The jews of Iran: Past and present

The article analyzes the position of Iranian Jews in modern Iran, primarily the cultural aspects of this problem. It is being noted that in spite of the fact that the Jewish community is a small percentage of the total population – 25–30 thousand people, however, its study is of special interest on the background of the prevailing between Iran and Israel uneasy bilateral relations. The author focuses on problems that are important both for existence and survival of Iranian Jews and for the study of ethnic and cultural features of the Jewish community: the system of traditional and modern education, their colloquial language, Jewish-Persian literature. Currently, the Jews of Iran use the Persian language as a first language or as a second one in areas dominated by their own dialects. Literature in the Judeo-Persian community is mainly represented by poetry. The relatively famous works on it belong to the 1920s. Since the late 1920’s – early 1930-ies the Iranian Jews in their literary work used the modern literary Persian. Special attention in the paper is paid to different social problems of the modern Jews that are mainly employment, education, possibility of mixed marriages and communication with relatives who live in Israel and others. The questions of cultural life of the Jewish community in Iran are closely related with the social side of it. In everyday life its members are allowed to comply with Jewish tradition in the families, including the use of wine. Outside the Jewish community its members obey the laws which rule the entire Iranian society. © 2020, Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.