In the 20th and 21st centuries, the fortunes of the Jews of Iran have turned several times. From a poor and despised community, it became one of the richest in the Jewish world with the rise to power of the Pahlavi dynasty. However, its golden age would come to an end in 1979, with the Islamic revolution. Today, the eight thousand Jews who live in Iran find themselves at the mercy of circumstances. They have no kind of “shield” that can protect their lives or the few possessions they still have.

In the first decades of the 20th century, Persia, as Iran was called until 1935, found itself in a difficult political and economic situation. Since 1909, with the signing of the Anglo-Persian treaty, the country had been under British control. and faced a situation of fiscal insolvency, inflation and famine. It was precisely in this climate of instability that an Iranian army officer, Reza Mirpanj, entered the national scene. In 1921, he led the coup that deposed the last shah of the Qajar dynasty, installing himself as Minister of War and, later, as Prime Minister. In October 1923, with the approval of Parliament, he became head of the provisional government and, in December, ascended to the throne with the name Reza Khan Pahlavi.

The new Shah implemented reforms that transformed the economic, social, political and cultural structure of Persia to make it a secular and Westernized country. To this end, he made nationalism the element of cohesion among the people, to the detriment of Islam. He excluded the Shiite clergy from any state decision-making and abolished the ancient concept of “ritual impurity” for Jews. With these measures, Jews were able to take their first steps towards socioeconomic advancement. They began to work in commerce, industry and tourism. They had greater access to universities and schools, both as students and as teachers. However, they were still subject to restrictions and discrimination, because, despite the Shah having prohibited mullahs, the Muslim clergy, to stir up the masses against them, the aversion to the Jews was deep-rooted.

With the rise of Nazism in Germany and Reza Khan's rapprochement with Hitler, the local version of religious anti-Judaism incorporated a racist strand imported from Germany. The Persians began to see themselves as “superior,” descendants of Aryan peoples who had settled on the Iranian plateau in ancient times. In 1935, the Shah changed the name of the country to Iran, which, for the monarch, better reflected these supposed ethnic roots.

During World War II, Iranian newspapers referred to Jews as “the deadliest threat to humanity,” “responsible for all the miseries of Iran and the world.” Fascist parties believed that Jews “must be expelled from the country.” In 2, in response to the Shah’s rapprochement with Germany, British and Russian troops invaded Iran to secure Allied access to the country’s oil resources. Under pressure from the occupying powers, the ruler abdicated in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was crowned in September of that year.

The relationships between the Ishuv (the Jewish core in Eretz Israel) and Iran began in 1942, when the Jewish Agency opened an office in Tehran to help Polish refugees from Russia emigrate to Israel.

During the vote on the Partition of Palestine at the United Nations in November 1947, Iran voted against the motion, along with the other Muslim countries. According to statistics from the Jewish Agency in Tehran, in 1948 the Jewish population of the country was between 100 and 120, 50 in the capital alone. With the internal advance of anti-Semitic propaganda after the creation of the Jewish state, more than 35 Jews, mainly from the poorest classes, did so. aliya between 1948 and 1970.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi maintained close ties with the West, particularly the US, and recognized the State of Israel 1 in 1949. Relations with the new country were “discreetly unofficial”, but close.

In the early 1950s, the political crisis in Iran dominated the attention of the United Kingdom and the United States. In the 1951 parliamentary elections, the National Front, a coalition of parties opposing the Shah, won a majority, and its leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, became prime minister. Under the leadership of the new head of government, the nationalization of the oil reserves, previously controlled by the United Kingdom, was approved. The political crisis had forced the entire royal family to flee the country, and it was at this time that the ties between the monarch and the Iranian Jewish community were strengthened. Upon learning that Reza Pahlavi was staying in Rome, a Jewish businessman, Morad Arieh, sent him a blank check, along with a letter in which he allowed the sovereign to make unlimited withdrawals and to repay the loan when everything returned to normal.

In 1953, Mossadegh was deposed in a military coup, and Shah Reza Pahlavi returned to the throne. The Shah's reign was an era of transformation and achievement for the Jewish community. The fact that Shiism was no longer the unifying factor in the country opened up space for minorities in the restructuring of the country. The period of the so-called White Revolution (1963-1970) was the Golden Age of Iranian Jewry, which reached levels of prosperity never before experienced.

