Synagogues of Isfahan the Architecture of Resignation and Integration

chapter 10 Synagogues of Isfahan The Architecture of Resignation and Integration

Mohammad Gharipour and Rafael Sedighpour*

With about 2,600 years of history, the Jewish peo- bce. Isfahan, located in the center of Iran, gained ple have been both a minority and an influential its world renown as the capital of the Seljuk (elev- community of long standing within Iranian soci- enth-century) and Safavid (sixteenth-century) ety. The significant number of Jewish holy sites in empires. The Jewish quarter in Isfahan, which was modern-day Iran, such as the tombs of the Prophet in proximity to the Friday Mosque, housed the Daniel in the city of Shush, Esther and Mordechai majority of Jews as well as their synagogues. The in Hamadan, and Habakkuk in Touisarkan testify Jewish community, their history, traditions, art, to this claim. Synagogues in Iran have a history as and other aspects of social life have been the sub- old as the life of Jews in Iran as well. In Iranian cit- ject of contemporary research, yet their houses ies such as Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Yazd about and places of worship have not been seriously a hundred synagogues still survive and, because of studied as part of the history of the city. While their antiquity and the richness of their architec- there are numerous references to synagogues in ture, they have, in recent years, been designated as historical, social, and anthropological studies, the national historic sites by the Cultural Heritage architectural qualities of Jewish religion and Organization of Iran. The construction of syna- domesticity have not been thoroughly explored in gogues followed various patterns, but was usually contemporary scholarship. influenced by local or stylistic movements in This chapter explores the design of synagogues Persian architecture. Thus the humble exteriors in the Jewish neighborhood of Isfahan, Jubareh,2 and simple façades of synagogues did not differ in by examining the physical and non-physical links design from other buildings in Iranian cities, but between the city and synagogues dating from the their isolated interiors, hidden from the public nineteenth century. By studying the spatial quali- gaze, were designed based on a pattern that was ties and patterns of use of synagogues, the authors rooted in the foundations of Judaism.1 will discuss how synagogues reflect the culture of The city of Isfahan, one of the earliest Jewish the minority Jews at macro and micro scales, from settlements, was probably established at the time the city to the interior. In the absence of archaeo- of deportations of Jews by the Neo-Assyrian and logical evidence, chronicles, or historical accounts Neo-Babylonian kingdoms in the first millennium of the construction and development of the indi- vidual synagogues, this research is founded on for- mal and spatial analysis of specific case studies as * The authors would like to thank Saeed Ahmadi, Dr. James- they appear today. Henry Holland, and Jackie Parker for their help in different stages of this paper. Our special thanks to Jeremy Kargon, Dr. Kenneth Moss, Dr. Vera Basch Moreen, and Dr. Zackary 2 There are two smaller Jewish districts in Isfahan: Golbahar Sholem Berger for commenting on earlier drafts of this District, near the Haroon Velayat Street in which one of paper. the synagogues still stands, and in the Dardasht District, 1 It is a characteristic of Iranian houses that most ornamen- near the nowadays Abdul-Razzaq Street. Apart from these, tation and decoration is restricted to the inner spaces there are three old synagogues in the Jewish Cemetery while the building façades are modestly rendered. located in Pirbakran on the outskirts of Isfahan.

1 A Brief History of the Jewish Community This they did all along until they reached the city of Isfahan of Isfahan. There they rested, examined the water and soil and found that both resembled Jerusalem. The beginnings of Jewish history in Iran date Upon that they settled there, cultivated the soil, back to the first mass immigration after 539 raised children and grandchildren, and today the bce, when Cyrus the Great, the founder of the name of this settlement is Yahudiya.”6 Achaemenid dynasty, freed Jewish slaves and granted them freedom in Jerusalem. As evident The Yahudiya settlement, probably located in in the Cyrus cylinder,3 Cyrus, unlike the the present-day Jubareh district, formed the Assyrian and Babylonian rulers, allowed the core of the city of Isfahan, which was largely Jews to practice their religion freely. Following developed under the Seljuks and Safavids.7 this, the Jews rebuilt their temple in Jerusalem, During the Sassanid Era (224–651 ce), despite and some moved to Persia where they experi- the overall tolerance towards Jews, on some enced a degree of freedom and tolerance until occasions fanatic Zoroastrian clergy, influential the third century ce. The history of the city of in political affairs, caused persecution and Isfahan is as old as its Jewish community: a harassment of Jews, Christians, and Mazdakits.8 Talmudic legend ascribes the foundation of Fragments from chronicles say that many Jews Isfahan to Jews exiled by Nebuchadnezzar dur- were transferred from Armenia and settled in ing the first phase of the Achaemenid Empire.4 Isfahan during the fourth century ce.9 The This settlement, which was initially called Middle Persian text, Shahristanha-ye Iran, gives Yahudiya (lit. the quarter of the Jews), later the credit to the Persian-Jewish queen, Shoshan- merged with the Zoroastrian settlement of Jay Dokht, who requested her husband, the Sassanid and formed the center of Isfahan.5 The tenth- king Yazdegerd i (r. 399–421) to settle Jews in century Persian historian and geographer, Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadani, writes: 6 Ebn al-Faqih Hamadani, Ketab al-Boldan, ed. Michaël Jan de Goeje (Leiden: 1885), 261–2. From Netzer, “Isfahan: “When the Jews emigrated from Jerusalem, fleeing Jewish Community.” from Nebuchadnezzar, they carried with them a 7 According to Guy Le Strange, the medieval Yahudiya is the sample of the water and soil of Jerusalem. They same town that was enlarged under the Safavids. Guy Le did not settle down anywhere or in any city with- Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, London, 1966, out examining the water and the soil of each place. 204. From Netzer, “Isfahan: Jewish Community.” 8 There are also references to the massacre of Jews by Sassanid kings. According to the medieval Persian historian, Hamza Esfahani, after the rumor spread that Jews 3 The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient clay cylinder, now bro- had flayed alive two Zoroastrian priests and used their ken into several fragments, on which is written a decla- skins in their tanning industry, half of the Jewish popula- ration in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of the tion of Isfahan were killed and their sons enslaved by the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great. This cylinder dates order of the Sassanid king, Piruz, in the fifth century. from sixth century bce and was discovered in the ruins (Hamza b. Hasan Eafahani, Taʾrikh seni moluk al-arz waʾl- of Babylon in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) in 1879. The anbiaʾ, ed. and transl. by J.M.E. Gottwaldt, 2 vols, text states that Cyrus was welcomed by the people of St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1844–48; Beirut, 1961, 37, 50. Babylon as their new ruler and entered the city in From Netzer, “Isfahan: Jewish Community.”) peace. 9 Moses Khorenatsʿi, Patmutʿiwn Hayotsʿ, transl. by Victor 4 “Isfahan,” The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, Garden City, Langlois as Histoire dʾArménie en trois livres, Collection des ny: Doubleday, 1959. Histoire anciens et modernes de lʾArménie 3, Paris, 1869, 5 Amnon Netzer, “Isfahan: Jewish Community,” The part. 3, sec. 35; transl. by Robert W. Thomson as History of Encyclopedia Iranica, 2007. the Armenians, Cambridge, ma, 1978, 293.