Ten innocent Iranian Jews among them community leaders, teachers, and a rabbi -- were convicted in July on trumped up charges of spying for Israel although no evidence was produced during the closed trial and the case against them rested on confessions that were clearly coerced and inadmissible. Despite pleas for justice from government officials and religious leaders around the world, Iran’s Revolutionary Court refused today to overturn the harsh sentences for the accused. After more than one and a half years of harsh imprisonment, separated from their families, defendants remain in jail for crimes that the court itself acknowledges they did not commit.

Prayer for Iran 10

We turn to You, the Source of freedom, and plead for the welfare of ten of our people imprisoned in Iran.

Vanitzak el Hashem
We cry out to the Lord.

Vayishma Hashem et koleinu
May God hear our voices and answer our prayers.

“Let the cries of the prisoners reach You; according to the greatness of Your power, free those condemned to death” (Psalm 79:11).

May the One Who frees captives grant freedom, life, and protection to: Asher Zadmehr, Hamid (Danny) Tefileen, Nasser Levy Haim, Ramin Farzam, Javeed Beit Yakov, Farhad Saleh, Shahrokh Paknahad, Farzad Kashi, Faramarz Kashi, and Ramin Nemati.

May the promise of Isaiah be fulfilled in them: “Thus said the Lord: In an acceptable time I answer you, and on a day of salvation I help you. I created you and appointed you a b’rit am, a covenant people, to restore the land, and to assign desolate inheritances to their owners, that you may say to the prisoners, ‘Go free’ ” (49:8-9). 

Praised are You, who frees the prisoners.