Nadene Goldfoot
Iran's name used to be Persia. It first became a factor in Jewish history as a result of the conquest of the Babylonian Empire by Cyrus in 538 BCE. Cyrus was thought to be by the Jews, Queen Esther's son. She was the Jewish queen of King Ahasueros of Persia. For the next 2 centuries, both the mass of Jews in EXILE in Mesopotamia and in the homeland of Judea were under Persian rule. It was under Cyrus who encouraged the Jews to return home and rebuild their Temple. This took place as the great return from exile to Judea but continued to be a Persian province with some degree of local autonomy. Some Jews did not return.
The political unity of the Middle East under Persian rule made inevitable considerable movements of population from one part of this area to another. This is what took place earlier with the Assyrian invasion of the 10 northern tribes of Israel. They were taken as slaves and replaced by the unwanted criminals of Mesopotamia. That may have taken place all over the world, moving people for various reasons.
The Book of Esther in our Tanakh (old Testament) tells of Jews living throughout the 127 provinces of the Persian Empire and says they were numerous and influential in the capital of Susa (Shushan). At least from the 4th century BCE onward, Jews lived in considerable numbers in Persia proper, as they continued to do, although little is known about their history other than we know that Haman wanted all the Jews of the whole empire killed and he almost succeeded, except that Queen Esther heard of the plot and exposed him to her husband. (our holiday of Purim) when we remember while eating hamentaschen cookies.
Persia was then controlled by PARTHIA from 250 BCE onward. Persia resumed its existence as a state in 225 CE, 475 years later, but under the Sassanid dynasty, Named after the House of Sasan, (Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians, and also called the Neo-Persian Empire by historians, was the last Persian imperial dynasty before the Muslim conquest in the mid seventh century CE). It's authority extended over the ancient centers of intensive Jewish villages, towns and cities in Mesopotamia.
The Babylon Talmud, reputed to be the best between it and the Palestinian Talmud,( a collection of the records of discussions about aspects of the bible by famous rabbis) was redacted here under Persian rule, gives evidences of a vigorous Jewish life in Persia proper, and the Persian Queen SHUSHAN DUKHT was of Jewish birth. Shushandukht was the wife of Yazdegerd I and mother of Bahram V. She was the daughter of a Jewish exilarch, Huna bar Nathan (Rav Huna bar Natan was a Babylonian rabbi and exilarch, of the fifth and sixth generations of amoraim.). She created the Jewish neighborhood in the city of Isfahan. Bahram V was the son of the incumbent Sasanian shah Yazdegerd I (r. 399–420), Bahram was at an early age sent to the Lahkmid court in al-Hira, where he was raised under the tutelage of the Lakhmid kings. After the assassination of his father, Bahram hurried to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon with a Lakhmid army, and won the favour of the nobles and priests, according to a long-existing popular legend, after withstanding a trial against two lions. No, they do not sound like Queen Esther's history under new names. She's a new queen to me.
Later there were fierce religious persecutions under Zoroastrian influence. This fighting culminated in the attempt to suppress Jewish observances under Shah Yezdegeerd II (438-457). There was even more sweeping persecution in 468 under FIRUZ in 459 to 486 after the alleged murder of 2 magi by the Jews in the capital ISFAHAN, a city reputedly of Jewish foundation. When Kasvadh I (485-531) adopted and endeavored to impose the communistic practices of Zendicism (the practice of heretical magie (magic), especially with fire), the Persian Jews joined in the revolt led by MAR ZUTRA II in 513-520.
The Arab conquest of 641 and 642 introduced a new, generally tolerant spirit, with certain reservations. The Jews of Persia flourished under the Eastern Caliphate of Baghdad. They were controlled by the exilarchs and paid intellectual allegiance to the gaonim (Jewish leaders) whose influence was strong. Persia was, at this period, a nursery of sectarian movements: that of Abu Issa al-Isfahani in 700.
Consequently, Karaism (a Jewish sect rejecting the Oral Law in 8th century, obtained a vigorous hold in Persia from the 8th century on, and some of its most influential teachers, such as Benjamin Nahavendi, came from there.
Benjamin of Tudela at the end of the 12th century, found many flourishing Jewish communities that had recently been disturbed through the messianic movement of David Alroy (Menahem ben Solomon) 12th century. A movement began before 1121 among the Mountain Jews of NE Cancasia, caused by the invasion of the nomadic Kipchaks from the steppes of the Black Sea, sufferings and poverty of the Jews, and the greater possibility of conquering Palestine after the Crusades. Some of his followers in Azerbaijan remained loyal to him after his death and were called Menahemites.
After an interlude of Mongol rule, during which a lot of Jews were checkered through 13th to 15th centuries, Persian independence was reasserted in 1499 under the Safavid dynasty. (Jews should never forget that in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Jews were kicked out of Spain by the Pope). The Shiite form of Islam was then generally dominant,, and was highly intolerant in theory and practice. The Jews were treated worse than in other parts of the Moslem world. All manner of restrictions were being enforced. by the 17th century, there were widespread persecutions and forced conversions, particularly in Isfahan.
Conditions improved temporarily under the broadminded Nadir Shah (1736-1747) who aimed at creating a new religious synthesis. He was responsible for settling a Jewish community at his new capital Meshed, from which they had been excluded. When he died, a reaction followed, and Shiite intolerance became supreme. However, the Jews persisted with a fairly vigorous intellectual life, partly expressed in a literature in the Judeo-Persian dialect.
Medieval conditions of intolerance continued in Persia and in 1839, the entire Meshed community was forcibly converted to Islam, though retaining secret fidelity to Judaism as JEDID AL-ISLAM.
