Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:45, 15 November 2005

Persian Jews, or Iranian Jews, are a group of ancient Jewish communities living throughout the former greatest extents of the Persian Empire. They originally migrated there from ancient Israel and Mesopotamia. Persian Jews have lived in the territories of today's Iran for about 2,700 years, since the captivity of the ancient Israelites in Khorasan.

After Zoroastrianism, Judaism is the oldest religion in Iran. Today, the largest groups of Persian Jews are found in Israel (100,000) and the United States (45,000) (especially Los Angeles). By various estimates, there are between 11,000 to 30,000 Jews living in Iran today, mostly in Tehran and Hamedan. There are also smaller communities in Western Europe and Australia. A number of groups of Persian Jews have split off since ancient times, to the extent that they are recognized as separate communities today, such as the Bukharan Jews and Mountain Jews.

History

The Persian Jewish communities include the ancient (and until the mid-20th century still extant) communities not only of Iran, but of parts of what is now Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, northwestern India, Kirgizstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The origin of these communities is traced to the time of the Babylonian captivity, over 2500 years ago. Some of the communities have been isolated from other Jewish communities, to the extent that their classification as "Persian Jews" is a matter of linguistic or geographical convenience rather than actual historical relationship with one another. During the peak of the Persian Empire, Jews are thought to have comprised as much as 20% of the population.

Cyrus the Great and Jews

Three times during the 6th century BCE, the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. These three separate occasions are mentioned (Jeremiah 52:28-30). The first was in the time of Jehoiachin in 597 BCE, when the temple of Jerusalem was partially despoiled and a number of the leading citizens removed. After eleven years (in the reign of Zedekiah) a fresh rising of the Judaeans occurred; the city was razed to the ground, and a further deportation ensued. Finally, five years later, Jeremiah records a third captivity. After the overthrow of Babylonia by the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to their native land (537 BCE), and more than forty thousand are said to have availed themselves of the privilege. (See Jehoiakim; Ezra; Nehemiah and Jews.)

Parthian Period

Jewish sources contain no mention of Parthian influence; the very name "Parthian" does not occur, unless indeed "Parthian" is meant by "Persian," which occurs now and then. The Armenian prince Sanatroces, of the royal house of the Arsacides, is mentioned in the "Small Chronicle" as one of the successors (diadochoi) of Alexander. Among other Asiatic princes, the Roman rescript in favor of the Jews reached Arsaces as well (I Macc. xv. 22); it is not, however, specified which Arsaces. Not long after this, the Partho-Babylonian country was trodden by the army of a Jewish prince; the Syrian king, Antiochus Sidetes, marched, in company with Hyrcanus I., against the Parthians; and when the allied armies defeated the Parthians (129 B.C.) at the River Zab (Lycus), the king ordered a halt of two days on account of the Jewish Sabbath and Feast of Weeks. In 40 B.C. the Jewish puppet-king, Hyrcanus II., fell into the hands of the Parthians, who, according to their custom, cut off his ears in order to render him unfit for rulership. The Jews of Babylonia, it seems, had the intention of founding a high-priesthood for the exiled Hyrcanus, which they would have made quite independent of Palestine. But the reverse was to come about: the Palestinians received a Babylonian, Ananel by name, as their high priest which indicates the importance enjoyed by the Jews of Babylonia. Still in religious matters the Babylonians, as indeed the whole diaspora, were in many regards dependent upon Palestine. They went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the festivals.

How free a hand the Parthians permitted the Jews is perhaps best illustrated by the rise of the little Jewish robber-state in Nehardea (see Anilai and Asinai). Still more remarkable is the conversion of the king of Adiabene to Judaism. These instances show not only the tolerance, but the weakness of the Parthian kings. The Babylonian Jews wanted to fight in common cause with their Palestinian brethren against Vespasian; but it was not until the Romans waged war under Trajan against Parthia that they made their hatred felt; so that it was in a great measure owing to the revolt of the Babylonian Jews that the Romans did not become masters of Babylonia too. Philo speaks of the large number of Jews resident in that country, a population which was no doubt considerably swelled by new immigrants after the destruction of Jerusalem. Accustomed in Jerusalem from early times to look to the east for help, and aware, as the Roman procurator Petronius was, that the Jews of Babylon could render effectual assistance, Babylonia became with the fall of Jerusalem the very bulwark of Judaism. The collapse of the Bar Kochba revolt no doubt added to the number of Jewish refugees in Babylon.