The Golden Age

The rapid growth of the Jewish community was largely due to the ideology of the Pahlavis, who wanted a Westernized Iran. The goal of the White Revolution, which began in 1963, was the secularization and modernization of the country. Industrialization became a priority, and extensive land reform was carried out, including on the lands of Shiite clerics. Iranian women were emancipated.

In 1966, there were 60.683 Jews living in the country according to the census (70 according to Jewish sources). With the strong economic growth of the 1960s and 1970s, they had exceptional economic opportunities. Never in their entire history had they achieved such a level of wealth, education and professional success, so much so that the vast majority belonged to the middle or upper middle class. Based on per capita, became one of the richest Jewish communities in the world. They had excellent schools, Zionist organizations and an active religious life. In Tehran alone, there were more than 30 synagogues.

Iran and Israel had strong relations in the areas of trade, agriculture, medicine and military. For example, the Muslim country supplied oil to the Jewish state and there were regular EL AL flights between the two countries. The Six-Day War in 1967 is considered one of the high points of this relationship. After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, there was a closer relationship between the Shah and Anwar al-Sadat, the president of Egypt. The Iranian sovereign is believed to have been one of those who advised the then Egyptian head of government to make peace with Israel.

However, this new reality did not mean the end of anti-Semitism. In small towns, Jews were still insulted and beaten. Furthermore, whenever the Shiite clergy gained ground or there was some kind of instability in the country, our fellow believers were the target of violence.

Internal opposition

In the 1970s, popular resentment against the Shah's government grew. With the 1973 oil crisis, the country plunged into economic, political and social problems.

The Shiite clergy and conservative Muslims condemned “Westernization” and demanded a return to Islamic customs. Liberals accused the sovereign of corruption and spending billions on weapons, as well as criticizing his autocratic style and repressive policies. As the regime hardened, more and more Iranians joined the ranks of the opposition.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, exiled in Paris, sent anti-Shah messages to Iran, recorded on cassette tapes that were broadcast in mosques. In the eyes of the Muslim masses, Khomeini had become a national hero since his arrest in 1962. Two years later, the ayatollah was exiled, but not silenced.

Opposition to the shah involved a coalition of nationalists, secularists, leftists, and Islamists. Mosques across the country became centers of the Iranian Revolution, and Khomeini skillfully portrayed himself as a unifying figure among the diverse opposition factions.

In 1978 and 1979, strikes and protests paralyzed the country. As anti-shah protesters framed their demands in religious terms, Islamic rhetoric eventually prevailed. Khomeini came to be revered as a holy figure who fought not only to free Iran from oppression but also to transform the country into the society described in the Quran.

On the eve of the Iranian Revolution, there were 80 Jews living in the country out of a population of 40 million. In a precarious situation, the Jewish community had every reason to be fearful. Ayatollah Khomeini made explicitly anti-Semitic statements. In his speeches and writings, he accused Jews of, among other things, “distorting” Islam, mistranslating the Koran, and dominating the Iranian economy. In a guide to daily Muslim life he wrote in the early 1960s, he emphasized the “impurity” of Jews.

On January 16, 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced to leave Iran. Two weeks later, Khomeini returned triumphantly to the country after 15 years in exile.

The Islamic Republic and the Jews

The Ayatollah and his followers assumed power on February 11, 1979. This created the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), a Shiite Islamic theocracy whose laws and regulations follow the Sharia, a legal system based on the Quran. In the newly created republic, the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government are “supervised” by the “Supreme Leader,” the Ayatollah, and his “Council of Guardians.”

After taking power, Khomeini ordered the execution of revolutionary figures and former allies, and the arrest of prominent members of the Iranian Jewish community. The news of the execution on May 9, 1979, of Habib Elghanian, a major businessman, philanthropist and prominent figure among the Jews of Tehran, caused a stir on charges of espionage and fundraising for Israel.

