Siyamak More Sedgh

Siyamak More Sedgh (, Hebrew: סיאמכ מורה-צדק; born 1965) is a Jewish Iranian politician and doctor who was the holder of the Iranian Parliament's reserved seat for the Jewish minority from 2008 to 2020, and is also the chairman of the Jewish charitable institution Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center.

He has been referred to as Iran's "No. 1 Jew."

In his political capacity, More Sedgh has made efforts to improve the position of Jews in Iranian law and society, such as by allowing Jewish children in public schools to not go to school on Saturdays.

He supports gradual reforms within the current Islamist framework.

In foreign policy, he has repeatedly criticized Israel, which he has dubbed the "Zionist regime".

More Sedgh was born in Shiraz in 1965 to a prominent family who had led the local Jewish community since the Safavid era.

During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to 1988, he served as a first aid doctor.

In 1983, he was accepted by the Shiraz School of Medicine.

In 1990, More Sedgh received a Doctor of Medicine degree in General Surgery, summa cum laude.

More Sedgh's wife immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s; he chose to remain in Iran because he did not think he could live outside his native Iranian culture.

He worked as a general surgical assistant at Namazi Hospital after graduation and was employed beginning in 1995 as an assistant professor at the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in the western city of Sanandaj.

He was put in charge of Kurdistan's emergency center in 2000 before moving to the capital of Tehran in 2002, to serve as the chairman of the Jewish charitable institution Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center.

More Sedgh continues to direct the hospital concurrently with his political work.

In 2002, he married Tina Rabie-Zadeh.

In 2006, he became the chairman of the Tehran Jewish Committee, a post which he held until deciding to run for Parliament in 2008.

In the 2008 Iranian legislative election, More Sedgh was elected to the reserved seat for Jews in the Iranian Parliament.

He successfully defended his seat in the next two elections.

Since 2009, he has also been the editor-in-chief of Ofogh-e Binah, a monthly newspaper published by the committee.

In a 2010 interview with Russia Today, More Sedgh stated that he had volunteered in the war for twelve months, but in a 2013 interview with CNN, he stated he had volunteered for "more than eighty months".

In a 2013 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, More Sedgh said:

Of course, being a Jewish minority in a religious country have some problems.

But after the revolution, our problems are being solved step by step.

Today, our condition is better than yesterday.

And today, our condition is much better than 10 years or 20 years ago.

More Sedgh has pointed to changes in compensation payments for deaths, which used to be different for Muslims and non-Muslims but have since become equal, as an example of improving Jewish lives.

He supported the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

A trained surgeon, he has referred to his work as a doctor at Dr. Sapir Hospital as his "first passion" and his "duty as a human being".

From 2016 to 2020, his parliamentary committee was the Health and Medicare Committee.

He was also a member of the parliamentary Friendship Groups for Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

More Sedgh's political stances diverge only narrowly from established Iranian state policies.

According to 7Dorim, a website discussing Jewish culture in Iran, More Sedgh "has complained on many occasions against the biased position of the Iranian TV and Radio... which had broadcast some negative propaganda and insulting programs" with regards to Jews.

In several interviews with foreign media, he has stated that the situation for Jews in Iran is not perfect but improving.

Noting this fact in a 2017 interview with Deutsche Welle, More Sedgh stated that his "closest friends" are Muslim.

While at Sanandaj, More Sedgh served as the hazzan or cantor at the local synagogue.

In the 2017 Deutsche Welle interview, he counted the fact that Jewish children enrolled in public schools were now allowed to stay home on Saturday, the Sabbath, as "one of our [Jewish community's] biggest successes of the past years".

Although he has admitted that balancing the two occupations has been difficult, he said in a 2018 interview with Al Jazeera English that:

Going to the parliament for me is a duty for my country and the Iranian Jews.

My work in this hospital is my duty as a human being.

Although Dr. Sapir Hospital is located in a traditionally Jewish quarter of Tehran, most Jewish people have since left and the vast majority of patients and staff are Muslims.

In the 2020 legislative election, he was not re-elected.