WASHINGTON — Authorities in Tehran this week unveiled a monument to slain Iranian Jewish soldiers who died during the country’s war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988. Death tolls for the conflict differ, but the number of soldiers and civilians killed in both countries is generally put at more than a million.
A public ceremony marked the memorial’s opening on Monday, with speeches at a dais flanked by the Iranian flag and a menorah. Banners showed the images of fallen soldiers, hailed as ‘‘martyrs’’ in Farsi and Hebrew inscriptions.
The commemoration may surprise some in light of the Islamic Republic’s routine, angry rhetoric toward Israel, a ‘‘Zionist regime’’ it refuses to recognize.
But after Israel, Iran has the Middle East’s second-largest community of Jews — estimated at 20,000 to 30,000.
The government points to the population as a sign of Iran’s diverse traditions.