What percentage of the Iranian population is Jewish?
Persian Jews
Iran's Jewish community is officially recognized as a religious minority group by the government, and, like the Zoroastrians and Christians, they are allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament. Siamak Moreh Sedgh is the current Jewish member of the parliament, replacing Maurice Motamed in the 2008 election. In 2000, former Jewish MP Manuchehr Eliasi estimated that at that time there were still 60,000–85,000 Jews in Iran; most other sources put the figure at 25,000. As of 2018, only 8,500 Jews still live in Iran and they constitute 0,01% of Iranian population, a number confirmed by Sergio DellaPergola, a leading Jewish demographer.
Christianity in Iran
In 1976, the census reported that the Christian population of Iran holding citizenship there numbered 168,593 people, with most of them being Armenians. Due to the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, almost half of the Armenians migrated to the newly independent Armenia. However, the opposite trend has occurred since 2000, and the number of Christians with Iranian citizenship increased to 109,415 in 2006. At the same time, significant immigration of Assyrians from Iraq has been recorded due to massacres and harassment in post-Saddam Iraq. However, most of those Assyrians in Iran do not have Iranian citizenship, and therefore aren't included in the data. In 2008, the central office of the International Union of Assyrians was officially transferred to Iran after being hosted in the United States for more than four decades.
Ethnicities in Iran
2% of Iran's citizens are Arabs. The historically large and oil-rich cities of Mahshahr, Behbahan, Masjed Soleyman, Izeh, Dezful, Shushtar, Andimeshk, Shush, Ramhormoz, Baghemalak, Gotvand, Lali, Omidieh, Aghajari, Hendijan, Ramshir, Haftkel, Bavi are inhabited by people who speak either Luri, Bakhtiari and Persian languages. There are smaller communities in Qom where there are a significant number of Arabs being of Lebanese descent, as well as Razavi Khorasan and Fars provinces. Iranian Arab communities are also found in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
Persian Jews
According to "Encyclopædia Britannica": "The Jews trace their heritage in Iran to the Babylonian Exile of the 6th century BC and, like the Armenians, have retained their ethnic, linguistic, and religious identity." But the Library of Congress's country study on Iran states that "Over the centuries the Jews of Iran became physically, culturally, and linguistically indistinguishable from the non-Jewish population. The overwhelming majority of Jews speak Persian as their mother language, and a tiny minority, Kurdish."
Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries
Most of 80,000-strong Iranian Jewish community exited Iran between 1978 and early 1980s. In total, more than 80% of Iranian Jews fled or migrated from the country between 1979 and 2006. A small Jewish community of 7–10 thousands still resides in Iran as a protected minority.
Ethnic minorities in Iran
There are numerous minor groups, various tribal Turkic groups (Qashqai, Afshar, etc.) accounting for about 1% of the population between them, and small groups with presence in the region going back at least several centuries, accounting for 1-2% as well, such as the Talysh, Armenians, Georgians, Assyrians, Jews, and Circassians.
History of the Islamic Republic of Iran
For religious minorities, life has been mixed under the Islamic Republic. Khomeini also called for unity between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims (Sunni Muslims are the largest religious minority in Iran). Pre-revolutionary statements by Khomeini were antagonistic towards Jews, but shortly after his return from exile in 1979, he issued a fatwa ordering that Jews and other minorities (except Baha'is) be treated well.
Non-Muslim religious minorities do not have equal rights in the Islamic Republic (For example, senior government posts are reserved for Muslims and Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian schools must be run by Muslim principals) but four of the 270 seats in parliament are reserved for three non-Islamic minority religions.
Persian Jews
Today the term Iranian Jews is mostly used to refer to Jews from the country of Iran. In various scholarly and historical texts, the term is used to refer to Jews who speak various Iranian languages. Iranian immigrants in Israel (nearly all of whom are Jewish) are referred to as "Parsim" ( meaning "Persians"). In Iran, Jews and Jewish people in general are referred to by four common terms: "Kalīmī" (), which is considered the most proper term; "Yahūdī" (), which is less formal but correct; "Israel" () the term by which the Jews refer to themselves; and "Johūd" (), a term having negative connotations and considered by many Jews as offensive.
History of the Jews in Iran
A spike in anti-Jewish sentiment occurred after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and continued until 1953 due to the weakening of the central government and strengthening of the clergy in the course of political struggles between the Shah and Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh himself although viewed the establishment of the state of Israel as a form of colonialism, had good relationship with the Jewish community. On his trip to United States, a Jewish journalist, Raby Moshfegh Hamadani, was accompanying him and giving advice. The most prominent anti-Israeli member of the government was Hossein Fatemi. Hossein Fatemi closed the office of the Jewish Agency on Israel's independence day in 1953. He also annulled an agreement permitting Israeli El Al airplanes to land in Iran. Fatemi from time to time published semi official documents hinting that Iran no longer recognizes the state of Israel. However Mossadegh himself continued commercial ties with the state of Israel and allowed the negotiations between the Bank Melli and Bank Leumi in Israel to continue.
Eliz Sanasarian estimates that in 1948–1953, about one-third of Iranian Jews, most of them poor, emigrated to Israel. David Littman puts the total figure of emigrants to Israel in 1948-1978 at 70,000.
From the beginning of the 20th century, the literacy rate among the Jewish minority was significantly higher than the Muslim masses. In 1945 about 80 percent of the Jewish population were literate, whereas most Muslims could not read and write. In 1968 only 30 percent of Muslims were literate, whereas this figure was more than 80 percent for the Jews.
The Six-Day War between Arabs and Israel in 1967 created a tense environment for Persian Jewry. During this time, the synagogues in Shiraz remained closed for more than ten weeks until Tisha B'Av for fear of attacks from Muslims masses. Jewish sources report that many gentiles tried to invade the Jewish ghetto and were dispersed by the police.
The reign of shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after the deposition of Mossadegh in 1953, was the most prosperous era for the Jews of Iran. In the 1970s, only 10 percent of Iranian Jews were classified as impoverished; 80 percent were middle class and 10 percent wealthy. Although Jews accounted for only a small percentage of Iran's population, in 1979 two of the 18 members of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, 80 of the 4,000 university lecturers, and 600 of the 10,000 physicians in Iran were Jews. An important factor in economic improvement of the Jews was close relations between the Shah and the state of Israel. Details of this connection and how the condition of Iranian Jews improved dramatically in a few short years still awaits rigorous exploration.
