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Jāme-yi Rowshanfikrān-i Yahūd-i Irān (Pers. The Organization of Iranian Jewish Intellectuals), a body that deals with Iranian Jewish communal matters, was founded in March 1978 when the new generation of progressive Jewish Iranian intellectuals succeeded for the first time in supplanting the established Jewish communal organization, Anjumān-i Kalīmīān. The Anjumān was replaced by the radical and moderate young intellectuals. Due to internal tense conflicts, the new body wasn't able to function and a decision was made to set new elections. A…

The Kūrosh-i Kabīr (Pers. Cyrus the Great) Jewish youth club in Tehran was founded in 1953 by a group of activists that included Moshe Kermaniyān, Avraham Moreh, ʿAṭāllāh Amīryān, Mordekai Fīrūz Ṭāleʿ, Amīr Elīyasī Tarshīsh, and Manūchehr Omidvar. The club, which was funded by the Jewish Agency, was affiliated with Anjuman-i Kalīmīyān (Pers. [Teheran] Jewish Association). Its goal was to teach the Hebrew language and instill the spirit of the He-Halutz Zionist youth movement. Its program was directed mainly at young people who lived in the maḥalla, Tehran’s Jewish quarter.In 1963, f…

Dr. Iraj Lalehzari was an Iranian Jewish research scientist in chemistry and pharmacology. Born in 1930, he obtained a doctorate in pharmacology at the age of twenty-one from Tehran University and a second doctorate in organic chemistry in Paris in 1953, where he remained for post-doctoral studies. He returned to Iran in 1958 as professor of chemistry at the University of Tehran, becoming chairman of the department in 1970. In 1973, he was promoted to dean of the College of Pharmacology. In 1975…

Ḥakīm Yazghel, known as Ḥakīm Ḥaqnaẓͅar (Ar. True-sighted), was the court physician of the Qājār rulers Muḥammad Shāh (r. 1834–1848) and Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh (r. 1848–1896). He had a close relationship with Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh’s mother and with Jayrān, one of the shah’s wives. His grandfather, also a physician, came to Tehran from Khunsār in 1821. Haqnaẓͅar was the founder of the Ḥakīm synagogue in Tehran’s Jewish quarter.  He had three brothers who were also court physicians. One of them, Ḥakīm Mūsa (d. 1881), also served Muḥammad Shāh and Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh. Haqnaẓͅar excelled …

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and the process of modernization it introduced provided the momentum that impelled educated young Jews in Tehran to work together to further their interests. Under the leadership of an older man, the intellectual Yequtiel Kāshānī, and his assistant, Ayyūb Loqmān Nehūrāy (1882–1952), an association of young people was organized on the eve of the Constitutional Revolution. Using as its name the familiar Hebrew/Aramaic term Ḥebra Qadisha (holy association or sacred society), the organization remained active until the bomb…

Āghā Jān Mullāh Mehdī [Mashiaḥ], the head of the Jewish community of Mashhad, Iran, in the 1830s, was nicknamed Vāqʿ nigār (Pers. one who keeps an eye on/records/takes advantage of contemporary events) because of his ability to use his connections with the British. A well-established merchant in Khurasan who accumulated great wealth, Mehdī regularly provided the British with information about events in Iran, Afghanistan, and Bukhārā. During the British-Afghan war (1831–1839), he often accompanied the supply caravans of the British army. In 1839, when the Jews of Mashhad were for…

Born in 1924 in Isfahan, Me’īr ʿEzrī, is the son of the Zionist activist and local Jewish leader Tzion ʿEzrī. Me’īr ʿEzrī attended the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Anglican Stuart Memorial College. At the age of fifteen he founded an organization of young people to advance Jewish education and build a charitable infrastructure. In 1946 he moved to Tehran.Me’īr ʿEzrī  was one of the most important figures in the Iranian He-Ḥalutz organization and Zionist movement. As the official general secretary of He-Ḥalutz he initiated its first three conferences. In 1947…

Dr. Heshmatallah Kirmanshahchi (Pers. Ḥishmat-Allāh Kermānshāhchī) was born in 1926 in Kirmanshah. In 1936, his family moved to Tehran, where he earned his high school diploma from the American College. At nineteen, he graduated magna cum laude from the pharmacy school of Tehran University. Later on in life, he took correspondence courses in political science, economy, management, and international economy from New York University, the University of Chicago, University of Michigan,  and the University of California, Los Angeles.Kirmanshahchi’s social activism began in 19…

The Kūrosh (Pers. Cyrus) School in Tehran was largely the idea of two Zionist activists, Farājallāh Ḥakīm and Dr. Ḥabῑb Levy. With the help of Ismāʿīl Ḥayy, Azīz Elqānyān, Rabbi ʿAzīzullāh ben Yūnā Naʾīm, and a few others, the Jewish community of Tehran founded the school as an elementary institution, but soon expanded it to include the high school grades.The founding of the Kūrosh School was a highly significant act. Its curriculum, in contrast to that of the Alliance Israélite Universelle schools, emphasized Hebrew and Persian rather than French. Its …

Ayyūb Loqmān Nehūrāy was born in Kashan in 1882 and died in Tehran in 1952. He was the Jewish representative in the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, from the second through the thirteenth session (1909–1943), with the exception of the fifth Majlis (1924–1926), when Shemu’el Haïm was elected as Jewish representative.Nehūrāy’s father was Ḥakīm Ayyūb, the son of Nūr Maḥmūd, one of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh’s (r. 1848–1896) physicians. Nehūrāy earned his medical degree at Dār al-Funūn, the first polytechnic school in Iran, and then opened a clinic in Tehran. …

