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Abrishami Synagogue, Tehran, Iran

Tehran, Iran

The Abrishami Synagogue is one of thirteen functioning synagogues in Tehran, Iran.1 Today, Iran’s Jewish population is the second largest in the Middle East, after Israel. Although there are active Jewish communities all around the country, Tehran’s community is the most significant.2 Now, those who live in Iran today are choosing to do so, forgoing Israel’s stipends for individuals and families to move.3

Description

History

The synagogue was built in September of 1965 in the middle-class neighborhood of Khakh Shomali, now North Palestine Street. The building of the synagogue was funded by a famous Iranian philanthropist, Aghajan Abrishami.4 The synagogue was the cultural gathering place of the Jewish community during the 1970’s and 1980’s right after the synagogue was built. The Chief Rabbi of Iran read daily and Shabbat services at the synagogue during that time.5 


Features

It was built in the 1960’s modernist architectural style, which shows in its gray, bleak, compound-like outside. This synagogue has exterior and interior designs and layout that have been influenced by local Persian architectural styles for religious buildings.6 The inside is luxuriously decorated with glass chandeliers and rich fabrics with gold embroidery. The first floor is the Jewish school and the second is the actual synagogue.7 It measures to be about 1,025 square meters and has two floors.8 Synagogues of Tehran are attached to larger buildings that are private Jewish schools; Abrishami also has an affiliated boys’ school.9

Current Standing

As the school has an attached boys’ school next to it, boys frequently use the anterooms in the synagogue to prepare for their bar-mitzvah ceremony.10

Hakham Dr Hammami Lalezar is the current chief rabbi of the Abrishami synagogue.11 The synagogue holds morning and evening services that are attended by the Tehran Jewish community. A morning service can boast about seventy congregants.12 Regular evening services can hold around two hundred people. The whole synagogue can hold around five hundred members, especially during the High Holidays.13 The synagogue serves not only as a center for worship but also, as most Middle Eastern synagogues, as a place for community gathering. After services people eat and gossip about their everyday lives. Some people discuss discrimination and political troubles they experience in Iran.14 During the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, the synagogue's Jewish pilgrims live in a hut atop the synagogue for around a week marking the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.15 

The Abrishami synagogue has had renovations to its mikvah (a bath for religious purification rituals, used most often by women), indicating women’s increased involvement in synagogues in Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.16 Since the revolution, public space has become more religious, changing the way Jewish women practice their religion.17 This change in religious observation has led to women petitioning for more mikvaot to be built in the courtyards of existing synagogues in Iran.18 

Abrishami Synagogue, Tehran, Iran

Tehran, Iran

© Mapbox, © OpenStreetMap

Gallery

Sources

Notes


1. World Jewish Congress. “Community in Iran (Islamic Republic of).” World Jewish Congress. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/IR.


2. “Jews in Islamic Countries: Iran.” Jews of Iran, 2021. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-of-iran.


3. Cohler-Esses , Larry. “How Iran's Jews Survive in Mullahs' World.” The Forward, August 18, 2015. https://forward.com/news/319269/irans-jews-win-secure-place-in-mullahs-world-with-strings-attached/.


4. "Abrishami Synagogue," Snipview Magazine, accessed July 22, 2015, http://www.snipview.com/q/Abrishami_Synagogue.


5. "Abrishami Synagogue," self.gutengurg.org, accessed July 22, 2015, http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/abrishami_synagogue


6. Gharipour, Mohammad, and Arlene Dallalfar. “Chapter Ten Synagogues and Sacred Rituals in Tehran: An Ethnographic Analysis of Judeo-Persian Identities and Spaces.” Essay. In Synagogues in the Islamic World: Architecture, Design, and Identity, 185–204. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019.


7. “Jews in Islamic Countries: Iran.”


8. Ibid


9. Gharipour, Mohammad, and Arlene Dallalfar. “Chapter Ten Synagogues and Sacred Rituals in Tehran: An Ethnographic Analysis of Judeo-Persian Identities and Spaces.”


10. Ibid.


11. Self.gutengurg.org, "Abrishami Synagogue."


12. Maryam Sinaiee, "Iranian Jews feel very much at home," The National, October 7, 2008, accessed July 22, 2015. http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/irans-jews-feel-very-much-at-home#page2.


13. "Iran Jews mark Sukkot with hopes pinned on Rouhani," The Malaysian Insider, September 27, 2013, accessed July 22, 2015, http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/features/article/iran-jews-mark-sukkot-with-hopes-pinned-on-rouhani.


14. Michael Theodoulou, "Jews in Iran describe a life of freedom despite anti-Israel actions by Tehran," Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 1998, accessed July 22, 2015, https://www.georgiastandards.org/resources/Lexile_in_Action/SS7G8_1110.pdf


15. The Malaysian Insider, "Iran Jews mark Sukkot."


16. Gharipour, Mohammad, and Arlene Dallalfar. “Chapter Ten.” Essay. In Synagogues in the Islamic World: Architecture, Design, and Identity, edited by Mohammad Gharipour, 189. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2019.


17. Gharipour, Synagogues in the Islamic World, 193.


18. Ibid.


Works Cited


"Abrishami Synagogue." Snipview Magazine. Accessed July 22, 2015. http://www.snipview.com/q/Abrishami_Synagogue.


Cohler-Esses , Larry. “How Iran's Jews Survive in Mullahs' World.” The Forward, August 18, 2015. https://forward.com/news/319269/irans-jews-win-secure-place-in-mullahs-world-with-strings-attached/. 


Gharipour, Mohammad, and Arlene Dallalfar. “Chapter Ten Synagogues and Sacred Rituals in Tehran: An Ethnographic Analysis of Judeo-Persian Identities and Spaces.” Essay. In Synagogues in the Islamic World: Architecture, Design, and Identity, 185–204. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. 


Demick, Barbara. "Iran: Life of Jews Living in Iran." Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture. Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, n.d. Web. 18 June 2015. http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html.


“Jews in Islamic Countries: Iran.” Jews of Iran, 2021. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-of-iran. 


The Malaysian Insider. "Iran Jews mark Sukkot with hopes pinned on Rouhani." September 27, 2013. Accessed July 22, 2015. http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/features/article/iran-jews-mark-sukkot-with-hopes-pinned-on-rouhani.


Project Gutenburg Self-Publishing Press. "Abrishami Synagogue." self.gutengurg.org. Accessed July 22, 2015. http://self.gutenberg.org/article/abrishami_synagogue.


Sinaiee, Maryam. "Iranian Jews feel very much at home." The National, October 7, 2008. Accessed July 22, 2015. http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/irans-jews-feel-very-much-at-home#page2.


Theodoulou, Michael. "Jews in Iran describe a life of freedom despite anti-Israel actions by Tehran." Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 1998, 7. Accessed July 22, 2015.https://www.georgiastandards.org/resources/Lexile_in_Action/SS7G8_1110.pdf.


World Jewish Congress. “Community in Iran (Islamic Republic of).” World Jewish Congress. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/IR. 


Image Gallery


Aga-Jan Abrishami Synagogue. Photograph. November 10, 2014. Accessed July 28, 2015. http://z7.invisionfree.com/bodazey/ar/t251.htm.


Synagogue Silk. Photograph. summer 2009. http://www.7dorim.com/Tasavir/kenisa_abrishami.asp.


For more images of the site, visit:


https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2015/08/20/yom-kippur-in-tehran/


https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/keeping-the-jewish-faith-in-iran-idUKRTX1ZZZQ