Mizrahi Jewish ethnicity indicates genetic origins of the Jews of "Mizrahi" origin. The term Mizrahi, literally meaning “eastern,” refers to the descendants of Jews from modern Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, and Persian Jews from Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The term Mizrahi is often conflated with the term Sephardi, literally meaning “Spanish”; while Mizrahi Jews are mostly not of Iberian descent, they adhere to the Sephardi school of liturgy formulated in medieval Spain. Jews have resided in Persia and Mesopotamia for over 2,700 years, having arrived in the region during Assyrian and Babylonian rule. Since then, small-scale and large-scale waves of Jewish immigration to the lands of the ancient Persian and later Muslim empires which ruled the region have created a rich and variegated liturgical and cultural tradition. In the twentieth century, following the establishment of the State of Israel, over 75% of the Iraqi Jewish community left for Israel, escaping anti-Jewish legislation. Of the approximately 100,000 Jews living in Iran on the eve of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, all but 20,000 have since emigrated to Israel, North America, Western Europe, and elsewhere.
Mizrahi Jewish history
The circumstances of early Jewish presence in Persia is attributed to the sacking of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrian Empire in the eighth century B.C.E. A further wave followed after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent Babylonian exile in the sixth century B.C.E. After the fall of Babylon to the Persian Empire in 539 B.C.E., Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great permitted Jews to return to Judea to construct the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
In the second century B.C.E., together with the Seleucid king, Antiochus Sidetes, the Jewish Hasmonaean king John Hyrcanus marched against the Persian Parthians, reaching as far as the Great Zab in modern-day Iraq. In 66 C.E., the First Jewish-Roman War culminated with the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and further exile of its Jewish population to Babylonia (now part of the Parthian Empire). This proved to be a watershed moment in Jewish history; from this point forward, the Jewish diaspora in Babylonia began to perceive itself as in a permanent state of displacement.
The period that followed was among the most formative in Jewish history. Around the year 500 C.E., the Babylonian Talmud — the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and theology — was formulated. The Talmud represents the written record of an oral tradition, and formed the basis for Jewish legal codes and customs, including the later Mishneh Torah (composed in Egypt by Maimonides in 1170–80) and Shulchan Aruch (composed in Safed by Joseph Karo in 1563) — the central texts of the Sephardi Jewish liturgy.
Unlike the religiously tolerant Achaemenians and Parthians, under Sassanid rule (224–651), Jews faced periodical persecution. Thus, when the armies of the newly-formed Islamic Caliphate swept through Persia in the seventh century, many Jews welcomed the Arab armies with open arms. Under Muslim rule, Jews (as well as Christians) were designated as dhimmis: they were allowed to practice their religion, but were required to pay certain poll and land taxes and to accept a set of social and legal disabilities to distinguish them from the hegemonic Muslim population. These rules, however, were seldom enforced, and Jews under medieval Muslim rule mostly experienced tolerance and integration.
Following the Mongol conquest of the Abbasid Caliphate in the thirteenth century, Jewish fortunes turned for the worse. When the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736) proclaimed Shi‘a Islam as the state religion, Jews experienced further decline in their status, and were subjected to increased regulations and limitations. Conditions deteriorated further under Qajar rule (1796–1925): by the nineteenth century, Jews were isolated in separate neighborhoods, and were often subject to forced conversions and concerted acts of violence.
Life under the Ottomans, which captured Baghdad from the Safavids in 1638, was markedly different: Jews we granted significant autonomy and enjoyed an elevated status. A notable example is David Sassoon, who served as treasurer of Baghdad between 1817 and 1829. Sassoon later emigrated to India, where he became the leader of a newly formed and successful Iraqi Jewish community in Bombay (now Mumbai).
World War I saw the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of Mandatory Iraq. Jews were perceived as British collaborators, and in the 1940s experienced a wave of violent anti-Jewish riots (farhud). In the early 1950s, between 120,000 and 130,000 Jews emigrated to the newly formed State of Israel. Across the Persian Gulf, in 1925 the Pahlavi dynasty ascended to the Persian throne, where it would rule until the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Starting in the 1950s, and to a greater extent in the 1980s, over 80% of the Jewish community in Iran have emigrated to Israel, North America, Western Europe, and other locations around the world.
Mizrahi Jewish culture
While Iraqi Jewish and Persian Jewish cuisine share certain features (such as the prevalence of rice and meat), each kitchen has its own distinct culinary tradition. Jewish Persian food heavily employs fresh herbs (sabzi); in fact, several dishes are almost entirely composed of herbs, such as khoresht ghormeh sabzi, consisting mainly of sautéed parsley, leeks, and coriander seasoned with fenugreek leaves and Persian limes. Other popular dishes include khoresh beh (quince and lamb stew) and tahdig (the pan-fried layer of crust at the bottom of the rice pot). Iraqi food enjoys tremendously popularity in Israel, including staple dishes such as kubeh (minced meat fried or cooked in bulgur batter) and sabich (an Israeli sandwich including fried-eggplant and hard-boiled eggs, based on traditional Iraqi Jewish Sabbath breakfast food).
Jewish composers dominated the Iraqi music scene during the first half of the twentieth century. The greatest composer in Iraq during that period was Saleh al-Kuwaity, who composed most of the songs of leading Iraqi singers, such as Salima Pasha, Zakiyya George, Nargis Shawky, Afifa Skander, and others. The vocal tradition of Iraqi cantors and instrumental musicians heavily influenced the burgeoning Mizrahi (also known as Mediterranean) music genre in Israel in the 1950s. Their legacy remains today with singer/songwriters such as Dudu Tassa (b. 1977), one of Israel’s most prominent contemporary singer/songwriters, and grandson of Saleh al-Kuwaity.
The Tehran-born female vocalist Rita Yahan-Farouz (b. 1962, better known simply as Rita), is one of Israel’s most renowned pop singers. Other Jews of Irani descent have made outstanding contributions to Israeli culture, such as Yossi Banai (1932–2006), a foundational figure in the history of Israeli performance arts; Adi Nes (b. 1966), an internationally renowned photographer; and Amnon Netzer (1934–2008), a historian and leading authority on Iranian history and culture.
Mizrahi Jewish languages
Historically, Mizrahi Jews spoke a variety of either Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, or Judeo-Aramaic dialects. At the same time, they were fully fluent in the standard Arabic or Persian dialects of their region. Hebrew served as a liturgical language, and was not commonly spoken in daily life. The twentieth century saw a disruption of this lingual tradition: today, most descendants of Mizrahi Jews in Israel speak modern Hebrew exclusively, while Mizrahi Jews in North America and Western Europe speak the national languages of the countries in which they settled.
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