The Jewish Community of Teheran
Teheran
In Farsi: تهران - Alternate spelling: Tehran
Capital of Iran
Situated near the ancient Biblical site of Rages (mentioned in the Book of Tobit, a book that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox Christian canon), Teheran did not rise to prominence until the Kajar dynasty established its capital there around 1788. It soon attracted Jews from a variety provincial villages and towns. According to the Jewish traveler David D'Beth Hillel, the Jewish population in Teheran amounted to about 100 families in 1828.
Travelers, shelichim (emissaries), and other European visitors who came to Teheran throughout the 19th century (including the Christian missionary Joseph Wolff, the explorer Benjamin II (originally Israel Joseph Benjamin), the traveler and writer Ephraim Neumark, and G.K Curzon) pointed to the growth of the Jewish community in Teheran. At first, the Jews lived in a poor quarter ("Mahallah"), where they established synagogues and other religious and social institutions. Nonetheless, they were economically hampered by the fact that they were non-Muslims, with the status of ritually-unclean non-believers (a status shared by Jews and Christians) held by Shi'ite Islam, the religion of the dynasty.
The Jews of Teheran engaged in handicrafts and small businesses, and also worked as itinerant peddlers dealing in carpets, textiles, antiquities, and luxury articles. Very few, however, were able to reach positions of economic importance. Some native Jewish physicians in Teheran in the time of Shah Naser al-Din achieved a measure of prominence, and the Shah eventually appointed an Austrian Jew, Jacob Eduard Polak, as a court physician (Polak was also invited by the government to work as a professor of anatomy and surgery at the military college).
The political and legal status of the Jews improved during the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the intervention of European Jewry on their behalf. During the Shah's visits to Europe in 1873 and 1889, Sir Moses Montefiore and the French lawyer and statesman Isaac Adolphe Cremieux presented him with petitions and demands for better conditions for the Jews of Iran. This intervention led to the establishment of Jewish schools by the Alliance Israelite Universelle; the first Alliance school in Teheran was opened in 1898 with Joseph Cazes as director.
As a result of the constitutional reforms under Shah Muzaffar al-Din in the early decades of the 20th century, the Jews were granted citizenship in 1906, though it would be another few decades until they were permitted to elect their own representative to the Iranian Parliament. Under the Pahlavi Dynasty, especially during the reign of Muhammad Reza Shah (1941-1979), the condition of the Jews throughout Iran improved considerably and the Jews of Teheran enjoyed a level of freedom and equality that they had yet to experience. During this "Golden Age," many Jews rose to influential social and economic positions.
In Teheran the community was served not only by the Alliance, but also by ORT and Otzar HaTorah. Above all, however, the Jewish community in Teheran was supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which in 1947 laid the foundation for all of the social, medical, and educational activities of the Jews of Teheran and Iran as a whole.
A Zionist organization was established in Teheran even before the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and a cultural and spiritual revival also resulted in a considerable degree of Aliyah to Palestine in the early decades of the 20th century. Among Teheran's prominent leaders were Solomon Kohen Tzedek, author of the first Hebrew grammar book for Iranian Jews, Mullah Elijah Haim More, author of three Judeo-Persian books on Jewish tradition and history, Soliman Haim, editor of a Persian Jewish newspaper and an ardent Zionist, Aziz Naim, author of the first history of the Zionist movement in Persian, and Kermanyan, Persian translator of Alex Bein's biography of Theodor Herzl. One of the earliest immigrants to Palestine was Mullah Haim Elijah Elazar whose son, Chanina Mizrachi, wrote several books on Iranian Jews in Palestine and other essays.
There were 35,000 Jews in Teheran in 1948, constituting 37% of the total Jewish population of Iran. Although there was considerable immigration to Israel, Jews from the provinces also migrated to the capital, stabilizing the population numbers. As the country's economic situation improved, so did that of the Jews living there.
Teheran had a network of schools run by the Alliance Israelite Universelle; 15 elementary schools and two high schools, as well as schools run by Otzar HaTorah and ORT. In 1957 it was estimated that about 3,000 Jewish children in Teheran received no education, although this number probably dropped during the 1960s. In 1961 7,100 pupils attended the Alliance Israelite Universelle and Otzar HaTorah. Hundreds of Jews (700-800 in 1949) also studied in Protestant mission schools, and approximately another 2,000 were enrolled in government schools. In 1961 the number of Jewish students at Teheran University was estimated at 300
The community ran the Kanun Kheir Khah Hospital for the Needy (founded in 1958), and a Jewish soup kitchen financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The headquarters of both the youth organization, Kanun Javanan, which extended aid and sponsored lectures to poor children, and of the Jewish women's organization were located in Teheran.
Community affairs were handled by a council led by Ayatollah Montakhab in 1951, and by Arieh Murad in 1959. The head of the rabbinical court in 1959 was Rabbi Yedidiah Shofet. His judge's salary was paid by the government, and his judgments were carried out by government law courts. In 1957 the first Iranian-Jewish Congress was organized in Teheran, and branches of the World Jewish Congress were established.
In 1970 40,000 Jews (55% of the total Jewish population of Iran) lived in Teheran, and the community was composed of Jews from various Iranian provinces, including Meshed, and from Bukhara, Baghdad, and other Middle Eastern communities, as well as of Ashkenazim from Russia, Poland, and Germany.
On the eve of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, there were 80,000 Jews in Iran, concentrated in Teheran (which had the largest Jewish population of approximately 60,000), Shiraz, Kermanshah, and the cities of Kuzistahn. Things shifted rapidly for the Jews of Iran with the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Private wealth was confiscated, and the Muslim population began expressing strong anti-Israel feelings. Zionist activity was made a crime, though the regime officially distinguished between the Jews of Iran, who were considered loyal citizens, and Zionists, Israelis, and world Jewry to whom the regime was hostile.
Nonetheless, the Jews who remained in Iran were living in a sensitive and unpredictable situation that requires constant vigilance. On February 1, 1979 5,000 Jews, led by the chief rabbi, Yedidia Shofet, welcomed the future Supreme Leader of the country, Ayatollah Khomeini with signs proclaiming that "Jews and Muslims are brothers." Three months later, on May 9, 1979, the regime executed Habib Elghanian, a prominent member of the Jewish community in Teheran who served as the president of the Teheran Jewish Society, who was charged with "corruption," "contacts with Israel and Zionism," and "friendship with the enemies of God." Elghanian's execution sent shock waves through the Jewish community, and nearly two-thirds of Iranian Jewry left the country. The gabbai of a Teheran synagogue, 77 year old Faisallah Mechubad, was executed in February, 1994 for supposedly spying for Israel.
In 1996 there were an estimated 25,000 Jews in Teheran (out of 35,000 Jews in Iran as a whole). There were 50 active synagogues, 23 of which were in Teheran, and about 4,000 students enrolled in Jewish schools. Classes in Jewish schools were held in Persian, since teaching Hebrew could lead to problems with the authorities.