Iran

From JudaismWiki

IRAN. Iran, the ancient Persia, included at its height of power Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and the mountainous lands east and south. Jews first came under Persian rule in 539 B.C.E. when King Cyrus conquered Babylonia. The Judean captives, exiled to Babylonia after the destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C.E., welcomed the Persian rulers. Forty thousand of them returned to Judea and rebuilt their homeland. For two centuries of Persian rule, the Jewish communities of Persian Babylonia flourished, and close links were maintained with the communities of Judea. In later centuries, when the Persian Empire fell successively under Greek, Parthian, and Arab domination, Jews continued to live in its territories, notably in the Babylonian cities of Sura and Pumbeditha, where great academies flourished and where the immense work of compiling the Talmud was completed in 500 C.E.

During the 12th century, there were large Jewish communities in the cities of Isfahan, Shiraz, and Hamadan, part of present-day Iran. Under the Safavid Dynasty from 1499 to 1736, Jews suffered severe discriminatory measures against them. Many converted to Islam, living secretly as Jews. Some fled to Afghanistan and Palestine where their descendants are still to be found. The Kadar Dynasty from 1795 to 1925 continued the harsh anti-Jewish policy of the Safavids. They considered the Jews ritually unclean, humiliated them, and taxed them heavily. Under this treatment, the Jewish community declined. In the late 19th century, the situation for Persian Jewry improved somewhat when Western European Jews interceded on their behalf. In 1898, the first school of the Alliance Israélite Universelle was organized at Teheran. Today, the Alliance conducts a network of 21 schools throughout Iran which has contributed greatly to raising the cultural and economic standards of Persian Jewry. Since May 15, 1948, there has been a mass emigration of about 60,000 Persian Jews to Israel. Emigration is still continuing at a slow pace.

Under the Shah Reza Pahlevi in 1979, the Jewish community was estimated at 70,000. In 2006, there were about 10,800 Jews, the majority living in Teheran. Other Jewish centers are Shiraz, Isfahan, and Hamadan. Only a handful of Iran’s Jews live in comfortable circumstances. Many, particularly in the smaller towns and villages, live in conditions bordering on destitution.

Since the triumph of the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the 2,500-year-old Jewish community of Iran has experienced a dramatic decline. Zionism, defined on the basis of ties with Israel, is regarded as a crime punishable by death. At present, the outlook for Iranian Jewry is uncertain. Moreover, Iran has shown growing hostility towards the West in general and Israel in particular. It has launched a nuclear program, instigated the 2006 Second Lebanon War, denied the Holocaust, and threatened Israel with annihilation.