Outside Youssef Abad synagogue in Tehran. (BEHROUZ MEHRI, AFP/Getty Images)

REESE ERLICH, ReeseErlich2 at hotmail.com
Freelance foreign correspondent Erlich is recently back from Iran on assignment for GlobalPost. He has reported from Iran six times and has covered the Middle East since 1986. His piece “Iran’s Jewish community gets behind nuclear deal with U.S.” was recently published by GlobalPost and USA Today:

“Israeli leaders and conservative politicians in the U.S. have denounced the accords as too weak, saying they’ll allow Iran to eventually develop atomic weapons.

“Most Iranian Jews strongly disagree with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s denunciations of the accord. …

“Iranians argue that they never built a nuclear bomb and have no intention of doing so. They broadly support the accord in hopes that the U.S. will lift economic sanctions and the economy will improve.”

Two prominent right-wing websites attacked Erlich’s reporting, and today he answered in a GlobalPost commentary: “Why are some right-wing bloggers so upset with GlobalPost coverage of Iranian Jews?”

GlobalPost Special Correspondent Reese Erlich received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for his reporting from Iran. His latest book is Inside Syria: The Back Story of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect.

His other recent pieces on Iran include, for Vice: “Here’s What Iranians Hope and Fear About the Future of Western Sanctions.;” and for GlobalPost and USA Today, “In Iran, Death to America doesn’t mean what you think.“