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Jubareh (Jewish Quarter), Isfahan, Iran

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Jubareh: Jubareh, the Jewish quarter of Isfahan, housed the majority of Isfahan Jews as well as its synagogues. It is a small district made up of alleys and particular streets that housed Jewish residential buildings, small local businesses, educational centers, and synagogues, and consisted of Jews mostly from lower socioeconomic classes (1). Jubareh, as well as other Iranian mahallehs, which is the Persian term for parts of the city that are distinguishable by its occupational or ethnic concentration, is one of the oldest recorded examples of a voluntary Jewish community.

Living in a concentrated neighborhood allowed Isfahan Jews to support and protect one another in the face of restrictive decrees imposed by the Shiite influenced government since the Safavid rule in the 16th century, such as prohibiting Jews from using Muslim baths and selling foods to Muslims, with the end goal of converting Jews to Muslims (2). Though some Jews did convert, those who did want to were able to find alternatives in Jubareh, where they were able to have business in their own markets, create their own baths and butcher shops. It should be noted that the voluntary nature of the preference of Jews to form and live in Jubareh is what distinguishes Iranian mahallehs from European ghettos. Unlike ghettos in European cities which sectioned off Jews as part of the law, Jews of Isfahan were not under the law to live in designated parts of the city. Thus, Jubareh, unlike European ghettos that were intended to be isolated spaces, was not surrounded by walls or its gate closed at night (3). Rather, the buildings of Jubareh were integrated into the urban fabric of Isfahan that no structural or stylistic differences of its buildings were visible.

Like most houses in Isfahan, houses in Jubareh were made of bricks and consisted of a courtyard in the middle (4). Jubareh is located less than half a kilometer from the Old Friday Mosque of Isfahan, which is extremely close given the city's scale. Their proximity speaks to the Muslim and Jewish communities' symbiosis in Isfahan that is evident in the architecture of the buildings in Jubareh as well as its integration into the rest of the city. For example, the synagogues of Jubareh are not monumental buildings and were intended to blend in with the rest of the city; this was effected mostly due to laws that required that Jubareh synagogues not stand out or be taller than its neighboring Muslim mosques. Interestingly, the symbiosis of Jubareh and its Muslim surroundings is echoed in the way the local Jewish dialect of Jubareh refers to its synagogues as "masjid," or mosques (5).

There are currently 17 synagogues in Jubareh, and the oldest one, Mushi Haja, dates back to 1700 (6). Why the surviving synagogues in Jubareh are built so recently when the neighborhood itself has been around for 1,500 years is a speculative question, but recent archaeological evidence suggests that these recent synagogues have been built on top of older synagogues that were destroyed amid religious persecution and oppression (7). Synagogues in Jubareh served as places for women to meet and socialize, which was important since Jewish women in Jubareh were relatively isolated and were restricted in their relationships with other community members, in stark contrast to their male Jewish counterparts who were able to move freely in the larger world (8). The integration of Isfahan Jews into the fabric of the city is also seen in the tomb of Kamal-od-din Esma'il, one of Isfahan's most illustrated and loved poets. This tomb is located in Jubareh next to a synagogue. According to Sayyed Mohammed Ali Jamalzadeh who wrote about walking through the Jubareh in a memoir about his boyhood, the revered poet's tomb was a "small mud dome above the platform of a ruined little shop" in Jubareh, under which the poet's body lay (9). 

Of the current 17 synagogues in Jubareh, the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran in 2006 began its restoration projects of the major synagogues in Jubareh as national heritage sites (10).

Isfahan: Isfahan is the third largest city in Iran, after Tehran and Mashhad, and is located on the Iranian Plateau, surrounded by the Zagros Mountains. Jews were among the first founders of Isfahan. Located about 340 kilometers south of Tehran, Isfahan is one of the earliest Jewish settlements in Iran, and likely dates back to the time of Jews' exile after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. Under the Safavid rule in the 16th century, Isfahan was the center of Iranian Jewry, with a recorded 18,000 Jews. Jews in Isfahan spoke their own dialects of Persian but used Hebrew and classical Persian when they needed to communicate with other Jewish communities in Iran (11). Jews of Isfahan were renowned as skilled and sought after artisans, sometimes being commissioned by the Shah of Iran to weave carpets or create textiles. However, it was only until 1873 that Jews were legally considered equal to Muslims and conferred the same protections and taxes as their Muslim counterparts (12). The Iraninan revolution in 1979 led to a massive Jewish emigration to Israel, and the current Jewish community of Isfahan estimates to 1,500. There is only one functioning synagogue, whereas in the past there were eighteen fully functioning and furnished synagogues (13).

Suggested further reading:

• Fischel, Walter. “Isfahan: The Story of a Jewish Community in Persia.” In The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume. New York: Conference on Jewish Relations, 1953.
• Sanasarian, Eliz. Religious Minorities in Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Isfahan, Iran

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