Jewish, Persian (Tehrani) (Iran)

Persian Jews (Kalimian, the official Iranian term; Yahudi; in Israel, Parsim) are one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Jews reached the Iranian lands with the Assyrian deportations of the 8th century BCE, and Cyrus the Great, who freed the Babylonian exiles around 538 BCE, is honoured in Jewish tradition; the Book of Esther is set in Shushan (Susa), and the tombs of Esther and Mordecai in Hamadan and of the prophet Daniel at Shush remain pilgrimage sites. Under Islam they lived as dhimmis, under the Safavids they were declared ritually unclean and the Jews of Isfahan were expelled in 1656, and in the Allahdad incident of 1839 the Jews of Mashhad were forced to convert, becoming crypto-Jews. Each city community had its own Judeo-Persian dialect (Isfahani, Shirazi, Hamadani, Kashani, Yazdi, Kermani) and wrote Persian in Hebrew script; medieval Judeo-Persian Bible translations are landmarks of the language. Emancipated under the Pahlavis, about 80,000-100,000 Jews lived in Iran before 1979; most then left for Israel and the United States, where Iranian-origin Jews now number some 300,000, while about 9,000-15,000 remain in Iran, mostly in Tehran. Kurdistani, Hulaula-speaking Jews are a separate group.

Persian Jewish culture is Persian in language, cuisine and manners and Jewish in its calendar. Shabbat tables carry gondi (chickpea-and-chicken dumplings), herb stews, rice with tahdig and the slow-cooked Sabbath dish hamin; families keep Nowruz and Yalda alongside Passover, Purim (cherished for Esther's Persian setting) and the High Holy Days. Communities maintain Jewish schools, kosher butchers and restaurants, a charity hospital, old-age homes, libraries and cemeteries. Families are close-knit, matchmaking is common, and marriage within the community is expected. Most families have relatives in Los Angeles, New York and Israel.

Practice follows the Persian Mizrahi rite with its own melodies and customs, led by rabbis and cantors; synagogue attendance on Shabbat and festivals is relatively high and the community is traditional rather than ultra-Orthodox. Pilgrimages go to the tomb of Esther and Mordecai in Hamadan, the shrine of Serah bat Asher near Isfahan and the tomb of Daniel. Women keep vows and votive meals much like their Muslim neighbours. In Iran, community leaders publicly profess loyalty to the state and condemn Zionism, reflecting a precarious position; in the diaspora, Persian Jews range from Orthodox to secular, and younger generations in Los Angeles and Israel are highly assimilated.

Persian Jews read Persian and Hebrew and have access to the full Persian Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures, the JESUS film, audio recordings and Persian Christian satellite and online media; Judeo-Persian Bible translations date from the 14th century. Nineteenth-century Protestant missions in Hamadan, Kermanshah and Isfahan won a number of Jewish converts, and some Hamadan Jewish families became Christians or Baha'is. Today outreach to Persian Jews happens mainly in Los Angeles and Israel, through Messianic congregations and Iranian Christian ministries.