(RNS) — You know that line about how even a broken clock can be right twice a day? That is how I feel about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
I will eagerly enter a contempt competition with anyone regarding Netanyahu. His corruption, cynicism and capitulation to the worst aspects of Israeli society enrage me and many others.
But in the face of a crisis for the Jewish people — like on Oct. 7, 2023, and now with Israel’s conflict with Iran — I set that aside at least temporarily. I turn to the speech Netanyahu addressed to the people of Iran. Here are the words that moved me (at 1:05):
“The nation of Iran and the nation of Israel have been true friends since the days of Cyrus the Great, and the time has come for you to unite around your flag, and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”
He then invoked the words “Woman, life, freedom” — and repeated them in Farsi — “Zan, zendegi, azadi.” This slogan has become a powerful symbol of resistance, especially associated with the Iranian movements for women’s rights and civil liberties.
In that statesmanlike address, Netanyahu offered the Iranian people hope. He reached back into their remote past to one of the greatest righteous gentiles in Jewish history.
In the year 586 B.C.E., the Babylonian empire destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. The Babylonians deported the Judean elite to Babylonia, thus beginning that period known as the Babylonian Exile.
Seventy years later, the Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylonia. He invited a group of Judeans to return to the land of Israel under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. With that act, he helped reconstitute the Judean state – Yahud – under the aegis of the Persian Empire.
That is how the Hebrew Bible ends:
“And in the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, when the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah was fulfilled, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation throughout his realm by word of mouth and in writing, as follows: ‘Thus said King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord God of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and has charged me with building him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Any one of you of all his people, the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up!’” (2 Chronicles 36: 22-23)
I have memorized those words, which I say when my airplane touches down at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. It’s Zionism 101. It wasn’t just that Cyrus restored the Jews to their land; he did the same thing with other peoples as well. He was an internationalist — or, some might say, a globalist.
Consider the “Cyrus Cylinder,” a declaration issued by Cyrus, inscribed on a cuneiform on a clay cylinder. It now resides in the British Museum in London.
“I am Cyrus, King of the World, Great King, Legitimate King, King of Babylon … King of the four rims of the earth … I returned to the sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and I established for them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitations.”
Some hail this document as the first charter of international human rights. A replica of it stands at the entrance to the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
Among Cyrus’ successors was Ahasuerus, of the Purim story. The Jewish community of Iran (once Persia) is arguably one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Several years ago, I tutored a Persian Jewish girl for her bat mitzvah, and I gently teased her: “Who knows? You might be related to Queen Esther and Mordecai!” She came back the next week and told me that according to family lore, I was absolutely right.
There’s also a connection between Cyrus and former American President Harry S. Truman.
For decades, there has been an ongoing debate in Jewish circles about whether Truman was antisemitic. In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, Truman demonstrated compassion for Jewish survivors. And yet, in private conversations with his wife and friends, he was known to have uttered antisemitic epithets and other malicious things about American Jews.
In particular, Truman was offended by Jewish assertiveness in their activism toward the creation of a Jewish state. We can understand his consternation; in late 1947, the White House received more than 100,000 letters and telegrams about Zionism. Jewish leaders were frequently brusque with Truman – a favor he willingly returned. As his biographer, David McCullough, wrote, at one Cabinet meeting, he became so furious over the Jews’ agitation that he snapped: “Jesus Christ couldn’t please them [the Jews] when he was on Earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?”
But let’s not be too hard on Truman. He came from a pious Midwestern Baptist upbringing, which taught him a deep respect for the Jewish Bible and history. And arguably, the most important Jew in American history is part of this story.
Eddie Jacobson had been Truman’s partner in a men’s store in Kansas City, Missouri. When Truman became president, Jacobson used their personal relationship as a way to educate the president on the refugee and Palestine partition issues. In March 1948, he urged the reluctant president to see the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and help the nascent Jewish state come into being.
When Jacobson later introduced Truman to an American Jewish delegation as the leader who helped create the state of Israel, as author Michael Oren has written, Truman responded sharply: “What do you mean, ‘helped create’? I am Cyrus, I am Cyrus!”
Truman demonstrated he was not only in favor of creating a Jewish state, but he grounded that support in his belief in the ultimate truth of the ancient biblical narrative. He saw himself as the modern-day reincarnation of Cyrus.
I offer this story during these dark hours and dark days because it is redemptive. It gives hope, mostly for Iran.
The Iranian people deserve a leader like Cyrus again. May they get one — and soon.
