Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on March 17, 2014

Spent Two Years in Prison After Straying Over Border

getty images

Free at Last: Josh Fattal, center, discusses his captivity in Iran with fellow prisoners Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd.

Published March 17, 2014.

Josh Fattal, an American hiker freed by Iran in September 2011 after two years in captivity, said the Iranians knew he was Jewish even though it was never explicitly stated.

I was so scared in those first months about being a Jew with an Israeli father, but at a certain point I embraced it, Fattal told the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. They know already. If they are going to do something to me for my heritage, then they will but I am not going to change myself. I am not going to hide who I am.

Fattals father, Jacob, emigrated from Iraq to Israel in 1951, and after serving in the Israeli army moved to the United States. Jacob Fattals siblings still live in Israel.

JTA had refrained from reporting on his capture until his release for fear of connecting him to something Jewish during his captivity in Iran.

Fattal is now a doctoral candidate in history at New York University and has a 7-month-old son.

He and his friend Shane Bauer, as well as Bauers girlfriend, Sarah Shourd, were arrested in 2009 as they were hiking near the unmarked border between Iran and Iraq. Iran said they crossed into Iranian territory.

Read the original:
Captured Hiker Josh Fattal Says Iran Knew He Was Jew

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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