Karmel Melamed

This May 9th marks 45 years since the criminal Islamic Republic regime in Iran executed Habib Elghanian, an innocent Iranian businessman and Jewish community leader in Iran. While his sham 20-minute trial for espionage and his contributions to Iran’s Jewish community have been widely reported on over the years, Elghanian’s significant contributions to the larger Iranian society are not as well known. Despite his lifelong contributions for the betterment of his fellow countrymen in Iran through employment opportunities, promoting Iran’s international trade, philanthropy and helping to industrialize Iran’s economy,Elghanian was wrongfully executed by the thugs of the Khomeini regime in May 1979. Elghanian’s execution sent a clear message to Iran’s 80,000 Jews that they were no longer welcomed in their ancient homeland and anyone else who had worked hard to help modernize or improve Iran in the past would be persona non-grata in Iran under the Ayatollahs’ reign of power.

Sadly, many of those who intimately worked with Elghanian in the business realm or in philanthropy were either executed by the Khomeini regime more than four decades ago or have long passed away. However, several years ago I had the rare opportunity to interview Nasser Olliaee, an Iranian non-Jewishbusinessman and former member of the Iranian parliament about his long-time friendship with Elghanian. Olliaee, who is now in his late 80’s and living in Newport Beach, California, also worked closely with Elghanian in Iran’s national Chamber of Commerce. Whether encouraging international trade with Iran, giving to countless philanthropic causes throughout Iran or supporting his thousands of employees, Olliaee describes Elghanian a man who was nothing short of a remarkable Iranian patriot.

With the passage of substantial time since the calamitous 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, it’s time to honor the larger-than-lifepatriots of Iran like Elghanian, who regardless of their religionor ethnicity, dedicated their lives to helping their nation and countrymen prosper and flourish. The new generation of Iranians living inside Iran and outside of Iran have much to learn from the significant achievements of giants like Elghanian in order to help liberate Iran from the grips of the current Islamic regime and transform Iran into a thriving nation one day soon.

Industrialist Par Excellence

While Habib Elghanian began his career in importing various goods from overseas and selling them in Iran, his true success came from establishing various manufacturing companies in Iran. “Mr. Elghanian was a true visionary because he realized that Iran as a developing nation was in dire need of various goods and set up manufacturing companies that hired thousands of Iranians to work in his factories,” said Olliaee. His most successful company in Iran was “PlascoCar” which became the largest manufacturer of various plastic products in Iran and also in the Middle East. The company also had 22 of its own retail stores in Tehran selling its plastic household items. PlascoCaralso sold its goods to others wholesalers throughout Iran and the Middle East. Olliaee said Elghanian was also a shareholder in the following major industrial companies in Iran: North Plastic, North Pipe, General Electric Refrigerator and Profile Aluminum. “General Electric Refrigerator company was an oldnearly bankrupt business that he purchased and subsequently turned it into one of only two companies in all of Iran that was producing refrigerators,” said Olliaee. “The company employed hundreds of Iranians and produced roughly 320 refrigerators a day!” 

Likewise, Olliaee said Elghanian was also a shareholder in a number of other business ventures in Iran and his partners were all Muslims. In all, he employed roughly 20,000 people in his various business ventures. “With all of these companies, thousands of individual families in Iran benefited greatly and enjoyed a higher quality of life because they worked for Mr. Elghanian,” said Olliaee. Sadly, all of Elghanian’s business and personal assets were confiscated by the Khomeini regime following his execution in 1979.

 Real Estate Development Visionary

Elghanian and his brothers were also visionaries who wanted to transform the landscape of Tehran in the early 1960s into a modern 20th century looking successful city. As a result,Elghanian and his brothers funded and built Tehran’s first modern sky-scrapper, the 17-story “Plasco” building in 1962. It was Iran’s first modern indoor shopping mall which also hadmodern offices in the upper stories. “That building was way ahead of its time in Tehran and it was a symbol of how the country was prospering and modernizing— a source of great pride for all Iranians at that time,” said Olliaee. Before the development of the Plasco building, no city in Iran had anindoor shopping mall and a shopping center was a new concept for Iranians who typically went to an open bazaar or to smaller individual stores to buy their goods. Elghanian and his brothers also funded and built, Tehran’s second sky-scrapper, the “Aluminum” building in 1962 which also had an indoorshopping mall in the ground floor with the upper floors used as offices, he said.

Elghanian family members sold the historic Plasco building in 1975 to Hojabr Yazdani, an affluent Iranian businessman of the Baha’i’ faith. After the revolution, the Iranian regime’s official “non-profit” organization, called Bonyad-e Mostaz-afaan, confiscated the Plasco Building from Yazdani in 1979, and operating it since then. Bonyad-e Mostaz-afaan, which translates to “organization for the oppressed people,” was a frontestablished by the Iranian regime’s Ayatollahs after the 1979 Revolution to expropriate the assets of any person who they believed was an “infidel” in order to allegedly “redistribute” it to the poor or needy in Iran. Unfortunately for Iran’s poor, the Bonyad-e Mostaz-afaan never gave a penny of the money generated from the Plasco building or any other asset it controlled to them. Instead, the money the group has confiscated over the decades from Iranians of all faiths have all gone into the pockets of the ruling Iranian ayatollahs and their thugs.