By the 19th century, Persian Jewry was among the most depressed of the world's Jewish communities, notwithstanding the diplomatic interventions occasionally secured by Western Jewry, and intermittent promises of ameliorations by successive shahs were overlooked. Sound familiar?
From 1898, schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle did something to introduce a more modern spirit, but progress was slight and the Jedid al-Islam did not dare to return openly to Judaism.
In the mid 1930s, the ruler of the country, Reza Shah Pahlavi, moved towards formalising the
In the 1960s and 1970s, many Jews moved from the provinces to Teheran.
b: 1900 d; 1989
Although the Jews were not persecuted after the Khomeini revolution in 1978,the replacement of the Shah's government with an Islamic republic under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a leader of one of the factions in the revolt. The revolution was supported by various leftist and Islamist organizations and student movements, many Jews felt uncomfortable under the strict Islamic regime and left for Israel and the west. Their numbers fell from 80,000 in 1978 to 20,000 in 1989. In the 2016 Iranian census, the remaining Jewish population of Iran was 9,826. In 2018, the Jewish Population in Iran was reported to be 8,500 In 2019, the Jewish Population of Iran was estimated to be 8,300. As of 2021, only 8,500 Jews still live in Iran. After Israel, it is home to the second-largest Jewish population ...
In power, Khomeini distinguished between Zionism as a secular political party that employs Jewish symbols and ideals and Judaism as the religion of Moses. Schools set up by Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians had to be run by Muslim principals. Senior government posts were reserved for Muslims. Conversion to Islam was encouraged by entitling converts to inherit the entire share of their parents (or even uncle's) estate if their siblings (or cousins) remain non-Muslim.
As for presidents of Iran, Ali Khamenei, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most anti-Semitic, were each elected president for two terms. Hassan Rouhani is the current president, being elected in June 2013 presidential election. He won the reelection in the 2017 presidential election.
In the first two to three years of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), about one-third of Iran's 80,000 Jews left for Israel, Europe, and the U.S. IRI broke its relations with Israel. The regime adapted a pro-Palestinian policy declaring that Israel and Zionism must be destroyed. IRI also encouraged the foundation of Hezbollah in Lebanon by supporting it with money, arms, and military advisers. Any tie with Israel was considered war against Islam. Though upon his return from Paris Khomeini met with the heads of the Jewish community, declaring that Jews were to be protected by Islamic law, some 200 Jews were arrested and jailed. During his rule, about 20 Jews were executed by the Revolutionary Courts, among them the former head of the Jewish Organization, the industrialist millionaire Habib Elghanaian (May 9, 1979). Many were deprived of their administrative, university, and high business positions. Jewish property on a large scale, amounting to more than one billion dollars, was confiscated by the regime. In recent years the IRI has tried to demonstrate some "friendly relations" with the remaining Jews of Iran who were led by the former Tudeh Party member, Parviz (Haroon) Yeshayai, the head of the Jewish Central Organization in Teheran. Nevertheless, events, such the arrest of 13 Jews in the last decade of the 20th century, allegedly spying for Israel, show the true face of these relations. As long as the hatred against Israel and Zionism and the support of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah continue to fuel the foreign policy of Iran, the situation of Jews in IRI will remain precarious.
Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia Marja' and the second and current supreme leader of Iran, in office since 1989. That means he is all-powerful, like a dictator.
Khamenei explains ‘final solution’ poster: I want Israel destroyed, not all Jews. 
Netanyahu warning the UN that time was drawing near: Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu draws a red line on a graphic of a bomb as he addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, September 27, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson. It's been stalled, but now the Iranians are getting very shrewd in dodging this bullet of being open about their devices and intentions. What we know is how much they hate the creation of Israel. The world has had 9 years of warning.
After being accused of endorsing genocide, Iranian supreme leader says annihilating the Jewish state ‘means abolishing the imposed regime’ and ousting ‘thugs’ like Netanyahu. Yet he's hot on having his own nuclear power capabilities and most likely creating a missile to shoot into Israel with nuclear power. He's not letting any investigators in to see his nuclear plant/plants. Sure, and it was Netanyahu himself who was so worried about their capabilities and destructive aim toward Israel that he warned the UN about it long ago, bringing his desires to the attention of the world powers.
He was previously the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran under the U.S.-allied Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had relations with Israel. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the first Quds Day be held on the last Friday of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to criticize Israel. The late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat was among the first people invited to Iran after the revolution.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader on Friday called Israel a “cancerous
tumor” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed” in an annual speech in
support of the Palestinians, renewing threats against Iran’s archenemy in the Middle
East.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speech marked a subdued Quds Day for
Iran, which typically sees government-encouraged mass demonstrations in Tehran
and elsewhere in the Islamic Republic, as well as Iranian-allied nations. “Al-Quds”
is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Iran largely asked demonstrators to stay home.
Al Jazeeera reports to their Muslim audience that The Mossad spy agency chief Yossi Cohen – a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – met Biden on Friday and, according to one media report, pressed the US president not to sign back on to the nuclear accord unless “improvements” were made.
An unnamed senior Israeli official is quoted as saying Biden responded that the United States “is not close” to returning to the Iran deal, Axios reported.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ruhollah-khomeini
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini
https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-religion-iran-jerusalem-israel-a033042303545d9ef783a95222d51b83
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad
https://www.ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/why-iran-deal-us-national-interest?gclid=CjwKCAjwzOqKBhAWEiwArQGwaLGmrxcrjp0DCXu9bcdOzOyhyFSazzFXEU3vLfMb1NOqx69uzjbKHBoCex8QAvD_BwE
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