Report on Isfahan’s Jews: Hardship and Resilience in Qajar Iran

The Jewish community of Isfahan traces its roots to the Babylonian exile of Jerusalem in the sixth century BCE, when a village called Yahudiya was established near the crossroads of Persia’s east-west and north-south trade routes. The village merged with other nearby villages to become Isfahan in the eleventh century CE. The Jewish community prospered in the city, which was a center of trade along the Silk Road, becoming a major seat of Persian Jewish culture and learning. Jews in Isfahan used a distinct dialect of Judeo-Persian, known as Judeo-Isfahani. The community experienced periods of peace and tolerance and periods of religious persecution. During the Qajar period (1780s–1925), the community was subjected to pogroms, public humiliation, professional restrictions, and widespread impoverishment. Conditions improved during the Pahlavi period (1925–1979), although many of the city’s Jews moved to Tehran in search of economic opportunity. Emigration from Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution further diminished Isfahan’s Jewish population.