Ethnic minorities in Iran
Some of the main ethnic groups in Iran are also religious minorities. For instance, the majority of Kurds, Baluchis and Turkmen are Sunni Muslims and the Armenians are Christian, while the state religion in Iran is Shi'a Islam. Some of these groups, however, have large Shi'a minorities, and the overwhelming majority of Persians and Azeris are Shi'a.
Persian Jews
Jews are conscripted into the Iranian army like all Iranian citizens. Many Iranian Jews fought during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988) as drafted soldiers, and about 15 were killed.
History of the Jews in Iran
Ynet reported that Israeli-Iranian trade, conducted covertly and illegally by dozens of Israeli companies, totals tens of millions of dollars a year. Much of this trade is conducted through a third country. Israel supplies Iran with fertilizer, irrigation pipes, hormones for milk production, seeds, and fruit; Iran, meanwhile, provides Israel with marble, cashews, and pistachios. Based on the same report in November 2000, the Iranian government asked an Israeli company, which built Tehran's sewage pipes 30 years earlier, to visit the country for renovations. Shortly afterwards, the assistant director-general of Iran's Ministry of Agriculture visited Israel secretly and stayed at the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel. He expressed an interest in purchasing irrigation pipes, pesticides and fertilizers.
Estimates of the Jewish population in Iran until the census 2011 vary. In mid- and late 1980s, it was estimated at 20,000–30,000, rising to around 35,000 in the mid-1990s. The current Jewish population of Iran is 8,756 according to the most recent Iranian census.
International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust
Iran's sole Jewish member of parliament Maurice Motamed said: "Holding this conference after having a competition of cartoons about the Holocaust has put a lot of pressure on Jews all over the world;" and that "The conference has upset Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community."
Iran
Judaism has a long history in Iran, dating back to the Achaemenid conquest of Babylonia. Although many left in the wake of the establishment of the State of Israel and the 1979 Revolution, about 8,756 to 25,000 Jewish people live in Iran. Iran has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel.
Iranian Americans
The majority of Iranian-Americans are ethnic Persians, with sizeable ethnic minorities being Iranian Azerbaijanis, Iranian Armenians, Iranian Jews, Iranian Kurds, Iranian Assyrians, Iranian Turkmen, Iranian Baloch, Iranian Arabs, among others.
Kurds in Iran
Iranians of Kurdish origin also known as Iranian Kurds are Iranians of Kurdish ethnicity, many of whom speak Kurdish as their first language. The Kurds are the third largest ethnic group in Iran after the ethnic Persians and Iranian Azerbaijanis, comprising more than 10% of the country's population according to the CIA.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel
The Iranian government responded that "the Western media empire is trying to portray Iran as an anti-Semitic country". In addition, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that "Jews are respected by everyone, by all human beings ... some people think if they accuse me of being anti-Jew they can solve the problem. No, I am not anti-Jew ... I respect them very much ... We love everyone in the world – Jews, Christians, Muslims, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non-Christians".
Persian Jews
Iran's Jewish population was reduced from 100,000–150,000 in 1948 to about 80,000 immediately before the Iranian Revolution, due mostly to immigration to Israel. While immigration to Israel had slowed in the 1970s and the Jewish population of Iran had stabilized, the majority of Iran's remaining Jews left the country in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Shah. In the 2000s, the Jewish population of Iran was estimated by most sources to be 25,000, (sources date from 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2006, respectively) though estimates varied, with some as low as 17,000 by 2010 and as high as 40,000 in 1998. However, the official census in August 2012 indicated that there were only 8,756 Jews still living in Iran. Notable population centers include Tehran, Isfahan (1,200), and Shiraz. Historically, Jews maintained a presence in many more Iranian cities. Jews are protected in the Iranian constitution and allowed one seat in the Majlis. After Israel, it is home to the second-largest Jewish population in the Middle East.
Persian Jews
Iranian Jews are generally allowed to travel to Israel and emigrate abroad, though they must submit passport and visa requests to a special section of the passport office, face restrictions on families leaving en masse, and travels to Israel must be done via a third country. However, the rate of emigration has been low. Between October 2005 and September 2006, 152 Jews left Iran, down from 297 during the same period the previous year, and 183 the year before that. Most of those who left allegedly cited economic and family reasons as their main incentive for leaving. In July 2007, Iran's Jewish community rejected financial emigration incentives to leave Iran. Offers ranging from 5,000–30,000 British pounds, financed by a wealthy expatriate Jew with the support of the Israeli government, were turned down by Iran's Jewish leaders. To place the incentives in perspective, the sums offered were up to 3 times or more than the average annual income for an Iranian. However, in late 2007 at least forty Iranian Jews accepted financial incentives offered by Jewish charities for immigrating to Israel. It has been asserted that the majority of Iranian Jews prefer to stay because they are allowed to live a comfortable Jewish life, though Iranian-American activist Sam Kermanian disputed this claim, stating that the majority of Iranian Jews are elderly and only speak Persian, and as a result are less naturally inclined to emigrate.
History of the Jews in Kyrgyzstan
According to a census held in 1896, the Jews represented about 2% of the region total population. It can be assumed that almost 100% of these Jews were Bukharian Jews or at least Sephardic Jews, meaning no Ashkenazi Jews were living in the Kyrgyz area before the 20th century. During World War II many Jews fled from the European parts of the Soviet Union to central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan, making the Jewish community of Kyrgyzstan combined out of an Ashkenazi community and a Bukharian Sephardic one. The two communities functioned separately and though it did occasionally happen, Ashkenazi–Sephardi intermarriages were not common.
