Iran's Jewish community reflects a complicated relationship with Israel Today there are fewer than 30,000 Jews living in Iran, down from more than 100,000 in the 1970s, but besides a mass exodus following Iran's 1979 revolution and the founding of the Islamic Republic, their numbers have remained consistent, and they constitute the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside Israel. A recent State Department report on religious freedoms around the world said of Iran that anti-Semitic rhetoric by some government officials has resulted in a "hostile environment for the Jewish community," but barring "some exceptions, there was little government restriction of, or interference with, Jewish religious practice. However, the Jewish community experienced official discrimination. Those incidents have mostly involved difficulties securing government jobs or gaining entry to state run universities, but Jews here insist they practice their religion openly and are free to leave, and those who remain do so because they want to not because they must. Some Jews who have left, emigrating mostly to the United States or Israel, report being pressured to convert to Islam or otherwise harassed, and many who remain complain about their inability to see relatives, especially those who live in Israel. Several Jewish activists were executed in the early days of the revolution. And there have been several instances of Iranian Jews arrested on charges of spying for Israel, but such cases have become increasingly rare. With allegations by Israeli officials of a foiled Iranian terror plot in Tel Aviv and its ongoing accusations that Iran is building a nuclear weapon to use against Israel, members of Iran's Jewish community say such claims distort the Islamic Republic's relationship with Judaism and its own Jewish population. Netanyahu's warnings, coupled with ongoing questions about whether or not the Islamic Republic officially recognizes the Holocaust, have cast a negative light on Iran just days after a historic phone call between Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, and President Barack Obama signaled the start of a new era in relations between Tehran and Washington. Israeli leaders deeply oppose any thaw in the U.S.-Iranian relationship, but Jews here, along with most Iranians, believe that restored ties with the United States could lead to an easing of the international sanctions that have been imposed on the country over allegations that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. In an interview, the chairman of Iran's Jewish Association, Homayun Sameyah, said that the Rosh Hashanah greetings that Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, posted on Facebook and Twitter last month reflected a friendlier approach to Jews everywhere on the part of Iran's leaders. He drew a contrast between the new president and his far more confrontational predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.