Iran is home to one of the largest Middle Eastern Jewish communities outside of Israel, numbering around 10,000 people today. This book explores the twentieth-century history of Iranian Jews as they grappled with global political movements and Iranian national identity. Over the course of the century, Iranian Jews were courted and attracted by Zionism, socialism, monarchism, constitutionalism, and revolution. Engaging these movements, Iranian Jews created syncretic identities, stretching their ideological strictures while maintaining rich intellectual and cultural traditions. Drawing on material from the Jewish press, poetry, and archives, as well as oral history, Daniel Amir narrates how the Jewish community responded to new ideas and political flux in Iran. He highlights how minority groups can create a political language that pushes against the exclusivist impulses of nationalism. While histories of the Iranian Jewish community have typically sought to minimize certain elements of the community's political life – whether Zionism, radicalism, or Iranianness – Amir looks to reconcile them. As he shows, Zionism and Iranian nationalism, Jewishness and Khomeinism, all could be made to coexist, at some times out of will, at others out of necessity. Ultimately, viewing Iranian Jews alongside other marginalized or minority groups, this book opens up new insights into the Iranian and Zionist mainstream.
