Being an Iranian Jew in the Islamic Republic: Pivoting against a double erasure

This talk will explore the ways Iranian Jews get to assert their place. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Muslim identity became almost synonymous with the possibility of identifying as Iranian. Yet, religious minorities exist in Iran today and are on a constant journey and struggle to find their voice and agency in the country. The pressures Iranian Jews face are unique but comparable to the ones faced by Armenians and Zoroastrians. This talk will offer ways to read the Jewish and other minorities in the context of contemporary Iranian society.

Sternfeld is an associate professor of history and Jewish Studies. He is a social historian of the modern Middle East with particular interests in the histories of the Jewish people and other minorities of the region. My first book, titled “Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran,” (Stanford University Press, 2018) examines, against the backdrop of Iranian nationalism, Zionism, and constitutionalism, the development and integration of Jewish communities in Iran into the nation-building projects of the last century. He is currently working on two book projects: “The Origins of Third Worldism in the Middle East” and a new study of the Iranian-Jewish Diaspora in the U.S. and Israel.

Cosponsors: Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, Department of History,  Institute for Global Studies