Copyright by Lior Betzalel Sternfeld 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Lior Betzalel Sternfeld certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: RECLAIMING THEIR PAST: WRITING JEWISH HISTORY IN IRAN DURING THE MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI AND EARLY REVOLUTIONARY PERIODS Committee: Kamran Scot Aghaie, Supervisor Yoav Di-Capua Mary Neuburger Cyrus Schayegh Afshin Marashi RECLAIMING THEIR PAST: WRITING JEWISH HISTORY IN IRAN DURING THE MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI AND EARLY REVOLUTIONARY PERIODS by Lior Betzalel Sternfeld, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2014 Dedicated with love to my parents, Zahava and Itzhak Sternfeld And to my wife, Sharon, and daughters, Shira and Ya’ara. In the middle of the night/ I go walking in my sleep Through the jungle of doubt/ To a river so deep I know I'm searching for something/ Something so undefined That it can only be seen by the eyes of the blind in the middle of the night (Billy Joel, “The River of Dreams”) Acknowledgments No section of this dissertation brought more joy and stress than writing this acknowledgement. This project became possible thanks to so many good people who read, commented, advised, supported, and inspired. The joy, of course, is to acknowledge this kindness and the anxiety stems from the fear of forgetting anyone. I will thus begin with my dissertation committee. I was blessed to have such a brilliant bunch of historians helping me develop this project. First and foremost I thank my adviser Kamran Scot Aghaie. Over the years, I have counted on his good advice and his utter dedication. Kamran was always supportive and encouraging—the ultimate mentor. His perspectives helped me to understand the essence of my project. I have no words to express my thanks to Yoav Di-Capua for his mentorship and friendship. Yoav has been such a great support for which I will be forever grateful. Deep gratitude goes to Mary Neuburger for providing me with tools to look beyond Iran and the other geographical boundaries that were my comfort zones. I thank Cyrus Schayegh for his eye-opening comments on various versions of this dissertation as well as other articles and papers, and Afshin Marashi who, despite officially joining this committee later, was part of this project all along and is a source of inspiration for me. Last but not least in this category I wish to thank Houchang Esfandiar Chehabi from the bottom of my heart. Houchang offered me the entry into this project and was always there for brilliant advice and encouragement. It seems like every scholar of Iranian studies who wrote a dissertation on any topic at all during the past two decades has received help from Houchang. So I want to thank Houchang for everything. v I want to thank colleagues and mentors that are part of this project in many capacities. I want to thank Haggai Ram who walked me through my baby-historian steps from my days at Ben Gurion University to the end of this project. My gratitude goes to David Menashri; his knowledge and dedication to training the next generation is admirable. Faryar Nikbakht is one of the most informed experts I have met. His kindness and his unparalleled willingness made the research much more joyful. Orit Bashkin has been part of this project all along. Her path-breaking scholarship is second only to her generosity and kindness. Orit read and commented on too many components to count, and I will be always grateful for all her help. In the process of the research one needs good friends in libraries and archives. I want to thank Carla Darocy and Uri Kolodney of Perry-Castaneda Library at the University of Texas at Austin for their help and support in fulfilling all my research needs. Thanks go to Robin Daugherty, who was formerly at PCL and remains a good friend and a source of help. I want to thank Charlotte Brown of the UCLA Archives for proving such a huge help while I worked there. At the JDC Archive I want to thank Misha Mistel and Linda Levy. One of the perks of research is traveling. A lot of traveling. I want to thank the foundations and fellowships that funded my research trips: the Iranian Heritage Foundation, the Churchill Scholarship (British Studies Program at UT Austin), the Fred and Ellen Lewis JDC Archive Fellowship, the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies Travel Grants, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Travel Grants, and the Department of History Dissertation Research Fellowship. vi I was fortunate to be part of an extremely friendly and intellectually stimulating environment here at the University of Texas at Austin. The Middle East History cohort at the Department of History is second to none. I want to thank Brian Mann, Christine Baker, Mikiya Koyagi, Chris Rose, Ahmad Agbaria, Shaherzad Ahmadi, Stephanye Hunter, Ellen McCAmis, and Goli Bagheri, and all the good people at UT. I want to thank Katie Logan for her wonderful and professional editing. I would also like to extend special thanks to all my teachers at the history department who were part of this project, especially Wm. Roger Louis, Benjamin C. Brower, and Robert H. Abzug. One more thank in the history department goes to Marilyn E. Lehman for all her help in the past five years. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents Zahava and Itzhak Sternfeld. They have been my infinite source of energies and encouragement. They taught me all the important things in life, and their selflessness will always be a source of emulation for me. A few years ago, while sitting in a MESA hotel bar, Kamran told me about a historian that in a rare moment of honesty dedicated his book to “my wife and children without whom this book would have been finished ten years ago.” On a totally unrelated note, I dedicate this dissertation to my wife, the love of my life, Sharon. This dissertation would not have been possible without your endless support, love, wisdom, care, and all that you give every day. This dissertation is also dedicated to my amazing daughters whom I love more than anything else on this planet: Shira and Ya’ara. vii RECLAIMING THEIR PAST: WRITING JEWISH HISTORY IN IRAN DURING THE MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI AND EARLY REVOLUTIONARY PERIODS Lior Betzalel Sternfeld, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Kamran Scot Aghaie ABSTRACT In the mid-twentieth century Jewish society in Iran emerged from political disenfranchisement and social and economic marginalization to become a well assimilated community with thriving institutions and an active participation in nation building. The turning point came in the wake of the Allied Armies’ 1941 invasion of Iran and Reza Shah’s abdication, which opened unprecedented opportunities for the Jewish community to become an actor in the rebuilding project of a new Iran. Between 1941 and 1979, the Jewish community was institutionally transformed. It was also a period of assimilation and Iranianization. Thus, when faced by the strident patriotism of the 1970s, communal loyalty and identity was poised to be replaced by a new Jewish claim to the right to participate in the struggle for Iranian democracy, and to define the boundaries of a new nationalism viii This research argues that the re-socialization process that led to this change was nurtured under Mohammad Reza Shah’s nation building project that aimed to create a modern-secular Iranian society that emphasized Iranian civilizational foundations rooted both in ancient Persian culture and Western European civilization. Although this new cultural focus de-emphasized religious affiliations, its driving idea, the Aryan Hypothesis, paradoxically created both opportunities and difficulties for Jews, as many Iranians viewed them as an ethnic minority outside of Aryan-Persian-Shi’i ideals. This dissertation charts the challenges and achievements of the Jewish communities in Iran from 1941 to the early post-revolutionary period. By mapping structural transformations in the Jewish community, and by positioning its changing institutions and ideologies in the larger social and political climate of Iran, it reassesses both Iranian and Jewish-Iranian historiographies, which have posited Jewish Iranian history as an insular narrative, detached from general trends in Iranian society or other communities in the country. In doing so, it also provides a model by which to reassess the position of other minority communities. Through the use of archives that scholars of Jewish Iranian history have overlooked as well as new interviews, this dissertation brings these histories back into the broader context of national history and writes Jewish Iranian history back into Iranian national historiography. ix Table of Contents List of Illustrations ................................................................................................ xii Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 Historiographical Review ............................................................................... 3 Notes on Sources ................................................................................. 13 Historical Review of Jewish History in Iran .............................. 17 Dissertation Structure ..………………………………………..20 Chapter 2: Minorities in the Liberal Age (1941-1953) ......................................... 28 Iran Entering World War II .........................................................................