Figure 1.--This Jewish boy named Daniel had emigrate from Iran to Israel. We are not sure why he has an alarm clock. The German caption read, "Nicht besonders glücklich scheint Daniel darüber zu sein, dass er jetzt in das "Land seiner Väter" zurückkehren durfte. Mit einer Träne im Auge, einem gewichtigen Wecker um den Hals, sämtlicher Garderobe am Leibe, die er sein eigen nennt, und einen völlich reiselustigen Ausdruck zur Schau tragend, betrat er jetzt erstmals israelischen Boden. Im Gegensatz zu seinen Eltern, die sich freuen, im Rahmen der Rückführung nach Jahren der Abwesenheit wieder nach Hause zurückkehren zu können, wäre Daniel wesentlich lieber in dem Land geblieben, das er als seine Heimat ansah und in dem auch alle seine Spielkameraden zurückgeblieben sind - in Persien, wo er seit seiner Geburt lebte" The photograph was darwd December 17, 1966. We can only make out some of the German text. It read something like, "It seems that Daniel is not exactly happy that he now can return to the "Country of the Fathers" With a tear in his eye, an important alarm clock around his neck, all the clothes he can call his own, and showing a fond of travelling- expression, did he now step on Israeli soil for the first time. In contrast to his parents, who are happy to return home in the framework of repatriation after years of absence, Daniel would have liked to stay in the land that he considers to be his and where he left all his playmates behind - in Persia, where he had lived since he was born"." This caption does not sound quite right. It seems to have been written by someone who had no knowledge of the image except that the boys' name wasDaniel and that he was aewish refuge in Israel. Unfortunately we do not have details on Daniel and his family. Boys this age, however, are oprimarily focused on their parents. Teenagers may have trouble moving, losing friemds, and adjusting, not boys' Daniel's age. And we do not know the details of the emigration to Israel. Not do we know about Danie's friends. Were they both Muslim or mostly Jewish. Nor so we know as suggested by the caption that emigration to Israel was primarily motivated by religion or was religious persecution in Iran more of a factor. We wonder how the caption writer would have responded to a caption of a German refugee boy from the East after World War II and which just said that his parents wanted to return from the land of their forefathers and did not mention that they were forcibly expelled often with some violence and in terrible conditions.

Persia had one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Middle East. Jews first appeared in Iran at the time of the destruction of the First Temple (6th century BC). The Jews had been conquered by the Babalonians and many were brought back to Babylon as slaves. Cyrus the Great who founded the Archemid dynasty, conquered Babylon (539 BC). Cyrus allowed the enslaved Jews to return to Israel. Not all the Jews returned. Scattered Jewish colonies were established in Babylon and various Persian provinces as well as Hamadan and Susa. The experiences of the Jews in Persia under the Achaemids are desctibed in the Bible (books of Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel). Jews in Persia tended to lived in their own communities. Persia was a huge multi-national empire. Thus Persian Jewish communities existed not only in modern Iran, but also what is now Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, northwestern India, Kirgizstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Jews during Sassanid dynasty prospered and spread throughout Persia, albeit they experienced some persecution (226-642 AD). Arab Muslims conquered Persia (642 AD). Persia became part of the Caliphate. Persia was an extremly backward state (19th century). Persian Jews were persecuted and suffered descrimination. Some Jewish communities were forced to convert to Islam. Small numbers of Iranian Jews as Zionism developed, emigrated to Palesine which at the time was an Ottoman province. Persians began to turn to the Germans to ofset British influence. This was in part geo-politics and after the rise of Hitler in Germany included a racial component. Reza Shah began asking foreign legations use the term Iran which he said was the the historical name of the country. It also was axloaded racial term, comparable to the Aryans that the NAZIs were promoting. The Grand Mufti after fleeing from Palestine and Iraq found a receptive audience for his anti-Semetic rants. As in Iraq, he was supported by elements of the Islamic clergy. The Shah increasibgly turned to the NAZIs, but was deposed by British and Soviet intervention (1941). The Isreali-Arab conflict was after World War II heavily publicized in the Iranian press and as in other Muslim countries was heavily slanted toward the Arabs (1946-48). Israel declared its indepence (1948). Neigboring Arab states invaded, launching the First Arab-Isreali War (1948-49). At the time there were about 150,000 Jews in Iran. The result was rising ant-Semnetic feeling theoughout Iran. This continued until the 1953 Coup. The authority of the cebntral government weakened and the Shi'ir clergy became increasingly vocal as the new young Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Primeminister Mohammad Mossadegh struggled for control. With the establishment of Israel, an estimated one-third of Iranian Jews, largely consisting of pooer Jews emigrated to Israel (1948-53) [Sanasarian, p. 47.] Emigration continued at modest levels after the 1953 coup. The Shah regime provided an era of moderatuon as well as facilitating emigration. One sources estimates that at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution, some 70,000 Iranian Jews had emigrated to Israel. [Littman, p. 5.] There were still some 80,000 Jews in Iran, mostly in Tehran when the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power (1979). This begsn an era pf religious persecurion for non-Shiites, especially Jews who were seen by many fundamentalists as a alien people as well as a security risk. The increased focus on the Koran mean the revival of the many anti-Semrtic passages. This only increased emigration as a result of risingv religious procecution. The once vivrant minority collapsed, declining to about , plunging to about one fourth of its size and the emigration continues. Most of Iranian Jews emigrated to the Unoted States. Smaller numbers emigrated to Europe and Israel. A factor here was that Iranian authorities did not permit direct emigration to Israel.

Sources

Littman, David. (1979).

Sanasarian (2000).

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