In the continuous struggles between the Parthians and the Romans, the Jews had every reason to hate the Romans, the destroyers of their sanctuary, and to side with the Parthians, their protectors. Possibly it was recognition of services thus rendered by the Jews of Babylonia, and by the Davidic house especially, that induced the Parthian kings to elevate the princes of the Exile, who till then had been little more than mere collectors of revenue, to the dignity of real princes, called Resh Galuta. Thus, then, the numerous Jewish subjects were provided with a central authority which assured an undisturbed development of their own internal affairs.

Sassanid Period (225-634)

The Persian people were now again to make their influence felt in the history of the world. Ardashir I destroyed the rule of the Arsacids in the winter of 226, and founded the illustrious dynasty of the Sassanids. Different from the Parthian rulers, who in language and religion inclined toward Hellenism, the Sassanids intensified the Persian side of life, favored the Pahlavi language, and restored with zeal the old monolithic religion of the Zoroastrianism, founded upon worship of Ahura Mazda, which now, under the favoring influence of the government, attained the fury of fanaticism.

Shapur I (Shvor Malka, which is the Aramaic form of the name) was friend to the Jews. His friendship with Shmuel gained many advantages for the Jewish community.

Shapur II's mother was Jew, this gave Jews community a relative freedom of religion and many advantages. He was also friend of a Babylonian rabbi in the Talmud named Raba (Talmud), Raba's friendship with Shapur II enabled him to secure a relaxation of the oppressive laws enacted against the Jews in the Persian Empire. In addition, Raba sometimes refered to his top student Abaye with the term Shvur Malka meaning "Shaput King" because of his bright and quick intellect.

Of course, both Christians and Jews suffered occasional persecution; but the latter, dwelling in more compact masses in cities like ], were not exposed to such general persecutions as broke out against the more isolated Christians. Generally, this was a period of occasional persecutions for the Jews, followed by long periods of benign neglect in which Jewish learning thrived. By the 600s, however, the Jews were increasingly persecuted, and they welcomed the Arab conquest of 632-634.

After revolution

At the time of the establishment of the state of Israel, there were approximately 100,000 Jews living in Iran, the historical center of Persian Jewry. Much of this community has left for friendlier shores, over 85% having moved to either Israel or the United States, especially following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, at which point 80,000 still remained in Iran. Persian Jewish communities in other countries have suffered even greater declines: in Afghanistan, the community numbers only 1 individual, thanks in large part to the persecutions under the Taliban regime (a synagogue in Kabul exists today). The community in Pakistan today numbers less than 200, and the Persian Jewish community from the region of the Rann of Kutch, in northwestern India, has been entirely uprooted, moving almost exclusively to Israel since 1949, with many others forced to convert to Islam.

Languages

Persian Jews, are Persians, therefore they speak Persian, but while the foremost remaining Jewish language of these widely dispersed communities is Dzhidi or Judæo-Persian, historically a number of other Jewish languages have also been spoken, including:

• Bukhori (Judæo-Bukharic)
• Dzhidi (Judæo-Persian)
• Judæo-Golpaygani
• Judæo-Kermani
• Judæo-Shirazi
• Judæo-Esfahani
• Judæo-Hamedani
• Judæo-Kashani
• Judæo-Borujerdi
• Judæo-Nehevandi
• Judæo-Khunsari
• Judæo-Yazdi
• Juhuri language (Judæo-Tat)

Famous Persian Jews

• Esther
• List of Asian Jews
• David Alliance

See also

• Persians
• Jews in India
• Islam and Judaism

References

• History of the Iranian Jews
• The Jews of Iraq
• Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran
• The invisible Iranians

See also

• History of the Jews in Iraq
• Bukharan Jews

External links

• The Jewish Virtual Library's Iranian Jews page
• Jews in Iran Describe Life of Freedom Despite Anti-Israel Actions

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

• Jewish history
• Jews by country
• History of Iran
• Iranian peoples