritual slaughter to new shochtim, and Judaism and pedagogy to teachers. “Once Abba was sure that there were enough teachers, expert shochtim, and mohelim among the Jews of Tehran, he agreed to leave,” Rav Meir says. “He was sixty-nine then, but he looked to be over eighty-five,” his sons remember. “Because of all the trials he had undergone, and the sacrifices he had made on behalf of his community.”

After his arrival in Israel, Rabbi Davidi made his home in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem. He shunned the limelight, never publicizing himself, and asking that he not be accorded any special respect. Weak and ill, he devoted his days to learning. “From the moment he arrived, he looked on the Torah scholars of Eretz Yisrael with great admiration,” his sons say. “Once, one of the local rabbis honored him with the title, ‘The genius, Rabbi Uriel Davidi, the learned rabbi and giant of Torah learning.’ After we left the synagogue, we heard Abba murmuring while he walked, contemplating with great amazement, ‘How could that rabbi have called me “the genius, the learned rabbi …”?’ “‘But Abba,’ we protested, ‘you’re a tremendous Torah scholar! That rabbi who honored you is younger than you, and recognizes your greatness …’ He shook his head no, and explained, ‘I learned outside of Eretz Yisrael. This rabbi learned Torah in the Holy Land! Torah study in Eretz Yisrael carries greater importance. What a shame that I did not merit … ’ “Though he didn’t merit learning here for as long as he wished,” his sons conclude, “in his merit, synagogues and study halls are filled with Iranian immigrants, all of whom attest that their Torah belongs to him.”

This article was originally published by Mishpacha Magazine