Son of Iran’s last shah pays condolence call to Dee family, visits Western Wall
Reza Pahlavi and his wife sign a book of Psalms for grieving family; Leo Dee says he hopes to one day visit the royal palace in Tehran
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran, paid a condolence call to the bereaved Dee family at their home in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Tuesday, after the deaths of sisters Maia and Rina and their mother Lucy in a deadly terror shooting during the Passover holiday.
Rabbi Leo Dee thanked Pahlavi for coming to visit him, and the Iranian and his wife signed a book of Psalms for the family.
Dee told Pahlavi that he hoped the Iranian royal family would be reinstated and that he would be able to “visit [him] in his palace in Tehran very soon.”
Pahlavi’s wife Yasmine responded, “Let’s pray for freedom.”
Lucy Dee, 48, and her daughters Maia Dee, 20, and Rina Dee, 15, were killed after Palestinian terrorists opened fire at their car as they drove through the northern Jordan Valley on April 7.
The daughters were declared dead at the scene, and Lucy was rushed to a hospital in critical condition but died three days later.
Pahlavi, who is on his first trip to Israel, also visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
“So said Cyrus, the king of Persia, ‘All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of the heavens delivered to me, and He commanded me to build Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judea.’” – Hebrew Bible, Ezra 1:2
2,500 years ago, Cyrus the Great liberated the Jewish people from… pic.twitter.com/HIVOj5RvoZ
— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) April 18, 2023
On Monday evening he attended the official ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to mark the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day, where he also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
בשולי עצרת הפתיחה הממלכתית לציון יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה ביד ושם, יחד עם ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו ויורש העצר האיראני ובנו של השאה רזא פהלווי ????????@netanyahu @PahlaviReza pic.twitter.com/Ewm6W6w4fZ
— גילה גמליאל – Gila Gamliel (@GilaGamliel) April 17, 2023
On Tuesday, he visited President Isaac Herzog.
Thank you, President @Isaac_Herzog, for your warm welcome and words of friendship toward the Iranian people. I, in turn, express my wishes for a future in which Iran and Israel renew their historical bonds in pursuit of greater security and prosperity for both of our nations. pic.twitter.com/PBWKqQPCp9
— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) April 18, 2023
At around the same time as Pahlavi visited the Dee family, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi threatened to flatten Tel Aviv and Haifa. In his speech the previous day, Netanyahu had called the Islamic Republic the modern-day equivalent of Nazi Germany.
Residing in the US, Pahlavi has called for a peaceful revolution in Iran that would replace clerical rule with a parliamentary monarchy, enshrine human rights and modernize its state-run economy.
Israel and Iran maintained close relations — particularly on energy and security — during the reign of shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in a popular 1979 uprising led by Islamist clerics.
The Dee family has been visited by numerous officials, including Netanyahu, who went to their home on Sunday.
British immigrant Rabbi Leo Dee told Netanyahu that “I don’t regret coming to Israel one moment,” adding that his late wife, Lucy, “would say the same thing.”
“Now your wife and daughters will live on through you,” Netanyahu told Dee.
The family has also received visits from President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal, Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi, National Unity party leader Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, among others.
Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, head of the Israel Defense Forces Central Command, told the family on Friday that the army had failed in its mission to defend the three and vowed that it will “not rest until we catch the killers.”
Several hours after the deadly shooting, an Arab Israeli man drove his car into a group of tourists near a promenade in Tel Aviv, killing Italian national Alessandro Parini and wounding seven others.
