Table of Contents

Introduction. Houman M. Sarshar Chapter 1: New Vistas on the History of Iranian Jewry in Late Antiquity: Patterns of Jewish Settlement in Iran. Parvaneh Pourshariati Chapter 2: Loter?’i. Martin Schwartz Chapter 3: The Intellectual and Polemical Dimensions of Hovot Rafa’el by El‘azar Hayim b. ha-Dayyan Eliahu. Vera B. Moreen and David Yeroushalmi Chapter 4: Two Wars, Two Cities, Two Religions: The Jews of Mashhad and the Herat Wars. Haideh Sahim Chapter 5: The Origins of the Decorated Ketubbah in Iran and Afghanistan. Shalom Sabar Chapter 6: The Material Culture and Ritual Objects of the Jews of Iran. Orit Carmeli Chapter 7: The Things They Left Behind. Judith L. Goldstein Chapter 8: Voices of Marginality: Diversity in Jewish Iranian Women’s Memoirs and Beyond. Jaleh Pirnazar Chapter 9: Flights from History in Gina Barkhordar Nahai and Dalia Sofer’s Fiction. Nasrin Rahimieh Chapter 10: Fantasies of Flight and Inclusion: Gina Nahai’s Reclaiming of Jewish Iranian Identity in the American Diaspora. Mojgan Behmand

Promotional Information

This long view of the Jewish cultural influence on Iran's social, economic, and political development makes this book a unique contribution to the field of Judeo-Iranian studies and to the study of Iranian history.

About the Author

Houman Sarshar is an independent scholar and director of publications at the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History (CIJOH) in Los Angeles. He is consulting editor of Judeo-Persian Studies for the Encyclopaedia Iranica. He has edited and co-edited a number of books on Iranian Jews, including Esther's Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews (CIJOH, 2002) and Jewish Communities of Iran: Entries on Judeo-Persian Communities Published by the Encyclopdia Iranica (New York, 2011). He holds a PhD in comparative literature from Columbia University.