History of the Jews in Iran
Yousef Cohen, last Jewish representative of Iranian Senate describes in his memoirs that Shah became suspicious of Jewish community in his final years because most of the international criticism about lack of freedom in Iran and military style of government came from Jewish authors. Furthermore, the writer for the influential and highly publicized book, fall of 77 (probably Crash of 79 by Paul Erdman mistakenly called 77 by Cohen), which predicted the fall of Shah a few years prior to his demise was Jewish. Shah, according to Cohen, displayed a remarkable intolerance and annoyance by the Jewish community in has last annual visit in March 1978 with the community leaders. Cohen describes that Shah believed that there is an international Jewish conspiracy against him to end his reign as the king.
Iranian Azerbaijanis
Azerbaijanis comprise the largest minority ethnic group in Iran. Apart from Iranian Azerbaijan (provinces of West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan), indigenous Azeri population is found in large numbers in four provinces: Hamadan (58% Azeri, as well as closely related groups such as Afshar, Gharehgozloo, Shahsevan, and Baharloo), Qazvin (52.2% Azerbaijani), Markazi (20.8% Azerbaijani) and Kurdistan. Azeri-populated parts of Markazi include Komijan, Khondab, Saveh, Zarandieh, Shazand, and Farahan. In Kurdistan, Azeris are mainly found in villages around Qorveh.
History of the Jews in Iran
In order to fight the growing racial antisemitism among the Iranian population, many Jews joined the Tudeh party and advocated for communism. Even though Jews comprised less than 2 percent of Iranian population, almost fifty percent of the members of the Tudeh party were Jewish. Tudeh party was the only party among the Iranian political parties that accepted Jews with open arms. Most writers for publications of the Tudeh party were Jewish. Furthermore, many Iranian Jews viewed communism as a Jewish movement since many leading members of the communist revolution in Russia were Jewish and were looked upon favorably by Persian Jews.
Religion in Israel
Most citizens in the State of Israel are Jewish. As of the end of 2015, Jews made up 74.9% percent of the population.
History of the Jews under Muslim rule
Today, the largest groups of Persian Jews are found in Israel (236,000-360,000 in 2014, including second-generation Israelis) and the United States (45,000, especially in the Los Angeles area, home to a large concentration of expatriate Iranians). There are also smaller communities in Western Europe.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
Many of the formerly 80,000-strong Iranian Jewish community had exited Iran by 1978. Subsequently, more than 80% of the remaining Iranian Jews fled or migrated from the country between 1979 and 2006. A small Jewish community of 7–10 thousands still resides in Iran as a protected minority.
Human rights in Iran
Jews have lived in Iran for nearly 3,000 years and Iran is host to the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside of Israel. An estimated 25,000 Jews remain in the country, although approximately 75% of Iran's Jewish population has emigrated during and since the Islamic revolution of 1979 and Iran-Iraq war In the early days after the Islamic revolution in 1979, several Jews were executed on charges of Zionism and relations with Israel. Jews in Iran have constitutional rights equal to other Iranians, although they may not hold government jobs or become army officers. They have freedom to follow their religion, but are not granted the freedom to proselytize. Despite their small numbers, Jews are allotted one representative in parliament.
Demographics of Israel
Most Arab citizens of Israel are Muslim, particularly of the Sunni branch of Islam. A small minority are Ahmadiyya sect and there are also some Alawites (affiliated with Shia Islam) of Ghajar with Israeli citizenship. As of 2008, Arab citizens of Israel comprised just over 20 percent of the country's total population. About 82.6 percent of the Arab population in Israel was Sunni Muslim (with a very small minority of Shia), another 9 percent was Druze, and around 9 percent was Christian (mostly Eastern Orthodox and Catholic denominations).
Persian Jews
The Jewish Encyclopedia estimated that in 1900 there were 35,000 Persian Jews in Iran (almost all of whom lived in present-day Iran), although other sources estimate somewhat higher numbers for the same time. On the eve of Israel's independence in 1948, there were, by varying estimates, 100,000–150,000 Jews in Iran with relatively few Persian Jews residing outside the country. Today, there are an estimated 300,000–350,000 Jews of full or partial Persian ancestry living predominantly in Israel, with significant communities in the United States and Iran.
Ahwazi Arabs
According to Library of Congress, Iranian Arabs constitute 1-2% of Iranian population. The majority are Shia Muslims, while a minority, concentrated in the coastal areas, are Sunni Muslims.
Siamak Moreh Sedgh
Dr. Siamak MoreSedegh (;
sometimes transliterated as Siamak Morsadegh; born 1965, Shiraz)
is the sole Jewish MP in the Majlis of Iran. He is the director of the Tehran Jewish Committee and the Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center in Tehran, where he is a practicing doctor.
In response to an aliyah of 40 Persian Jews from Iran to Israel in 2007, Morsadegh responded that the Jews in Iran are not in danger from the policies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the Iranian legislative election, 2008, Siamak Morsadegh was elected to represent Persian Jews in the Iranian Parliament, succeeding Maurice Motamed.
History of the Jews in Iran
Prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there were 80,000 Jews in Iran, concentrated in Teheran (60,000), Shiraz (8,000), Kermanshah (4,000), Isfahan (3,000), the cities of Khuzistan, as well as Kashan, Tabriz, and Hamedan.
Shiraz
, Shiraz has a population of 1,700,665 the majority of whom are Persian. Most of the population of Shiraz are Muslims. Shiraz also was home to a 20,000-strong Jewish community, although most emigrated to the United States and Israel in the latter half of the 20th century. Along with Tehran and Esfahan, Shiraz is one of the handful of Iranian cities with a sizable Jewish population, and more than one active synagogue. Though officially Muslims, many Shirazis privately practice Zoroastrianism or at least hold it in high regard.
Iranian Americans
Half of the nation's Iranians reside in the state of California alone. Other large communities include New York/New Jersey, which have 9.1% of the U.S.'s Iranian population, followed by Washington, D.C./Maryland/Virginia (8.3%) and Texas (6.7%). Kings Point, New York, a village in Great Neck, New York, is said to have the largest concentration of Iranians in the United States (approximately 40%). However, unlike the population in Los Angeles, the Great Neck population is almost exclusively Jewish.
Persian Jews
Thirteen Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution, most of them for alleged connections to Israel. Among them, one of the most prominent Jews of Iran in the 1970s, Habib Elghanian who was the head of the Iranian Jewish community was executed by a firing squad by the Islamic government shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 on the charge having had contact with Israel, among others. In May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kadkhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate.