Other Middle Eastern Jewish communities have all but disappeared, but Iran is still home to around 15,000 Jews (or perhaps 30,000 according to some estimates). On the eve of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, some 80,000 to 100,000 Jews lived in Iran, but by 2008, over 60,000 had emigrated, especially from Tehran, among them the majority of the community’s leaders, philanthropists, and professionals. Iran’s remaining Jews live mainly in the cities of Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. Towns and villages …

Ḥayyim Moreh was a scholar, educator, and rabbi of the Jewish community in Iran. The son of Hājī Mordechai Shirāzī ben Elijah and Rachel bat Yādegār Isfāhānī, he was born in Tehran in 1872 and died there in May of 1942. He married, and had a son and three daughters.Blind in both eyes since the age of two as a result of a severe illness, Moreh lost his father at the age of five, after which he was raised in the home of his maternal grandfather, Yādegār ben Shlomo Solomon Isfāhānī. He studied at the bet midrash (Pers. maktab-khānah) of Hākhām Eleazar Melammed of Yazd. Because of his blindness …

Ḥakham Uriel Davidi was born in Khunsār in the province of Isfahan in 1925. His father, Rabbi Me'ir, was the local rabbi and also a circumciser (Heb. mohel) and ritual slaughterer (Heb. shoḥeṭ) in nearby towns. Ḥakham Davidi was the youngest in a family of fourteen children. His father died when he was seventeen, and he himself married at the age of eighteen. He continued his Torah studies in his hometown and, at the same time, taught at the local Talmud Torah. Later he also taught at the Ozar Hatorah school in Tehran. Besides…

Serah bat Asher was a granddaughter of the biblical patriarch Jacob (Genesis 46:17). A cave and synagogue connected with her in central Iran, 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) west of Isfahan, near a village called Pīr Bakrān in the area of Linjān, has become one of the holiest places of Iranian Jewry and an important pilgrimage destination.Legend explains how Serah ended up so far from the land of her forefathers and why this place is so holy for Jews. According to a local tradition partially based on Midrash ha-Gadol, when the sons of Jacob returned from their second journey to buy food in …

The term ḥakīm (Ar./Pers. physician) was used by both Jews and Muslims in Iran to designate Jewish physicians. The profession of ḥakīm was highly respected in Iran. As elsewhere in the Islamic world, the practice of medicine provided an entrée to the royal court. Few Jews made their living from medicine, and most of those who did were autodidacts or learned their skills from family members. The profession and its associated high social status were usually passed down from father to son. Jewish physicians generally s…

News of the Balfour declaration reached Iran at the end of 1917 and inspired the country’s Jewish community to undertake a series of Zionist-oriented activities. The surge of activism began with the founding in Tehran of Anjuman-i Taqhviyat-i Zabān-i ʿIbrī (Pers. The Association for Strengthening the Hebrew Language) under the leadership of Soleymān (Shelomo) Kohan Ṣedq. As indicated by its name, the new organization initially focused on promoting the Hebrew language. In 1919, it expanded its mission and changed its name to Anjuman-i Markazī-yi Tashkīlat-i Ṣiyyonīt-i Irān (AM…

Habībullah Elghanian (Elqāniān),  was a major industrialist and factory owner in Iran prior to the Revolution of 1979. With his brothers, he built one of the country’s largest and most successful, diversified manufacturing conglomerates. Born in 1911 in Tehran, Elghanian was educated in the Alliance Israélite Universelle school and after graduation managed a hotel on Ferdowsī Boulevard that belonged to his uncle Hajjī ʿAzīz Elghanian. Later he became the manager of several shops on Lālehzar Street tha…

Aryeh Morad was an Iranian Jewish businessman and communal leader. Born in Kashan in 1900, he moved to Tehran at the age of thirteen in order to join his older brother's businesses, after which he opened his own. The Morad family owned Īrāna , the largest tile-manufacturing company in Iran.In addition to serving as head of the Anjumān-i Kalīmīan (Jewish Association), Morad was the Jewish representative to the thirteenth through the twentieth sessions of Iran’s parliament, the Majlis (February 1944 - October 1963), with the exception of the nineteenth session…

Rab Joseph Or Shargā (Shragā) was a rabbi in eighteenth-century Yazd who was believed to have possessed miraculous powers. He was born in Sabzehvār around the middle of the eighteenth century and died in Yazd in 1793. His shrine in Yazd has become a pilgrimage site for both Jews and Muslims.Many stories and legends were associated with Rab Or Shargā during his lifetime and after his death. In one tale, a Muslim pilgrim from Yazd is on the way to Mecca. His ship is caught in a storm and about to founder. The other passengers pray with no result, bu…

ʽAzīzullāh ben Yūnā Naʼīm (1889–1946), a leader of the Iranian Jewish community at the beginning of the twentieth century, was born in Damāvand and died in Tehran. Also known as Rāb (Rabbi) Naʼīm, he led and inspired the first generation of young Zionists in Iran.By profession Naʼīm was a merchant. He was one of the founders of Ha-Histadrut ha-Ṣiyyonit, the first Zionist committee in Iran, in 1919, and became its second president. In December 1920, Naʼīm published in Tehran Tārikh-i Junbish-i Ṣiyonit (Pers. The History of the Zionist Movement), the first book on Zionism writ…