It is an amazing thing to see the photographs of the son of a Persian king, with a yarmulke, leaning in prayer at the Western Wall — and to see his tweet quoting Cyrus as saying “all the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of the Heavens delivered to me and ordered him to build a house which is in Judea.” He is quoting from the Book of Ezra. It was Cyrus who in ancient days ended the Babylonian Captivity and sent the Jews home. 

That is what happened this morning as Reza Pahlavi — the son of ​​Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, for now —  visited Israel’s capital. The exiled royal reflects that “the Iranian and Jewish people have ancient bonds dating back to Cyrus the Great and Queen Esther,” who both reigned at Susa. Some Jews believe that the rebuilder of Jerusalem was himself a descendant of the heroine who vanquished Haman, celebrated annually at Purim.