Iranian Azerbaijanis
Generally, Azeris in Iran were regarded as "a well integrated linguistic minority" by academics prior to Iran's Islamic Revolution. Despite friction, Azeris in Iran came to be well represented at all levels of, "political, military, and intellectual hierarchies, as well as the religious hierarchy.". In addition, the current Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, is half Azeri. In contrast to the claims of de facto discrimination of some Azeris in Iran, the government claims that its policy in the past 30 years has been one of pan-Islamism, which is based on a common Islamic religion of which diverse ethnic groups may be part, and which does not favor or repress any particular ethnicity, including the Persian majority. Persian language is thus merely used as the lingua franca of the country, which helps maintain Iran's traditional centralized model of government. More recently, the Azerbaijani language and culture is being taught and studied at university level in Iran, and there appears to exist publications of books, newspapers and apparently, regional radio broadcasts too in the language.
Furthermore, Article 15 of Iran's constitution reads:
According to Professor. Nikki R. Keddie of UCLA: "One can purchase newspapers, books, music tapes, and videos in Azeri and Kurdish, and there are radio and television stations in ethnic areas that broadcast news and entertainment programs in even more languages".
Religion in Iran
Today Islam is the religion of 99.6% of Iranians of which approximately 89% are Shia – almost all of whom are Twelvers. The Shia groups have distinctions between Fiver, Sevener and Twelver, derived from their belief in how many divinely ordained leaders there were who are descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and his son-in-law Ali. These Imams are considered the best source of knowledge about the Quran and Islam, the most trusted carriers and protectors of Muḥammad's Sunnah (habit or usual practice) and the most worthy of emulation. In addition to the lineage of Imams, Twelvers have their preferred hadith collections – The Four Books – which are narrations regarded by Muslims as important tools for understanding the Quran and in matters of jurisprudence. For Twelvers the lineage of Imams are known as the Twelve Imams. Of these Imams, only one is buried in Iran – at the Imam Reza shrine, for Ali ar-Ridha who lived from 765 – 818 AD, before any Shi'a dynasties arose in Iran. The last Imam recognized by Twelvers, Muhammad al-Mahdi, was born in 868 AD as the Alavids spread their rule in Iran while in conflict with Al-Mu'tamid, the Abbasid Caliph at the time. Several Imams are buried in Iraq, as sites of pilgrimage, and the rest are in Saudi Arabia. In addition two of the Five Martyrs of Shia Islam have connections to Iran – Shahid Thani (1506–1558) lived in Iran later in life, and Qazi Nurullah Shustari (1549–1610) was born in Iran.
The predominant school of theology, practice, and jurisprudence (Madh'hab) in Shia Islam is Jafari established by Ja'far as-Sadiq.
Persian Jews
After the deposition of Mossadegh in 1953, the reign of shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the most prosperous era for the Jews of Iran. In the 1970s, only 1% of Iranian Jews were classified as lower class; 80% were middle class and 10% wealthy. Although Jews accounted for only a small percentage of Iran's population, in 1979 two of the 18 members of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, 80 of the 4,000 university lecturers, and 600 of the 10,000 physicians in Iran were Jews.
Iranian Jews in Israel
In the late 1800s-1900s mostly strong religious Iranians Jews began immigrating to Israel. After the establishment of the state of Israel, the immigration to Israel was increased significantly. In 1952 under the Israeli mission, Operation Cyrus, approximately 30,000 Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel. In addition, many Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution an additional 10,000 to 15,000 Iranian Jews immigrated directly to Israel, many others migrated first to the United States or Europe and then immigrated to Israel, mainly out of fear of the new Ayatollahs regime but also from lack of familiarity with Israel (Israel, in Iran, was seen as a country of infidels and atheists, a terrible thing to be in the Middle East; while most of the Iranian Jews are religious or traditionalists). Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, over 134,000 Iranian have settled in Israel. Some fled after Iran murdered a prominent Jew accused of "Zionism." Israel continues to encourage the remaining Jews in Iran (less than 9,000) to immigrate since Israel sees the Jews of Iran as hostages of the Iranian regime, against Israel. In 2007 Israel offered monetary incentives to Jews in Iran to encourage Iranian Jewish immigration to Israel. Jews of Iranian descent in Israel are considered part of the Mizrahim. In the 1950s the Israeli treatment of Iranian Jews was similar to the Israeli treatment of other Jews from the Middle Eastern and North African region.
Persian Jews
Jews in the Islamic Republic of Iran are formally to be treated equally and free to practice their religion. There is even a seat in the Iranian parliament reserved for the representative of the Iranian Jews. However, de facto, discrimination is common.
Culture of Iran
Today of the 98% of Muslims living in Iran, around 89% are Shi'a and only around 9% are Sunni.This is quite the opposite trend of the percentage distribution of Shi'a to Sunni Islam followers in the rest of the Muslim population from state to state (primarily in the Middle East) and throughout the rest of the world. This data is from the government of Iran and most likely contains false information. It is very likely that the percentage of Muslims living in Iran is highly exaggerated as Islam is forced under the Islamic Republic's sharia law.
Islam in Iran
Sunni Muslims constitute approximately 10% of the Iranian population. A majority of Lari people (Persians), a part of Kurds, virtually all Baluchis and Turkomans, and a minority of Arabs and Azeris are Sunnis, as are small communities of Persians in southern Iran and Khorasan.
Israeli Jews
Today over 2,500,000 Mizrahi Jews, and Sephardic Jews live in Israel with the majority of them being descendants of the 680,000 Jews who fled Arab countries (<2,500,000), due to expulsions, and antisemitism, with smaller numbers having immigrated from the Islamic Republics of the Former Soviet Union (c.250,000), India (70,000), Iran (200,000–250,000), Turkey (80,000). Before the immigration of over 1,000,000 Russian mainly Ashkenazi Jews to Israel after to collapse of the Soviet Union, 70% of Israeli Jews were Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews.
