Conversion, Identity, and Memory in Iranian-Jewish Historiography

The Jews of Mashhad

Bibliographic Data

ID8965385
AuthorsAriane Sadjed (0000-0003-0933-6830, Austrian Academy of Sciences, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume53
Issue2
Pages235-251
Publication date2021-05-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743821000039
OpenAlexW3165489900
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited5

The paper discusses the narratives of Jews from Mashhad, who were forced to convert to Islam in 1839. The community narrative as well as academic research is dominated by a modern understanding of religious identity and religious boundaries that fail to account for the diversity of practices among the community of converts, including multiple forms of religious belonging, and the switching of identities according to time and place. Based on historical sources and interviews with descendants from the Mashhadi community, the paper traces how a particular narrative of the history of the Jews from Mashhad prevailed and which significance this narrative entails for Mashhadi community and identity until today. While the Jews from Mashhad are a rather unique case among Iranian Jews–due to the long period in which they lived as converts–their pattern of memory building reflects a general trend among Jews from the Muslim world to assimilate to modern ideas of being Jewish

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