The community leaders knew they had to act without delay. A group was formed to go to Qom to meet with Khomeini and ask the “Supreme Leader” for some guarantee of safety. At the end of the meeting, the ayatollah concluded: “We recognize our Jews in a light independent of these heretical and bloodsucking Zionists.” He then issued a fatwa2 in which he demanded, for the Jews, protection in accordance with the Sharia.

The IRI’s ideology, however, includes Khomeini’s anti-Semitic ideas, according to which “Zionism is the culmination of the Judeo-Christian conspiracy against Islam, undermining its historic mission.” To this day, Iran has repeatedly threatened to exterminate Israel. Officially, the Iranian government distinguishes between “Jewish,” “Zionist,” and “Israeli,” but the most common accusation against our brothers in the IRI is that they maintain contacts with the Jewish state.

Faced with this new reality, around 30 Jews fled the country in a hurry. Their assets, worth approximately US$1 billion, were confiscated by the government, which also refused to issue them passports as a way of preventing them from leaving. However, thousands left Iran clandestinely despite the danger. If they were caught, they could be killed. Today, there are several communities of Iranian origin in different countries.

Soon after taking power, Khomeini reneged on all his promises of freedom of expression. All groups that did not follow his religious line were banned, and women's rights were revoked. Control of all civil and political aspects of national life was given to a group of young radicals known as Hezbollah, the Party of God.

The two main goals of the ayatollahs are the spread of the Shiite revolution throughout the world and the destruction of Israel. According to Iranian-American Efe Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, “The revolution in Iran has allowed fundamentalism to become a force that has changed the conception of political Islam from Morocco to Malaysia.”

Khomeini died in 1989, but his ideology remains a guiding principle for the IRI and Shiite groups in other countries. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the main architect of all Iranian policies, holds absolute power.

Jewish life in Iran

From the beginning of the new regime, Khomeini declared the greatest Jihad of all: to cleanse the country of all “moral decadence” and Western customs. It is impossible to list the thousands of reasons for which the “morality police” could make arrests. Among others, men wearing short sleeves, women who did not wear “proper” clothing, and hijab (Islamic veil) and unrelated people of opposite sexes who socialized. Schools were segregated. This “cleansing” aimed to separate Muslims and “infidels,” who, for example, could only use certain drinking fountains and bathrooms in educational institutions. If this was the case, shopkeepers had to post the following sign at the entrance to their establishment: “This store is operated by a non-Muslim.”

Since 1979, Jews, like women, have lost civil and economic rights acquired in the Pahlavi era. Despite constitutional guarantees for religious minorities and the existence of a Jewish representative in Parliament, the professional status of Jews and other non-Muslim groups is dhimmis.

Soon after the Revolution, the principals of the approximately 20 Jewish schools operating throughout the country were replaced by Muslims. Over the years, most of these schools have been closed, leaving only five remaining in Tehran. Overseen by the government, the curriculum is Islamic, and Hebrew is banned as a language of instruction for Jewish studies.

The Orthodox organization “Otzar ha-Torah”, responsible for religious education, teaches classes on Fridays. Saturdays are no longer recognized as Shabbat, and students are forced to attend school on that day. Most synagogues have been closed, and some have even been vandalized. Several times in recent years, Jewish cemeteries have been taken over by local authorities for urban development purposes.

At least 14 Jews were killed by agents of the regime, two died in prison and 11 were officially executed. One of the latter, Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh, accused of having helped Jews emigrate, was arrested and hanged – without trial – in May 1998. The following year, Feizollah Mekhoubad, chazan from a synagogue in Tehran, was executed after terrible torture.

In that same year, 1999, 13 Jews from Shiraz were accused of spying for Israel and put on trial. The event became a “cause célèbre” in the West and led some governments to intercede on behalf of the defendants. In the end, three were acquitted, and the other ten were sentenced to prison. In February 2003, the last five were released.

The 21th century

In the early 2000s, there were about 30 Jews living in Iran. Today, there are thought to be only 20 left, most of them in Tehran. The regime often inflates this figure to 1994 as part of a worldwide campaign to boast of a large, thriving Jewish community in the country and thereby divert attention from accusations of anti-Semitism against it. With the Islamic theocracy in power for four decades, the government-controlled media has often carried anti-Jewish propaganda. On two occasions, in 1999 and XNUMX, it published in Persian The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious Tsarist forgery and “masterpiece” of anti-Semitic literature.