Ethnicities in Iran
Iranian Azerbaijanis (also known as Iranian Turks) are a Turkic-speaking people of mixed Caucasian, Iranian and Turkic origin, who live mainly in Iranian Azerbaijan. Estimated numbers or percentages vary significantly and many estimates cited appear to be politically motivated. They are often considered the second largest ethnic group in Iran and the largest ethnic minority. The main estimations are stated below :
History of the Jews in Iran
During the Islamic Revolution, many of the Iranian Jews, especially wealthy Jewish leaders in Tehran and many Jewish villages surrounding Esfahan and Kerman, left the country. In late 1979s, the people who left was estimated at 50,000–90,000.
Persian Jews
The United States is home to 60,000–80,000 Iranian Jews, most of whom have settled in the Greater Los Angeles area and in Great Neck, New York. Those in metropolitan Los Angeles have settled mostly in the affluent Westside cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and the Los Angeles Westside neighborhoods of Brentwood, Westwood, and West L.A., as well as the San Fernando Valley communities of Tarzana and Encino.
Persian Jews
Persian Jews or Iranian Jews (, ) are Jews historically associated with the Persian Empire, whose successor state is Iran.
Jews
Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens. Israel was established as an independent democratic and Jewish state on 14 May 1948. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset, , 14 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel (not including the Druze), most representing Arab political parties. One of Israel's Supreme Court judges is also an Arab citizen of Israel.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
There are conflicting estimates on the number of Jews who chose to leave Iran during those years. According to Trita Parsi, by 1951 only 8,000 of 100,000 Iranian Jews chose to emigrate to Israel. However, according to Sanasarian, during 1948–1953, about one-third of Iranian Jews, most of them poor, emigrated to Israel.
American Jews
About half of the American Jews are considered to be religious. Out of this 2,831,000 religious Jewish population, 92% are non-Hispanic white, 5% Hispanic (Most commonly from Argentina, Venezuela, or Cuba), 1% Asian (Mostly Bukharian and Persian Jews), 1% Black and 1% Other (mixed race etc.). Almost this many non-religious Jews exist in United States, the proportion of Whites being higher than that among the religious population.
Iran
It is estimated that in 480 BC, 50 million people lived in the Achaemenid Empire. The empire at its peak ruled over 44% of the world's population, the highest such figure for any empire in history.
The Achaemenid Empire is noted for the release of the Jewish exiles in Babylon, building infrastructures such as the Royal Road and the Chapar (postal service), and the use of an official language, Imperial Aramaic, throughout its territories. The empire had a centralized, bureaucratic administration under the emperor, a large professional army, and civil services, inspiring similar developments in later empires.
Orthodox Judaism
In the State of Israel, where the total Jewish population is about 6.5 million, 22% of all Jewish respondents to a 2016 PEW survey declared themselves as observant Orthodox (9% "Haredim", or "Ultra-Orthodox", 13% "Datiim", "religious"). 29% described themselves as "traditional", a label largely implying little observance, but identification with Orthodoxy. The second largest Orthodox concentration is in the United States, where a 2013 PEW survey found that 10% of respondents identify as such, in a total Jewish population of at least 5.5 million. 3% were Modern Orthodox, 6% were Ultra-Orthodox, and 1% were "other" (Sephardic, liberal Orthodox, etc.) In Britain, of 79,597 households with at least one Jewish member that held synagogue membership in 2016, 66% affiliated with Orthodox synagogues: 53% in "centrist Orthodox", where congregants are often lax in observance, and 13% in "strictly Orthodox" (further 3% were Sephardi, which technically eschews the title "Orthodox").
Demographics of Uzbekistan
The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 34.1% of its people are younger than 14. According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (80%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups include Russians 5.5%, Tajiks 5%, Kazakhs 3%, Karakalpaks 2.5%, and Tatars 1.5% (1996 estimates). 
Uzbekistan has an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to the region from the Soviet Far East in 1937-1938. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand. The nation is 88% Muslim (mostly Sunni, with a 5% Shi'a minority), 9% Eastern Orthodox and 3% other faiths (which include small communities of Korean Christians, other Christian denominations, Buddhists, Baha'is, and more). The Bukharan Jews have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but now, since the collapse of the USSR, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the United States or Israel. Fewer than 5,000 Jews remain in Uzbekistan.
Antisemitism in Europe
According to a 2006 poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 71% of French Muslims have positive views of Jews, the highest percentage in the world. According to the National Advisory Committee on Human Rights, antisemitic acts account for a majority— 72% in all in 2003— of racist acts in France. 40% of racist violence perpetrated in France in 2013 targeted the Jewish minority, despite the fact that Jews represent less than 1% of the French population.
Azerbaijan (Iran)
It was out of Ardabil (ancient Artavilla) that the Safavid dynasty arose to renew the state of Persia and establish Shi'ism as the official religion of Iran. Around the same time, the population of what is now Azerbaijan and Iran were converted to Shiism, and both nations remain the only nations in the world with a significantly Shia majority, with Iran having the largest Shia population by percentage, with the Republic of Azerbaijan having the second largest Shia population by percentage.
Secularism in Israel
The Jewish population of Israel, can be divided, albeit imperfectly, into three groups: Orthodox, Traditional, and Secular. The largest group is the Secular Jews making up 41.4% of the Jewish population, followed by the Traditional Jews accounting for 38.5% of the population, with the remaining 20% populated by the orthodox and ultra-orthodox. In Israel, the Reform and Conservative movements are estimated to make up 7.6% of the Jewish population, a significantly lower rate compared to the Jewish diaspora.
Ethnicities in Iran
A majority of the population of Iran (approximately 67–80%) consists of Iranic peoples.
The largest groups in this category include Persians (who form the majority of the Iranian population) and Kurds, with smaller communities including Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Lurs, Tats, Talysh, and Baloch.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
Some sources put the Iranian Jewish population in the mid- and late 1980s as between 50,000–60,000. An estimate based on the 1986 census put the figure for the same time period, at approximately 55,000. For the 1990s there has been more uniformity in the figures, with most sources since then estimating roughly 25,000 Jews remaining in Iran.
