I'm an American citizen and visited Iran back 2017 with no problems. I was nervous about getting questioned but surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the smoothest border crossings I've ever experienced - when entering Iran and the US I literally got no questions at all. (Getting an Iranian entry visa as an American without a government minder was bit trickier, but I was also pleasantly surprised by how smoothly that went - they even wrote me a check to reimburse me for a priority processing fee that didn't end up being necessary, which was a first).
That said - 2017 was, in retrospect, a pretty easy time to visit Iran, and I wouldn't risk it now given the events of the last few months. But I very much hope to be able to go back.
I can confirm what several others here are saying - Tehran is a cosmopolitan, fascinating city, and Iranians are wonderful, on the whole. Some of the biggest surprises for me were
1) the religious and cultural pluralism on display - I saw Zoroastrian temples, synagogues, and plenty of churches (with the prominent exception of Bahá'i, who are forced to live in the shadows). Not to mention that the vast majority of Iranians I talked to about religion were on the atheist-agnostic spectrum, although they participate in religious holidays and customs in much the same way that my lapsed Catholic family did when I was growing up.
2) How much Iranians like American culture, and how connected they are to it by friends and family who live in the US. I knew this from before, of course, but it was surreal to be, say, talking to an older couple in a tiny provincial village and end up discussing their favorite taquerias in Orange County (that really happened to me). Or the kids in a mall who insisted on taking a bunch of selfies with me when they found out I was from the US.
Anyway, I found the whole trip to be extraordinary and came away from it convinced that, on the level of culture and society if not our current governments, Americans and Iranians are natural allies. I hope for a future where that can happen.
Until 1979 they were. As quick as it changed it could change back if the poltical pressures change. All it would take would be Iran/Israel making peace which would push the Saudis into the bad guys role.
A worthwhile watch is the music video for Khruangbin's Maria También. It takes pre-revolutionary video of female pop stars and systematically erases them.
> Getting an Iranian entry visa as an American without a government minder was bit trickier
How did you manage that? I thought that it was required for American citizens to have a tour guide with them at all times. Did you get some sort of non-tourist visa that allowed that to happen?
Do they still operate or are they remnants of pre-revolutionary times? I don't see how they can operate in a state whose publicly stated goal is to "wipe Israel from the face of the Earth".
Iran's issue with Israel is not related to Judaism.
It's important to distinguish between anti-zionism and anti-semitism. Iran is the former but not the latter.
The article has several paragraphs on the synagogues and how they operate today. Jews were wearing skullcaps in the streets and there were apparently several operating synagogues.
The article also mentioned that the buildings are unadorned from the outside, and that the website for the synagogue he attended had text on it condemning the Israeli government for the 2008 Gaza atrocities, so it's not completely unencumbered.
Iranians I've talked to say they have no problem with Judaism. Their issue is Zionism. The distinction is lost in the West but not in the Middle East. Arab Jews who were forced to leave their countries for Israel had a hard time integrating into Israel and there are still problems in Israel over this as I understand it.
That said - 2017 was, in retrospect, a pretty easy time to visit Iran, and I wouldn't risk it now given the events of the last few months. But I very much hope to be able to go back.
I can confirm what several others here are saying - Tehran is a cosmopolitan, fascinating city, and Iranians are wonderful, on the whole. Some of the biggest surprises for me were
1) the religious and cultural pluralism on display - I saw Zoroastrian temples, synagogues, and plenty of churches (with the prominent exception of Bahá'i, who are forced to live in the shadows). Not to mention that the vast majority of Iranians I talked to about religion were on the atheist-agnostic spectrum, although they participate in religious holidays and customs in much the same way that my lapsed Catholic family did when I was growing up.
2) How much Iranians like American culture, and how connected they are to it by friends and family who live in the US. I knew this from before, of course, but it was surreal to be, say, talking to an older couple in a tiny provincial village and end up discussing their favorite taquerias in Orange County (that really happened to me). Or the kids in a mall who insisted on taking a bunch of selfies with me when they found out I was from the US.
Anyway, I found the whole trip to be extraordinary and came away from it convinced that, on the level of culture and society if not our current governments, Americans and Iranians are natural allies. I hope for a future where that can happen.