Iran Then and Now

To most Jews around the world, the Purim story happened somewhere faraway in an unknown city with the fairy-tale sounding name of Shushan. But what if you knew Shushan as a real city as close as New York or Boston? What if Esther grew up in Chicago or you could visit her grave in Washington, D.C.?

That was the privilege of Jews in Iran, a proud community of 80,000 before the 1979 revolution.

Today, at 20,000, most Iranian Jews live in Tehran, while some reside in Shiraz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Yazd, Kerman, Rafsanjan, Borujerd, Sanandaj and Oromieh.

Iranian Jewish communities had a unique history. In 1736, the ruler Nader Shah enticed 40 Jewish families to move to his new capital of Mashad promising privileges and financial incentives, but the Jews were confined to ghetto-like neighborhoods in the fervent Muslim city. A pogrom in 1839 resulted in a demand to the Jews: conversion or death. Over 200 families converted outwardly, but continued to practice Judaism secretly, marrying within the community to preserve their faith. They can now be Jewish openly, but they remain a tightly knit community.

“Purim makes us proud because Esther comes from our country,” said Shahnaz Goldman, who married an Ashkenazi Jew. “Esther, meaning 'star' in Persian [Ashtar], was beautiful, brave and smart enough to know how to live in two worlds. This is wisdom. She didn’t forget where she came from. We keep our faith no matter what.”

Iranian Jewish women took great pride in making a special diamond-shaped halvah, “Not the sawdust halva sold here,” to send mishloach manot. Made of roasted rice or wheat flour and sugared water, it was decorated with slivered almonds or pistachios. Each city had its own recipe, using cilantro seed, cardamom, saffron, dates and rosewater.

“Purim tells the truth about what it’s been like for Jews in countries throughout the world. Purim is about survival. By the wisdom of women we were saved. Esther was there when we needed her.”



Jewish Iranian bride and groom. 19th-early 20th century. Bride is dressed in traditional ceremonial attire, consisting of a gold thread embroidered tulle dress and veil, and in this case an embroidered silk jacket. Groom is wearing a silk robe and shawl around his waist. Photo by ‘Abbas Hojatpanah.		Hakim Nur-Mahmud c. 1880. Photo by Antoin Sevruguin. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Myron Bement Smith Collection.


A domed shrine on the banks of the Karkheh river in Susa, Khuzestan, is, according to tradition, the tomb of the prophet Daniel (Minorsky 1970, 131).
		Ketubbahh. Mashhad, 1853. Photo by Ali Sardar


The Cyrus Cylinder, Babylon, 539-530 B.C.E.. Clay ©The British Museum. The clay cynlinder is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with an account by Cyrus of his conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. and capture of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king.
	Haj Gholamhoseyn Hakim and friends, Mashhad, c. 1900. On March 26, 1839, a day referred to as the Allahdad, Mashhad’s entire Jewish populatin was forced to convert to Islam.

	Left: Aqa Lotfollah Molla and family. Russia, c. 1930 after leaving Mashhad after the Allahdad to escape persecution.

Esther and Mordechai’s tomb is located in the crowded city of Hamadan.

The door, a 6-8 inch thick piece of solid gray granite with a rough surface, opens into a small anteroom. A soot-blackened glass separates visitors from a space designated for candle lighting. The plaster walls have Hebrew inscriptions.

An arch with plaster ornaments directs visitors into a high ceiling square room whose walls are decorated with Hebrew reliefs describing Esther and Mordechai' origins.

In the center, the two beautifully carved wood coffers stand five feet high, draped in shimmering vibrant color cloth, one reading “Ester;” the other “Mordekhay.” The original graves are located deeper below in the ground.

Like other historic monuments, the tomb has been victim to theft and vandalism. One surviving treasure is a magnificent 300-year-old Torah that is now housed in a modern cabinet.

Parvaneh Sarraf remembers visiting Hamadan. “The arched entrance is intentionally low, so that no matter who – the highest dignitary or a commoner – had to bow in order to enter. People prayed, gave charity and lit candles. On Purim, we liked to read their Megillot there. We felt much closer to Purim in Iran. We had real tangible places to visit.”

The 2,500 year old Persian Jewish community has since dispersed to Israel, California and New York, but the mausoleum remains sacred for Iran’s 20,000 remaining Jews, and is cared for by the Islamic authorities.

A 1961 earthquake damaged the structure, but Tehran’s Jewish association helped restore it. Architect Yassi Gabbay renovated the tomb before moving away to California, and has since won City of Beverly Hills awards for designing an oriental rug showroom on Wilshire Blvd. Gabbay said the tomb was once completely surrounded by houses and could only be reached with a guide from a narrow dirt alley (kucheh) in the old town.