Many Iranian Jews chose to immigrate to the United States and have built large communities in Los Angeles, Miami, Texas, and New York. According to the 2010 Foreign Born Population Survey, an estimated 100,000 Iranian Jews are currently living in Los Angeles alone. At first, Iranian Jews did not receive a warm welcome from the other Jewish groups living in the United States. Most of these Jews are Ashkenazi, while Iranian Jews are Sephardic, and they do not share the same culture or some of the same tradition. These new Iranian Jewish communities in the United States have thrived and have become great centers of Jewish learning and study for all Jews. The Iranian Jewish communities in the United States have kept many of their traditions alive through the teaching of Sephardic Jewish customs in schools and synagogues across the United States. Iranian Jews living in the United States have also helped to bring other Jews from Iran and other parts of the world into the United States so they can escape religious persecution and harassment as well.
Israelis
The official Israel Central Bureau of Statistics estimate of the Israeli Jewish population does not include those Israeli citizens, mostly descended from immigrants from the Soviet Union, who are registered as "others", or their immediate family members. Defined as non-Jews and non-Arabs, they make up about 3.5% of Israelis (350,000), and were eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.
Demographics of Israel
In June 2013, the Central Bureau of Statistics released a demographic report, projecting that Israel's population would grow to 11.4 million by 2035, with the Jewish population numbering 8.3 million, or 73% of the population, and the Arab population at 2.6 million, or 23%. This includes some 2.3 million Muslims (20% of the population), 185,000 Druze, and 152,000 Christians. The report predicts that the Israeli population growth rate will decline to 1.4% annually, with growth in the Muslim population remaining higher than the Jewish population until 2035, at which point the Jewish population will begin growing the fastest.
Maurice Motamed
With regard to Holocaust denial comments made by Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Motamed has expressed significant concerns, noting that "Denial of such a great historical tragedy that is connected to the Jewish community can only be considered an insult to all the world's Jewish communities." He also criticised Iranian television for broadcasting antisemitic programmes. He also added that, "The Iranian Jews have been present in this country for a long time, for some 2,700 [years]. During these 2,700 years they have always been in full understanding with the society, they've lived in friendship and brotherhood, so therefore I don't think that bringing up such an issue could damage the Jewish community in Iran."
Freedom of religion in Iran
The Jewish community has been reduced to less than one-half of its prerevolutionary size. Some of this emigration is connected with the larger, general waves of departures following the establishment of the Islamic Republic, but some also stems from continued perceived anti-Semitism on the part of the government and within society.
The government's anti-Israel policies, along with a perception among radical Muslims that all Jewish citizens supported Zionism and the state of Israel, created a hostile atmosphere for the small community. For example, in 2005 many newspapers celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the anti-Semitic publication Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Jewish leaders reportedly were reluctant to draw attention to official mistreatment of their community due to fear of government reprisal.
Iranian Arabs
Elton Daniel in "The History of Iran" (Greenwood Press, 2001), states that the Arabs of Iran ""are concentrated in the province of Khuzistan and number about half a million"". The "Historical Dictionary of Iran" puts the number at 1 million. Iranian Arabs form 1-2% of Iran's population.
Iranian Americans
The intermarriage rate is very high among Iranian Americans. It has been estimated that nearly 50 percent of Iranian-Americans who married between 1995 and 2007 married non-Iranian Americans. Research has furthermore indicated that Iranian-Americans who are Muslim are more open to intermarry than those who are members of religious or ethnic minorities, such as Jews and Armenians. Compared to men, Iranian women are less likely to mix or intermarry outside their group, which, according to the PAAIA, is likely because, as a group, they are more likely to adhere to traditional Iranian values, including making marriages that are approved by their families and are within Iranian cultural norms. Regarding language proficiency in the United States among its immigrant groups, the first generation principally speaks their native language, the second generation speaks both English and their parents' language, and the third generation typically speaks only English, while maintaining a knowledge of some isolated words and phrases from their ancestral tongue. The Iranian American community follows this pattern.
Persian Jews
Today, the vast majority of Persian Jews live in Israel and the United States, especially in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and on the North Shore of Long Island. According to the latest Iranian census, the remaining Jewish population of Iran was 9,826 in 2016.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
In 1979, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a "fatwa" decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Nevertheless, emigration continued. At the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, 60,000 Jews were still living in Iran. From then on, Jewish emigration from Iran dramatically increased, as about 30,000 Jews left within several months of the revolution alone. Since the Revolution, much of Iran's Jewish population, some 30,000 Jews, have emigrated to the United States, Israel, and Europe (mainly to the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland).
Persian Jews
Chief Rabbi Yousef Hamadani Cohen is the present spiritual leader for the Jewish community of Iran. In August 2000, Chief Rabbi Cohen met with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami for the first time. In 2003, Chief Rabbi Cohen and Maurice Motamed met with President Khatami at Yusef Abad Synagogue which was the first time a President of Iran had visited a synagogue since the Islamic Revolution. Haroun Yashayaei is the chairman of the Jewish Committee of Tehran and leader of Iran's Jewish community. On January 26, 2007, Yashayaei's letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concerning his Holocaust denial comments brought about worldwide media attention.
Iran
As with the spoken languages, the ethnic group composition also remains a point of debate, mainly regarding the largest and second largest ethnic groups, the Persians and Azerbaijanis, due to the lack of Iranian state censuses based on ethnicity. The CIA's World Factbook has estimated that around 79% of the population of Iran are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of the Iranian languages, with Persians (incl. Mazenderanis and Gilaks) constituting 61% of the population, Kurds 10%, Lurs 6%, and Balochs 2%. Peoples of other ethno-linguistic groups make up the remaining 21%, with Azerbaijanis constituting 16%, Arabs 2%, Turkmens and other Turkic tribes 2%, and others (such as Armenians, Talysh, Georgians, Circassians, Assyrians) 1%.
2006 Israeli legislative election
Israeli Arabs constitute roughly 20% of the population in Israel. Many Israeli-Arab groups claim continued institutional and social discrimination against them in Israel. Because they are not Jews and many identify ethnically with Palestinians their identity often clashes with their citizenship in the Jewish state. There are large disparities in general living standard and education between Israeli Arabs and the non-Arab Israeli population; they also have a lower participation rate in the workforce. Discrimination and a lower proportion of females in the workforce are often cited as reasons for this.
