The Jew in the mosque: Jewish experiences in Shi’ite surroundings

ABSTRACT

Jewish life in Muslim societies has historically been part of the broader public spheres and everyday experiences. Religious spheres and rituals, on the other hand, seem to signal separation: in short, Muslims go to their mosques, Jews to their synagogues. So, can a Jew find himself in a mosque? And what happens when he encounters Muslims there? This article explores narratives of Jewish experiences in two different Shi’ite surroundings: in Iran and Azerbaijan (in the south-east Caucasus). These experiences are analyzed through the prism of Jewish presence in mosques and Ashura rituals. By analyzing them within their specific contexts, this paper pursues two main goals: First, to demonstrate how Jews experienced Shi’ite religious spheres as part of their social and cultural surroundings. Second, attention to “the sacred of the other” sheds light on the complexity of intergroup relations between Jews and Shi’i Muslims. Stories on “the Jew in the Mosques” allow us a different angle to acknowledge the varied dynamics of Jewish experience in Azerbaijan and Iran from the beginning of the twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century.

KEYWORDS:

• Jewish–Muslim relations
• Iran
• Azerbaijan
• Shi’ite Muslims
• The Sacred of the other
• Jewish experience in Muslim societies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article contains materials from various research projects that support by the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University; the Center for the Study of Relations between Jews, Christians, Muslims at the Open University; and the research authority of Hadassah Academic college. I’m thankful to the two anonymous reviewers, to Ariane Sadjed and to Harvey Goldberg for their important comments; To Hadas Bram, Uri Rosenberg and Kaitlyn Dalton for their assistance in various stages of the work, and to Yafa Kananie-Sasson who shared with me her experiences and stories from Iran.

2 Azerbaijan here refers to the area of currently known as the Republic of Azerbaijan, in the Southeast Caucasus, and not to the Azerbaijan region in Northwest Iran. These bordering areas have different characteristics due to their different history and location.

3 Goldberg, Potential Polities; Bilu, Without Bounds; Levi, Notes on Jewish–Muslim Relationships.

4 Mühlfried, Not Sharing the Sacra; Bowman, Sharing the Sacra.

5 For example: Goldberg, Jewish Life in Muslim Libya; Bahloul, The Architecture of Memory.

6 Amir-Moezzi, Shi’ism and Judaism, 816–23.

7 Litvak, The Jewish Wars Against the Shi’a, 206.

8 Bar-Asher, About the Place of Jews and Judaism, 16–37.

9 Amir-Moezzi, Shi’ism and Judaism, 823.

10 I am thankful to Giora Eliraz for this comment.

11 Sarshar, Esther’s Children. Negative references to Judaism and Jews existed in Persian religious literature before Shi’ism, and even in the writings of Rumi, Firdawsi and Nizami. The latter, of Turkic-Azeri background, is admired in modern Azerbaijan. See: Bary, Jews, Islamic Mysticism, and the Devil, 876–80.

12 Netzer, The Jewish Community in Iran; Tsadik, Between Foreigners and Shi’is; Sarshar, Esther’s Children.

13 Yeroushalmi, The Jews of Iran, 13–41 and 88–89.

14 Yerushalmi brings evidence from mid-nineteenth century Hamadan (p. 259–261).

15 “In Teheran, Hamadan and Kermanshah there are a few merchants. In all the other towns the Jews are mostly hawkers” (ibid., 38–45). See also an account from Hamadan (ibid., 88–89).

16 Kondo, Migration and Multiethnic Coexistence, 16–17.

17 Tsadik, Legal Status, 376–408.

18 Kashani, Yehudei Paras, Bokhara Ve-Afghanistan, 17–19.

19 Cohen, Iranian Jewry and the Educational Endeavors; Farah, The School is the Link; Nissimov, Genealogy of Social Integration.

20 Tsadik, Legal Status, 405–8.

21 Netzer, Jewish Community in Iran.

22 Ibid.; Loeb, Outcaste.

23 Nissimov, Genealogy of Social Integration.

24 Sternfeld, Between Iran and Zion.

25 See Amirpur, Iranian Paradoxes, 496–98.

26 Ibid., 207–11.

27 Altshuler, The Jews of the East Caucasus; Semyonov, Mountain Jews; Anisimov, Kavkazskie evrei-gortsy.

28 Altshuler, The Jews of the East Caucasus. Anisimov, ibid; Bram, Caucasus Jews and their Neighbors, 22–35.

29 Chorny, Travel Book.

30 Anisimov, Kavkazskie evrei-gortsy.

31 Bram, Caucasus Jews and their Neighbors, 22–35.

32 Gammer, Muslim Resistance.

33 Altshuler, The Jews of the East Caucasus, 64–70.

34 Gammer, Muslim Resistance, 225–26.

35 Altshuler, The Jews of the East Caucasus, 135–41.

36 Ibid., 136.

37 Ibid., 138. For the Kutaisi blood libel in the broader context of blood libels in Tsarist Russian see: Weinberg, Blood Libel in Eastern Europe, 275–85 and The Blood Libel of Kutaisi – a Letter of Gratitude to Alexander Tzederbaum the Editor of ‘Ha’Melitz’ for His Activity to Reject the False Accusations.

