The Secret Jew of Iran’s Revolutionary Courts

From a false identity at the heart of the Iranian regime’s judicial system to acts of ultimate kindness in Israel’s burial society, Roni Insaz is one Jew with a fascinating story.

Earlier this week, Insaz gave an interview in which he revealed details of his astonishing life story, alongside a current analysis of the prospects for the fall of Iran’s regime.

Roni Insaz was born and raised in Tehran as a Jew, but learned from a young age how to live among Muslims and blend into a hostile environment. Mandatory service in the Iranian army was supposed to be his ticket out of the country; instead, it drew him deep into the most dangerous machinery of the regime.

Helping Jews Right Under the Regime’s Nose

Thanks to a Muslim-sounding last name, personal skills, and relentless diligence, Insaz was assigned to the legal unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He rose through the ranks to become a senior aide at Tehran’s court, working alongside a top investigator and judge, officially equivalent in stature to a deputy justice minister.

For a long time, he lived a double life. Outwardly, he was a loyal Muslim soldier of the regime; inwardly, a Jew who understood that a single mistake could end in arrest or execution.

From interrogation rooms and the dark corridors of the courthouse, Insaz recounts how he helped Jews who found themselves in trouble with the authorities. He used his status and access to case files to reduce sentences, push for bail, and at times even make physical files disappear, all the while aware that if discovered, he would be accused of treason and espionage.

Word of “the Jew in the courthouse” spread quietly within the community. Before long, he found himself assisting dozens of cases, often at the cost of daily, life-threatening risk.

Then, Insaz realized the regime was closing in. The warning signs had come suddenly: people looking for him, unusual questions asked, a growing sense of siege.  Within days, he took his wife and infant daughter, fled to Turkey, and from there immigrated to Israel.

He left behind a life of power and influence; yet, had he stayed even one moment longer, his story might well have ended very differently.

From Nothing to Success

His new beginning in Israel was modest. He had a young family to support and a new language to learn in a small apartment in Ashdod. Together with his brother Freddy, he entered the retail world, opening a small shoe store. This rapidly grew into the SCOOP chain, with dozens of branches, thousands of employees, as well as extensive business activity in real estate and entrepreneurship.

Yet despite his financial success, Insaz emphasizes that this is not what he sees as his greatest contribution.

Since 2021, Insaz has been volunteering with the Hevra Kadisha (Jewish burial society) in the town of Savyon, serving as a gravedigger. He describes this stage as the culmination of his life’s journey – committed to an act Jewish Law considers one of “true kindness”, (chesed shel emet), since rendering services to those who have passed on holds no possibility of reward.

To Roni, this is the place where power, money, and status disappear, and what remains is simply one human being standing before another. He says he gets up and leaves for a call to duty, even if it interrupts a multimillion-dollar business deal.

This volunteer work took on especially painful meaning after October 7, when he handled some of the most difficult burials imaginable. Since then, he says, the central question is no longer who is to blame, but how to prevent the next catastrophe through unity and national resilience.

The Iranians Need External Help and a Leader

In his interview earlier this week on the Hidabroot channel, Insaz offered his assessment of the Iranian regime’s stability. As someone who knows the system from the inside, he tempers expectations.

In his view, internal protests alone will not be enough. The regime is strong, organized, and projects a sense of victory to its citizens even when it is weakening. According to Insaz, the fall of the regime depends on only two factors: clear external backing, primarily from the United States, and the emergence of a single leader who can take responsibility and provide the public with clear direction.

Without these, he estimates, even millions in the streets will not bring about a genuine revolution.

Though Roni Insaz’s life was transformed beyond recognition from the inner chambers of Iran’s courts to the quiet paths of Israel’s cemeteries, one thing never changed: his commitment to acts of lovingkindness. Whether risking his life to help Jews under an oppressive regime or performing a service for the departed with no expectation of reward, his life embodies the biblical command, “You shall love your fellow as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

In a region so often defined by cruelty and coercion, his story is a reminder that moral courage can survive even the darkest systems. And it carries a quiet hope that the Iranian people, too, will one day be free to choose compassion over fear, truth over tyranny, and life over oppression.