Persian Jews
The largest group of Persian Jews is found in Israel. As of 2007, Israel is home to just over 47,000 Iranian-born Jews and roughly 87,000 Israeli-born Jews with fathers born in Iran. While these numbers add up to about 135,000, when Israelis with more distant or solely maternal Iranian roots are included the total number of Persian Jews in Israel is estimated to be between 200,000-250,000.
Religion in Iran
Iran supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country. In recent decades, the Jewish population of Iran has been reported by some sources to be 25,000, though estimates vary, as low as 11,000 and as high as 40,000. According to the Iranian census data from 2011 the number of Jews in Iran was 8,756, much lower than the figure previously estimated.
Ethnicities in Iran
A number of groups of Jews of Iran have split off since ancient times. They are now recognized as separate communities, such as the Bukharan Jews and Mountain Jews. In addition, there are several thousand in Iran who are, or who are the direct descendants of, Jews who have converted to Islam and the Bahá'í Faith.
History of the Jews under Muslim rule
Judaism is the second-oldest religion still existing in Iran after Zoroastrianism. By various estimates, between 8,000 and 10,000 Jews remain in Iran, mostly in Tehran and Hamedan. About one-third of the some 120,000-150,000 Iranian Jews in the mid-20th century fled the country during the 1950s, as a consequence of political instability. Most of the remaining 80,000-100,000 Jews fled during and following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
According to the first national census taken in 1956, Jewish population in Iran stood at 65,232, but there is no reliable data about migrations in the first half of the 20th century. David Littman puts the total figure of emigrants to Israel in 1948–1978 at 70,000.
Israeli Jews
According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of February 2013, of Israel's 8 million people, 75.4% were Jews of any background. Among them, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel)—22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries. Nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Europe, while around the same number are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia. Over two hundred thousand are, or are descended from, Ethiopian and Indian Jews.
Demographics of Iran
Jews have had a continuous presence in Iran since the time of Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire. In 1948, there were approximately 140,000–150,000 Jews living in Iran. According to the Tehran Jewish Committee, the Jewish population of Iran was (more recently) estimated at about 25,000 to 35,000, of which approximately 15,000 are in Tehran with the rest residing in Hamadan, Shiraz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Yazd, Kerman, Rafsanjan, Borujerd, Sanandaj, Tabriz and Urmia. However, the official 2011 state census recorded only 8,756 Jews in Iran.
Religion and politics in the United States
There has never been a Jewish President or Vice-President. The only Jewish major party candidate for either of those offices was Joe Lieberman in the Gore-Lieberman campaign of 2000 (although John Kerry and Barry Goldwater both had Jewish ancestry). Lieberman's faith is Orthodox Judaic. Some sources indicate that Jews constitute only 1.4% of the U.S. population, although others indicate that Jews comprise as much as 2.1% of the population (a significant decline from over 3% in the 1950s, chiefly due to the relatively low birthrate among Jewish Americans and high rates of out-marriage to non-Jews).
Religion in Israel
Religion in Israel is a central feature of the country and plays a major role in shaping Israeli culture and lifestyle. Religion has played a central role in Israel's history. Israel is also the only country in the world where a majority of citizens are Jewish. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the population in 2011 was 75.4% Jewish, 20.6% Arab, and 4.1% minority groups. The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2016 was 74.7% Jewish, 17.7% Muslim, 2.0% Christian, and 1.6% Druze, with the remaining 4.1% including faiths such as Samaritanism and Baha'iism, and irreligious people with no faith.
Jewish views and involvement in US politics
"Jews have devoted themselves to politics with almost religious fervor", writes Mitchell Bard, who adds that Jews have the highest percentage voter turnout of any ethnic group. While 2–2.5% of the United States population is Jewish, 94% live in 13 key electoral college states, which combined have enough electors to elect the president. Though the majority (60–70%) of the country's Jews identify as Democratic, Jews span the political spectrum, and Helmreich describes them as "a uniquely swayable bloc" as a result of Republican stances on Israel. A paper by Dr. Eric Uslaner of the University of Maryland disagrees, at least with regard to the 2004 election: "Only 15% of Jews said that Israel was a key voting issue. Among those voters, 55% voted for Kerry (compared to 83% of Jewish voters not concerned with Israel)." The paper goes on point out that negative views of Evangelical Christians had a distinctly negative impact for Republicans among Jewish voters, while Orthodox Jews, traditionally more conservative in outlook as to social issues, favored the Republican Party. A "New York Times" article suggests that the Jewish movement to the Republican party is focused heavily on faith-based issues, similar to the Catholic vote, which is credited for helping President Bush taking Florida in 2004.
Tat people (Iran)
Tats of Iran use the Tati language (Iran), a group of northwestern Iranian dialects which are closely related to the Talysh language. Persian and Azerbaijani are also spoken. Tats of Iran are mainly Zoroastrian, Jewish and Muslim and number about 300,000.
Azerbaijan
Iranian Azerbaijanis are by far the largest minority in Iran. The number of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran furthermore far outnumber those in neighboring Azerbaijan. The CIA World Factbook estimates Iranian Azerbaijanis as constituting at least 16% of Iran's population.
Demographics of Israel
In 2017, the Central Bureau of Statistics projected that Israel's population would rise to about 18 million by 2059, including 14.4 million Jews and 3.6 million Arabs. Of the Jewish population, about 5.25 million would be ultra-Orthodox Jews. Overall, the forecast projected that 49% of the population would be either ultra-Orthodox Jews (29%) and Arabs (20%). It also projected a population of 20 million in 2065.
Israel's role in the Iran–Iraq war
Another source argues that Israel saw the Persian Gulf War as an opportunity to ensure the safety of the Persian Jewish community which it believed was at risk. At the time of the revolution in Iran, there were 80,000 Jews in the country. They were a recognised minority along with Christians and Zoroastrians in Iran, which in general had suffered no persecution and had been able to continue their affairs undisturbed. The fundamentalism of Khomeini put all that at risk. Clandestine support of Iran ensured the safety of the Jewish community and allowed thousands to emigrate; it also contributed substantially to Iran's successful defence of its borders.