We do not have exact information about the real situation of the Jews who remain in Iran. We do know, however, that they pay a high price to maintain a tolerable relationship with the authorities. For the government, everything that concerns them is extremely political and has a direct connection with Israel. Forced to speak and do everything that is required, they constantly reaffirm that they are “Iranians of the Mosaic faith,” that they are not Zionists, and that they do not agree with the existence of the Jewish State.

In 2020, on Al-Quds Day3, the annual demonstration calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, Ayatollah Khamenei’s social media page posted an illustration of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with the Palestinian flag raised over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the text: “Palestine will be free. The final solution: resistance until the referendum.” It is worth noting that the expression “final solution” was used by the Nazis as a euphemism for the extermination of our people. In response to accusations that he was calling for a new Holocaust, Khamenei stated that Iran seeks the annihilation “only of Israel,” not of the Jews.

In fact, the line between anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist propaganda and anti-Semitism is becoming increasingly blurred. The media, weekly sermons by religious leaders, schools and government agencies have served as vehicles for official discourse against the Jewish state, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic propaganda. Indeed, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who often called for Israel to be wiped off the map, never tired of repeating that Shoah was nothing more than a big myth.

It is common for foreign government leaders to be portrayed as puppets controlled by Jews in newspaper cartoons and other media outlets. In January 2021, the government announced the winners of the third edition of its “Holocaust Cartoon Festival,” which was held in 2006 and 2016.

Equally troubling is what Iranians are taught in schools. A study by the Anti-Defamation League of state school textbooks for the 2020-21 term found that Jews “are portrayed in a wide variety of anti-Semitic myths and hateful tropes against Jews.” Zionism is described as a “racist and imperialist fabrication similar to other Jewish or Western conspiracies against Islam and that Zionist Jews are the enemies of Islam.”

The truth is that our eight thousand brothers and sisters living in Iran are at the mercy of the Shiite rulers and under constant threat that a mob might turn against them. There is no way to defend themselves from an angry mob incited by someone in power. It is also possible that one day they will be arrested on charges of having some kind of relationship with Israel and sentenced to death.

But are Jews free to leave Iran? That is the question many are asking. The law prohibits all members of a Jewish family from leaving the country together. At least one, usually the father, must stay behind. However, on rare occasions, if his wife and children have already left, he may leave as long as he leaves behind something of significant value, such as the family home.

It is also important to take into account that in Iran, the Jewish community has many elderly people who only speak Persian. Furthermore, a large part of it is made up of small business owners who run traditional shops in the city centers, with incomes that provide them with relative financial well-being. Outside the country, they would have to start their lives over again.

After October 7th

It is well known that Iran helped plan October 7th, and as Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS (Jewish Immigration Aid Society), said: “The situation in Iran – particularly for Jews – deteriorated further after October 7th…”

Under pressure, Jews in the country have publicly condemned Israel’s actions. The regime has eyes and ears everywhere. According to religious freedom reports from the U.S. State Department, the Iranian Jewish community is closely monitored by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, as well as the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

In April 2023, Jews were ordered not to celebrate the end of Passover to participate in the annual Quds Day demonstration. They were also forced to publicly mourn the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, known for his anti-Semitic ideology. In 2002, he stated that “if all [Jews] gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of persecuting them throughout the world.”

Alireza Nader, political analyst and Iran expert for the newspaper The Jerusalem Post, analyzed the situation of Jews still living in Iran: “The country’s small Jewish community is held hostage to the regime’s whims. Whenever it wants revenge on Israel, the latter turns against Iranian Jews.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sarshar, Houman M.,The Jews of Iran: The History, Religion and Culture of a Community in the Islamic World. Kindle eBook

Klüsener, Edgar, Jews in Iran since the revolution of 1979: Caught between a rock and a hard place. Kindle eBook

  1. A country with recognition de jure, unlike a State with recognition , meets all requirements established in International Laws.
  2. Legal pronouncement issued on Islamic law (Sharia).
  3. A day of protests against the State of Israel that occurs on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan. The date was instituted by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.