- Population
- ~150,000-175,000
- Location
- Jerusalem, Netanya, Kfar Saba and the Tel Aviv area
Persian Jews have come to Israel since the early nineteenth century, when families from Shiraz settled in Safed and Jerusalem, but most arrived after 1948, some 30,000 in the first years of the state and another 10,000-15,000 after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Today some 150,000-175,000 Israelis are Persian Jews by descent, besides the Mashhadi, Kurdish and Urmia Jews from Iran who form communities of their own, most of them born in Israel, with large communities in Jerusalem, Netanya, Kfar Saba and around Tel Aviv. Many families still cook Persian food such as gondi dumplings and crispy tahdig rice on the Sabbath and set a Nowruz table each spring, and Israel's public radio broadcasts in Persian. The wars with Iran in 2025 and 2026 brought Iranian missiles onto the cities where they live, while they feared for relatives still in Iran.