Hamadan’s Jews bought and razed the buildings to clear the way for an annex courtyard and synagogue.

Mordechai and Esther are not alone. There are also other historic Biblical tombs in Iran.

The prophet Daniel (Damal-e Nabi) (c. 540 b.c.e.) was born in Shushan (Susa), and prophesied in the decade 545-35 b.c.e. The 22nd book of the Bible bears his name, and his tomb is located in Shoush.

The prophet Habakuk (c. 600 b.c.e.) descended from Jewish exiles in Babylon. The 8th book of the Bible bears his name. A shrine is dedicated to him in Tuy-serkan, western Iran.

Captions: Located in Hamadan. Esther’s Tomb photos courtesy of Elias Yassi Gabbay

Esther’s coffer (r.), Mordecai’s coffer (l.). The original graves are located on a much lower level. Walls are decorated with Hebrew reliefs describing Esther and Mordecai’s orgin and the dates of modifications of the tomb.

An area corresponding geographically to present-day Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Iran, the above verse documents the first settlement of Jews on the Iranian plateau in 722 b.c.e.

The Arab scholar Maqdesi tells us that when the Jews were freed from Nebuchadnezzar, they arrived at the site of what we know today as Isfahan and found its climate similar to their homeland, settled there, and founded Yahudieh or Dar al-Yahud.

Jews remained a visible presence in Iran despite varying degrees of tolerance, contributed to the history and culture of Iran and world Jewry in a multitude of ways, including government, trade, medicine, theology, music, literature, and craftsmanship.

In addition to Esther and Mordechai, the tombs of the prophets Habakuk, Daniel and Ezekiel are also located in Iran. Other famous Biblical figures who also hail from this country are: the prophet Ezra, (c. 450 b.c.e.), the Jewish leader who returned from exile in Babylonia, the prophet Haggai (c. 520 b.c.e.), who mobilized the Jews to rebuild the Second Temple after the Babylonian Diaspora, and the prophet Nehemiah (c. 458 b.c.e.), who supervised the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

The Mikvas found in Yazd and Bushehr show evidence of an active Jewish life and the traditional observance of Jewish family purity.

Lavishly illustrated in full color with over 500 images, Esther’s Children (Jewish Publication Society) 480 pages comprise twenty-five articles by distinguished scholars, and has a comprehensive bibliography of Judeo-Iranian scholarship of over 600 English, French, German, Hebrew, and Persian books and articles.

Esther’s Children is a journey through time with an ancient family of Jews, starting with their liberation from Babylonian captivity by Cyrus the Great (539 B.C.E.) and ending with their adjustment after the mass exodus from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The articles and stunning photographs of monuments, manuscripts, objects, and ketubbot map this extraordinary odyssey.

Contributors to the volume examine the tomb of Esther in Hamadan, the life of Prophet Daniel and his tomb, the contribution of Iranian Jews to Jewish theology, law, and thought with the Babylonian Talmud, Judeo-Persian literature, clothing, makeup, and Judeo-Persian dialects, Jewish Persian carpets, and birth, Bar Mitzvah, wedding, and burial customs.

Dr. Houman Sarshar, editor and contributor, has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Columbia University and is the director of publications at The Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, there were many Jews skilled in natural medicine who would travel around Iran. They would be called “Hakim,” Persian for doctor. One such was Hakim Nur-Mahmud. He was in his mid thirties when he decided to leave Kashan and settle in Tehran, stopping en route in the Islamic holy city of Qom.

There, he saw a large crowd of mourners bearing a body to the shrine in the main square. Nur-Mahmud was told that this was the funeral of the grand ayatollah’s pregnant daughter who had died that day during a visit to the public baths. He sought out the ayatollah and, introducing himself as a visiting hakim, asked for and obtained permission to examine the corpse. Suspecting that the young woman was in fact alive but in a virtually undetectable low metabolic state, he aspirated her abdominal cavity. She revived and recovered.

The ayatollah, overjoyed, issued an edict barring the followers of Islam from ever doing any harm to any Jew. After due celebration, Hakim Nur-Mahmud continued his journey to Tehran. His fame had preceded him, and he was invited by the court to join the other doctors to the shah.

Some years later, there was an assassination attempt by jealous rival doctors. Nur-Mahmud was stabbed in the stomach, but he managed to escape to his home where he instructed his son Ayyub how to stitch up the wounds. The Shah celebrated his survival, and Mahmud was feted in the government publication as a true and loyal servant.

This story has the qualities of a fairy tale, yet it is reliably recounted by Hakham Yedidia Shofet, the former chief rabbi of Iran.

Rahel Musleah www.rahelsjewishindia.com is an award-winning journalist and author of “Apples and Pomegranates: