The Jews of Iran in the Nineteenth Century

The history of Iranian Jews after the establishment of the Safavid State in Iran in 1501 C.E. has formed the subject of growing academic and broader interest over the last few decades. However, despite the significant increase in the quantity and quality of the publications in this area, some of the main aspects and periods in the history of Iranian Jews have received little or no systematic treatment. Dealing with some broad but closely related areas of history, community, society, and culture among the Jews of nineteenth-century Iran, the present book provides sources of information as well as discussions and explanations related to some of the main conditions and realities that shaped the lives of the Iranian Jews prior to their accelerated transformation in the course of the twentieth-century. Included among the eight sections and over forty annotated and analyzed sources in the book are those that shed light on some of the major areas of Jewish life in nineteenth-century Iran.

David Yeroushalmi, Ph.D. (1986) in Iranian Studies, Columbia University, is associate professor of Iranian Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History and the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel-Aviv University. His main area of research and publication is the history and heritage of Iranian Jews. His previous book, The Judeo-Persian Poet Emrani and His Book of Treasure (Brill) was published in 1995.