- Population
- ~10,000 speakers; est. 30,000-50,000 by descent
- Location
- Jerusalem; Upper Galilee (Safed area); Gush Dan and moshavim
The Jews of Iranian Kurdistan come from Sanandaj, Saqqez, Bijar and Kerend, where for centuries they spoke Hulaula, a Jewish dialect of Aramaic, alongside Kurdish and Persian. Almost all moved to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s, many by way of Tehran, and settled in Jerusalem and in farming villages, where they joined the much larger community of Kurdish Jews from Iraq. Fewer than 10,000 people, nearly all elderly, still speak Hulaula, while their children and grandchildren speak Hebrew. Each autumn during Sukkot thousands of Kurdish Jews gather in Jerusalem's Sacher Park for Saharane, a festival of drums, circle dances and Kurdish food that their ancestors once held by the rivers of Kurdistan after Passover.