Smallpox Vaccination Certificate of Mirza Hinam Soleymanieh, Yezd, Iran, 1936
Smallpox Vaccination Certificate of Mirza Hinam Soleymanieh, Yezd, Iran, 1936
In the first half of the 20th century, after several waves of epidemics, the Iranian government decided to vaccinate the population against smallpox free of charge. The Soleymanieh family (Chaban, Esther and their four children) was vaccinated during March - April, 1936, at the Pahlavi Hospital in Yezd, Iran.
The Oster Visual Documentation Center, ANU - Museum of the Jewish People, courtesy of Ktsia Tabibian, Israel
Yezd
(Place)Yezd
Yazd; in Farsi: یزد
City in central Iran, probably built by Yazdegerd I (399-420).
That Yezd was a center of Jewish scholars in the early middle ages is attested by a 9th century Hebrew manuscript of the later prophets with Masoretic notes which was found there; it is one of the oldest known biblical manuscripts composed by Persian Jews.
The Yezd community's spiritual leader, Mulla Or Shraga, who is mentioned in many Hebrew letters of the early decades of the 19th century, maintained close contacts with the Jews of Meshed.
At the beginning of the 20th century an Alliance Israelite Universelle school was established in the city.
Jews from Yezd were among the earliest immigrants to Palestine and many families settled, mainly in Safed and Jerusalem. In the late 1960's only a few Jews remained in the city.