38 Altshuler, The Jews of the East Caucasus; Zand, Notes on the culture.

39 Bram, Le Juif d’Azerbaijan, 116–26.

40 Ibid.

41 The meaning of the name is “Red Settlement” (in Russian). It is also known today as “Qırmızı Qəsəbə” – Red Settlement in Azerbaijani.

42 This field journey was part of a wider study among this group in the last thirty years. It included fieldwork in several towns in Israel, in Dagestan, Brooklyn (NYC) and several field journeys to other locations in the Caucasus.

43 Altshuler, The Jews of the East Caucasus, 207–8.

44 Ibid., 205–6.

45 Bram, Immigrant Jews, 42–57.

46 Jews lived among Lezgi in villages in southern Dagestan, in the Caucasus range.

47 The situation in Derbent, Dagestan, where Shi’ites are a minority among various Sunni ethnic groups was different, and Jews were closer to the different Daghestani people.

48 Bram, Moscow Azerbaijani-Juhuro ‘Oligarchs’.

49 Sascha Goluboff discusses some perceptions of Quba’ Muslims among Jews in her article: Patriarchy through lamentation.

50 Kanani-Sason, A Living Fly. While preparing a lecture for a Nowruz event organized by the Ben-Zvi Institute, I asked Yaffa for stories about the interaction of Jews with the Persian environment. I expected to hear stories about trade or neighborly relations but I received this text about a Jew coming to a mosque with his Muslim friends.

51 For a comparison with testimonies of interreligious interaction in nineteenth century Arak (including the spread of Bahaism) see Amanat, Negotiating Identities, 191–206.

52 Another example for an interaction between Jews and Iranian clergy is a story about a Shi’i clergy (akhund sheikh) who taught Persian in the Jewish Alliance school, in: Zins, The Pass of the Hatzav.

53 Nissimov, Genealogy.

54 Elias moved to Teheran as a teenager, studied in the Jewish ORT school and was active in Jewish – Zionist circles before migrating to Israel.

55 Goldberg, Jewish life in Muslim Libya.

56 Ambivalence was present in this short conversation as well. David told me also about his grandfather’s stories regarding the limitations preventing Jews to walk outside when it rains.

57 See Haggai Ram, Reading Iran in Israel.

58 On Iranian Jews in Israeli Society see: Goldstein, Iranian Ethnicity in Israel and Cecolin, Iranian Jews in Israel. Judith Goldstein’s ethnographic accounts of Iranian theatre in Israel shows how the first generation creates a rich Iranian cultural scene. This, however, seems to operate mainly within a “cultural enclave” of Iranian speaking immigrants. See Goldstein: Lives and After Lives.

59 I conducted field journeys to Acre which was followed up by Uri Rosenberg who served as a research assistant in this project. Interviews were carried out in Azerbaijani (Azeri) and Hebrew; Some Interviews were carried out in Juhuri and Russian with the assistant of a local activist (“Rita,” name is anonymized).

60 Qurban Bayramı is the Azerbaijani name for Eid al-Adha.

61 Bram, Language of Caucasus Jews, 337–51.

62 “Kavkazi” immigrants went through a process of severe marginalization in Israel during the 1970s and the 1990s. Policy and social services were oriented to deal with FSU immigrants as one group, namely “Russians.” The specific needs of the smaller groups, and actually even their existence, were not visibile in the first, crucial, years after their arrival, which aggravated the immigration crisis of these groups. At the same time, the contact with the new environment was characterized by strong negative stereotyping. Immigrants felt that they were perceived as primitive, and that they were not recognized as Jews but as “different” people. The results were problematic interactions with the local social services and education system. See Bram, The Catch 22.

63 Sarbakhshian, Sternfeld and Parvaneh, Jews of Iran, A Photographic Chronicle. I am grateful to Lior Betzalel Sternfeld, who introduced me to the photos.

64 Habakkuk the Prophet, Hosting Kermanshah’s Jews: www.iranjewish.com (accessed December 17, 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chen Bram

Chen Bram is an anthropologist, educationalist, and organizational psychologist. He is a research fellow at the Truman Institute, Hebrew University, and a senior lecturer at the department for behavioural science at Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem. His work focuses on diversity, multiculturalism, and ethnic relations in Israel, ethnicity, Islam and immigration in the Caucasus and Central Asia, diaspora people, and anthropology of the Jews. Bram has held teaching and research fellowship roles at the Katz institute for Advanced Jewish Studies (University of Pennsylvania); the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Clark University); Michigan State University; the University of Florida at Gainesville and the Yad Vashem Institute for Holocaust Research. Combining his academic interests with practical applications, he previously worked as an engaged and applied anthropologist. These years of experience of applying academic knowledge outside academy were the inspiration to initiate the research group “Anthropological knowledge: relevance, use and potential” at the Van Leer Institute, of which Bram served as the academic manager. He also has many years of experience in leading cultural and geographical tours and expeditions in different parts of Asia and in Israel.