The long-term existence of the Jews in Iran since the conquest of Samaria by Sargon II (722–705 B.C.) influenced their traditions, culture, way of life, and religious traditions. As a result, Iranian Jewish history became culturally, politically, and socially part of Iranian history. The long-time existence of Iranian Jews in Iran and its legacy is at the center of the author's discussion on the development of the Iranian Jewish community in Iran in the early 20th century. The book focuses on a few specific events that affected Iranian Jewish history, and the geopolitics of Iran from 1941, with the Allied occupation of Iran during WWII, until the early 1980s. According to the author, these years were pivotal in transforming the community socially and politically, and the Iranian Jewish community developed an identity that was strongly affected by its Iranian historical roots. The unprecedented and quick urbanization of Iran after 1941 had a profound impact on the Iranian Jewish community, which was translated into new roles for its members. Thus, the book stresses that this political and social transformation of the community can only be understood within the context of Iranian society, and that the Jewish identity of this community cannot be separated from Iranian history. In showing a more fluid and multifaceted existence in Iran, the author sets up a very convincing critique to the traditional historiography on Iranian Jews and more broadly on Jews from the Middle East. The author successfully reclaims the uniqueness of Iranian Jews and moves away from the narrow Zionist perspective that stresses the necessity to liberate Jews from antisemitic persecution in Iran. In doing so, the book addresses important cultural developments of the Iranian community (i.e., the Bani-Adam and Nissan journals) which have not been addressed in Zionist scholarship.
The book is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 examines the impact of Polish and Iraqi refugees in Iran during the 1940s. The chapter is extremely original in highlighting how both immigrations had an impact on the Iranian Jewish community specifically, and more generally on Iranian society. The chapter uses archival material from the International Red Cross and the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, as well as other relief organizations. Among the Polish refugees who arrived in Tehran between 1942 and 1943, the Jewish Agency organized the transition of 780 Holocaust Jewish orphans to Mandatory Palestine. These children were named “Children of Tehran,” and this episode had an impact on the community. This is an extremely interesting and well-informed chapter that successfully proves how the arrival of immigrants affected the sociocultural development of the Iranian Jewish community. For instance, the establishment of the Ettefaq school by Iraqi immigrants, along with other Youth clubs, embodied Western academic principles and was coordinated with the British Ministry of Education. The school was considered to be one of the best Jewish schools in Iran. Ettefaq's students mainly studied English textbooks, and Jewish religious studies and Hebrew were limited in scope. The school's mission was to address the needs of the Iraqi Jewish community and offered an excellent academic program. Moreover, the school attracted many Iranian Jews from different social classes. According to the author, 30 percent of students came from a poor background and received a full scholarship to attend the school.
Chapter 2 is an overview of Jewish participation in Iranian politics between the 1940s and early 1950s. The main focus of this section is Iranian Jewish participation in the Tudeh party and National Front. In doing so, the author analyzes the main journals and newspapers that were affiliated with the two parties. Although the Tudeh party has a historical legacy of attracting ethnic minorities in Iran, including members of the Jewish minority, an evaluation of Jewish supporters of the Shah and other more centrist parties would have offered a more complete picture of Jewish political activities in Iran. The most interesting contribution of this chapter to the historiographical account of Iranian Jewish history is the evaluation of the weekly newspaper Nissan, which had a strong antifascist and antiracist political agenda. It would have been interesting to examine how the Iranian Jewish community reacted to this Marxist activism and the extent to which they supported its values and political creed. Assessing the development of this community's attitudes toward the rise of the political left, especially concerning Mossadegh's nationalization program, would have shed light on the broader socio-political composition of the community. The cultural and political activity of members of the community was not limited to their affiliation with the Tudeh party and Marxist ideology. Other Jewish organizations began to flourish in Iran in the 1940s and enjoyed a period of freedom of press inaugurated by the Pahlavi dynasty. One of them was the Ha-Khalutz, the Zionist youth pioneering movement that wanted Jewish youth to immigrate to Palestine and join the kibbutzim. Zionists pioneering clubs began to publish newspapers and clashed with the ethos of the communist party.
Chapter 3 examines the development of Zionist activities in Iran and the subsequent emigration of Iranian Jews to Israel. According to the author, between 1948 and 1951, the number of olim (emigrants to Israel) was around 22,000, and they were mainly driven by the promises of improved social conditions once they moved to Eretz Israel. The birth of Israel in 1948 and the aspiration to reunite the Jewish nation under the umbrella of Zionist ideology showed its delusion in that it neither gathered together Iranian Jews nor fulfilled their expectations. The author argues that the majority of olim from Iran moved to Israel to improve their social conditions and that Iranian Jews’ understanding of Zionism and Israel was complex. The author reports extracts from letters of the new immigrants complaining about the fallacy of the state of Israel to absorb Iranian Jews into the newly formed Israeli state. A better explanation of the processes of exclusion that Iranian Jews had to face once arrived in Israel, would have helped to explain the complexity of Iranian Jewish identity. The chapter suggests that there were issues of discrimination and racism toward Iranian Jewish immigrants; a more detailed analysis of the specific patterns of social relations with other Israeli Jews, including categorization, identification, and comparison would have helped to unpack the complex collective identity of Iranian Jews and their distinct interpretations of Zionism.
Chapter 4 examines Iranian Jews participation in and response to the Islamic Revolution. The main focus of the author is to look at the role of the Jewish intellectuals and their support to the revolution. This chapter follows the development of the leftist intellectual movements and Marxist Jews and claims that the majority of Iranian Jews supported the revolution. Iranian Jewry in 1978 was an integrated community within non-Jewish society, resulting from the processes of urbanization and economic development that were discussed in earlier chapters. The chapter, however, does not account for those Iranian Jews who remained loyal to the Shah. As such, the overall impression is that the whole community supported the revolution when, in fact, mainly the members of the Association of Jewish Iranian Intellectuals (AJII) actively supported the revolution. Evidence suggests that thousands of Jews left Iran during and in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. Despite this lacuna in the chapter, I fully agree with the author's conclusion that the majority of Iranian Jews decided to remain in Iran after the revolution and that they make this decision every day (p. 126).
Between Iran and Zion is an important contribution to the current post-Zionist debate on the status and history of Middle Eastern Jews. More importantly, it brings forth the history of Iranian Jews outside of the context of Israeli society and tries to determine its legacy within the Iranian context. I would recommend the book to everyone interested in understanding the complexity and development of Iranian society as a whole between the early 1940s and the early 1980s.