Sadly, in January 2017, 75 innocent people died after a fire broke out in the Plasco building causing it to ultimately collapse. The fire was believed to be caused by the negligence of the Khomeini regime’s officials who controlled the building, but none of the regime’s authorities were ever prosecuted for their role in this crime.

Promoting Iran’s International Trade and Commerce

Olliaee said he worked closely with Elghanian in Iran’s national Chamber of Commerce. “Because of his incredible success in international business and promoting Iran’s trade worldwide, he was elected by his peers to serve seven consecutive terms in Iran’s Chamber of Commerce,” Olliaee said. The chamber was not only promoting business activities in Iran and resolving business disputes within Iran, but it was a major national institution made up of Iran’s most influential businessmen and industrialists to promote international trade with Iran. “Mr. Elghanian was well respected worldwide in the business world and did everything he could to get foreign companies to invest in Iran and start new business ventures in Iran,” he said.

In 1971, Elghanian was one of only 15 Chamber members that visited Communist China for the first time in order to promote and begin trade relations with the Chinese government. Prior to the trip, Iran and China did not have any economic activity and his involvement in the trip was key to launching the strong business ties between the two countries. “I was with him on that trip and Mr. Elghanian sat across from Chairman Mao discussing how trade between both Iran and China would bemutually beneficial,” said Olliaee. “He knew the huge potential for the sale of Iranian natural resources and other goods at that time to China’s massive market, especially at a time when China was just opening up to the world.”

 Major Philanthropist

While Elghanian became a wealthy man from his various businesses, Olliaee said he was equally generous to anyone or any group seeking help for a worthy cause. “I had never seen or heard of anyone who went into his office looking for a donation or help money-wise for a charity cause and come out empty-handed,” said Olliaee. 

Many are unaware but in 1958, Elghanian was only one of foursuccessful businessmen in Iran to set up a special privately funded student loan program for Tehran University’s unprivileged yet high academic achieving students, said Olliaee. “Mr. Elghanian personally placed 250,000 rials (Iranian currency) of his own money into the student loan program and at that time it was really a substantial amount of money,” said Olliaee. Many poverty-stricken Iranian students who graduated from the university after using the loan money were asked to pay the money if they had the financial means to do so, but those who did not have the means to pay it back were forgiven from repayment, Olliaee said. This private loan program was the first of its kind from the private sector in Iran’s modern history and helped produce thousands of Iran’s successful doctors, engineersand other educated professionals during the mid-20th century.

Elghanian was also among the first of Iran’s private businessmen to always donate to charitable efforts whenever natural disasters struck Iran for quick relief said Olliaee. He donated a sizeable amount of money for the relief efforts following a number of major earthquakes in Iran as well as the 1962 earthquake in Qazvin province that killed 12,000 individuals.

Likewise, Elghanian generously gave to hundreds of charitable organizations and individuals in need of financial help. In 1967 when the builders of the popular Hosseiniyeh Ershad mosque in Tehran had run short of funds in the middle of construction efforts and were desperate for any financial help, they turned to Elghanian for financial help. He not only happily donated funds himself, but also encouraged dozens of Jewish businessmen in Iran he knew to donate funds for the completion of the mosque. “I can recall at least two to three Islamic clerics coming to his office almost every week seeking donations for a charitable cause to help feed or cloth the poor and Mr. Elghanian gave generously to all of them,” said Olliaee. It was simply unheard of for Jews or any other non-Muslims in Iran’s past or recent history to donate money for the construction of a mosque since Iran long-time Shiite Islamic clerics considers non-Muslims infidels. However, Elghanian gave to the Ershad mosque construction program because of his love of community and his fellow Iranians in Tehran.

In the late 1960s when Tehran’s Koroush Kabir hospital (now known as the Ruhollah Sapir hospital) was in dire need of renovations, Elghanian not only provided the funds needed for the upgrade but also donated much of the building supplies for the renovation from his industrial factories. While the hospital was originally built by Tehran’s Jewish community for underprivileged Jews, it has also been utilized by Iranians of all faiths living in Tehran for many decades. Today 98% of the hospital’s patients are Muslims and it only has one or two Jewish staff members. Elghanian is credited with renovating and modernizing the hospital which has saved countless lives of Iranians for more than 80 years. 

Today as we Iranians worldwide remember the life of Habib Elghanian, we must acknowledge his remarkable contributions to improving the life of his fellow countrymen for the better and his unwavering patriotism for Iran. At the same we cannot forget the horrific crime the Khomeini regime committed by killing this patriot who left behind an amazing legacy for the next generation of Iranians to aspire to. I know only too well and when the current Islamic regime is removed from power in Iran, true Iranian patriots will find a way to properly honor the memory of Habib Elghanian for his countless contributions to Iran.

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Karmel Melamed is an internationally published award-winning Iranian American journalist based in Southern California.