Word: leaders
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...necessary keys to be a leader of the Jewish people,” Schwarzberg said of being a rabbi. “I grew up in the Jewish tradition, and [it has] the potential to create an amazing morality-centered community...
...looms the Islamic Republic's most notable landmark: the $2 billion tomb of its founder, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Though situated on a desolate piece of desert convenient only if you're headed to the international airport, the enormous scaffolding-enclosed shrine, still under construction 20 years after the Supreme Leader's death, is an essential part of the pilgrimage for devout Iranian Shi'ites...
Especially after this summer's postelection chaos, the mausoleum has become ground zero for hard-line conservatives. Supporters of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi rarely go there to pray or seek blessing from the Imam, but fans of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are more concentrated in the area than in most neighborhoods of Tehran. Indeed, on a recent visit, hundreds of men with unkempt beards, ill-fitting pants and untucked white shirts - the trademark garb of the Basij paramilitary vigilantes - milled about in the sprawling parking lot, said to be able to fit 20,000 cars. Dozens of tour buses...
...then returned the favor in August when he left the country rather than attend Ahmadinejad's second-term inauguration. Since then, state news agencies have launched an all-out media war against him, questioning his political credentials and suggesting he has been colluding with the "manipulators" - that is, opposition leaders like Mousavi and former President Mohammed Khatami. If history is any guide, the regime likely has the upper hand here. Ayatullah Khomeini's most promising son, Ahmad, died under suspicious circumstances at age 49. He had become critical of his father's successor as Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei...
Indeed, there already seems to be an ideological purge in the works. In a recent interview, Khamenei's representative to the IRGC declared that everyone "should obey the living Supreme Leader. Some people are sticking to Imam Khomeini's ideas; they should know that [Khamenei] has run the country for the last 20 years. The situation has changed." Before the brutal postelection security crackdown, Khamenei at least tried to appear to be an impartial, albeit autocratic, ruler, but that image was shattered by his June 19 speech bluntly threatening opposition protesters with violence...