For almost 2,700 years, the Jews of Iran (יהודים פרסים) had practiced their own form of traditional observant Judaism which is neither a Conservative nor an Orthodox, but a kind of traditional mix in between. Today, Persian Jews are mostly classified as Mizrahim (עֲדוֹת-הַמִּזְרָח “Communities of the East”).
According to this understanding, Sephardic Jews are descended from speakers of Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), whereas Mizrahi Jews spoke languages reflecting their areas of origin, such as Judeo-Arabic or Judeo-Persian.
Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, over 200,000 Iranians have settled in Israel. Many Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Following the revolution, an additional 10,000 to 15,000 Iranian Jews immigrated directly to Israel.
It turns out, Ashkenazim are actually from the former Kingdom of Pontus, being descended from Irano-Turkic people in Anatolia, and not Judah. As part of the Persian Empire, there was a great deal of Iranian genetic admixture in the region combined with local Anatolians, as well as Greeks on the coastline.
The term “Ashkenazi” refers to Jews of mainly central and eastern European ancestry, in contrast to those of Iberian (Sephardic), Near Eastern, or North African origin (Ostrer 2001).
While most Iranian Jews today speak Persian/Farsi, there is still a small cohort of elderly Jews who speak Judeo-Hamadani, Judeo-Isfahani, Judeo-Kashani, Judeo-Shirazi, Judeo-Yazdi, Jewish Neo-Aramaic, and other Iranian languages that are quite different from Persian.
“Jews can buy homes anywhere in the world, in France, in Turkey and even in Iran,” said Shlomo Levinger a spokesman for some 20 Jewish families who want to move into the buildings.
The Persians resisted any Jewish efforts to restore the monarchy, but allowed them a high degree of autonomy under the High Priest, whose power was partially checked by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Court, and the Popular Assemblies. During this period, Judaism's Written Law took its final form.
Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews are not always considered Jews of color, and may or may not self-identify as Jews of color. Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent are classified as "white" by the United States census.
The Musta'arabi Jews in the Land of Israel were descendants of the ancient Hebrews who never left the Land of Israel, instead remaining there through the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD to the First Aliyah in 1881, prior to the onset of Zionist immigration.
In practice, Iranians look similar to other people in the Middle East, and in the US, as per the US census bureau definition, they would be considered 'white.
Mizrahi (in Hebrew, “Eastern” or “Oriental”) Jews come from Middle Eastern ancestry. Their earliest communities date from Late Antiquity, and the oldest and largest of these communities were in modern Iraq (Babylonia), Iran (Persia), and Yemen. Today, most Mizrahi Jews live either in Israel or the United States.
“We are Iranian, but we're also Zionist.” Many Iranian Jews say their steadfast support for Israel is embedded in deep cultural and religious ties to Judaism that date back centuries. Historians trace Iran's Jewish population to nearly 3,000 years ago, making Judaism one of the oldest minority religions in the country.
Who did the land originally belong to, Israel or Palestine?
By more than 1,000 years, “Israel” predates “Palestine.” The land then became home primarily to an Arab population, again for more than a millennium. Both Jews and Arabs thus have a legitimate claim to the land. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen myriad wrongs and brutalities on both sides.
“It's all recognized religious minorities.” Iranian Jews are allowed to travel abroad, though technically not to Israel — Iranian passports bear the message that “the holder of this passport is not entitled to travel to occupied Palestine.” Many visit Israel anyway via third countries such as Turkey.
Persian Jews have lived in the territories of today's Iran for over 2,700 years, since the first Jewish diaspora when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V conquered the (Northern) Kingdom of Israel (722 BCE) and took some of the Israelites into captivity at Khuzestan.
As a general rule, regardless of their nationality or race, there is a trend towards higher than average rates of blood group B. The Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe and the Sephardim of the Middle East and Africa, the two major sects, share high rates of group B blood and bear no discernible differences.
The military defeats of the Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers.