Persian Jews
Most Jews live in Tehran, the capital. Today Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues, many of them with Hebrew schools. It has two kosher restaurants, an old-age home and a cemetery. There is a Jewish library with 20,000 titles. Traditionally however, Shiraz, Hamedan, Isfahan, Tabriz, Nahawand, Babol and some other cities of Iran were home to large populations of Jews. At present there are 25 synagogues in Iran. Esfahan has a Jewish population of about 1,500, consisting mostly of businesspeople. As of 2015 there were 13 synagogues, including the primary synagogue on Palestine Square. In Esfahan, Many Jewish businesses are concentrated in an area called "Jewish Passage".
Israeli Jews
When Israel was first established in 1948, it had the third-largest Jewish population in the world, after the United States and Soviet Union. In the 1970s, Israel surpassed the Soviet Union as having the second-largest Jewish population. In 2003, The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel had surpassed the United States as the nation with the world's largest Jewish population. The report was contested by Professor Sergio DellaPergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Considered the greatest demographic expert on Jews, Della Pergola said it would take another three years to close the gap. In January 2006, Della Pergola stated that Israel now had more Jews than the United States, and Tel Aviv had replaced New York as the metropolitan area with the largest Jewish population in the world, while a major demographic study found that Israel's Jewish population surpassed that of the United States in 2008. Due to the decline of Diaspora Jewry as a result of intermarriage and assimilation, along with the steady growth of the Israeli Jewish population, it has been speculated that within about 20 years, most of the world's Jews will live in Israel. In March 2012, the Israeli Census Bureau of Statistics reported on behalf of "Ynet" has forecast that in 2019, Israel will be home to 6,940,000 Jews, 5.84 million which are non-haredi Jews living in Israel, compared with 5.27 million in 2009. The number is expected to grow to anywhere between 6.09 million and 9.95 million by 2059, marking a 16%–89% increase with the 2011 population. The Bureau also forecasts that the ultra-Orthodox population will number 1.1 million people by 2019, compared with 750,000 in 2009. By 2059, the projected Haredi Jewish population is estimated to between 2.73 million and 5.84 million, marking a 264%–686% increase. Thus the total projected Israeli Jewish population by 2059 is estimated to between 8.82 million and 15.790 million. In January 2014, it was reported by demographer Joseph Chamie that the projected population of Israeli Jews is expected to reach between 9.84 million by the year 2025 and 11.40 million by 2035.
Religion in Iran
On the other hand, senior government posts are reserved for Muslims. All minority religious groups, including Sunni Muslims, are barred from being elected president. Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian schools must be run by Muslim principals.
Compensation for death paid to the family of a non-Muslim was (by law) less than if the victim was a Muslim until recently. Conversion to Islam is encouraged by islamic inheritance laws, which mean that by converting to Islam, a convert will inherit the entire share of their parents' (or even uncle's) estate if their siblings (or cousins) remain non-Muslim. Iran's non-Muslim population has fallen dramatically. For example, the Jewish population in Iran dropped from 80,000 to 30,000 in the first two decades of the revolution. By 2012, it had dwindled below 9,000.
Jews of Iran (film)
Although Jews have lived in Iran for 2,700 years, the 1979 Iranian Revolution pressured most Jews to leave the country. In modern Iran, rampant antisemitism continues to threaten the remaining citizens.
"They’re very open with their insults," says a young Jewish girl exposed to prejudice in Iran. Regarding her treatment by Iranians: "They say we're impure — we're filthy."
Iran
Other non-governmental estimations regarding the groups other than the Persians and Azerbaijanis roughly congruate with the World Factbook and the Library of Congress. However, many scholarly and organisational estimations regarding the number of these two groups differ significantly from the mentioned census. According to many of them, the number of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran comprises between 21.6–30% of the total population, with the majority holding it on 25%. In any case, the largest population of Azerbaijanis in the world live in Iran.
Azerbaijan–Iran relations
During an official visit to Baku in October 2012, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described his country's relations with Azerbaijan as “brotherly and very deep,” pointing to the countries’ shared ethnic and religious heritage. A very large amount of ethnic Azerbaijanis populate the northwest region of Iran and are nowadays called native to the region, which is also called Azerbaijan, and both countries are majority Shia, while they hold the 1st and 2nd largest Shia adherents by population percentages in the world. As with almost their entire history, which is fully intertwined, the history of Shi'ism as the majority religion is rooted from exactly the same moment in history, dating back to the Safavid era. Representing two of only four Shia majority countries in the world, Azerbaijan and Iran share religious ties and a common border. Far more ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran (approximately 15-20 million) than in the Republic of Azerbaijan itself (approximately nine million), a result of the irrevocable forced cession by Qajar Iran of the territory that nowadays comprises Azerbaijan Republic to Imperial Russia in the course of the 19th century. Although Azerbaijan and Iran share strong historical and cultural connections, the countries are not natural allies. According to Alex Vatanka at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., “Ahmadinejad’s statement blatantly misrepresented the current state of affairs; today, it is not historical affinity but rather intense suspicion and rivalry that shape ties between Baku and Tehran. The same month Ahmadinejad made the statement, a court in Baku gave lengthy prison sentences to 22 Azerbaijanis charged with spying for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and plotting to carry out attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in Azerbaijan.”
Ethnicities in Iran
Arabs account for about 2–3% of the Iranian population.
The remainder, amounting to about 1% of Iranian population, consists of a variety of minor groups, mainly comprising Assyrians, Armenians, Georgians, Circassians, and
Mandaeans.
Iran
Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and the Sunni branch of Islam are officially recognized by the government, and have reserved seats in the Iranian Parliament. But the Bahá'í Faith, which is said to be the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran is not officially recognized, and has been persecuted during its existence in Iran since the 19th century, while according to statistics center of Iran, Bahais constitute only about 0.37% of Iran, namely about 25.000 to 40.000 people, and it is also said that there does seem to be a kind of exaggeration in declaration of their population by the order of Bahais heads. Since the 1979 Revolution, the persecution of Bahais has increased with executions and denial of civil rights, especially the denial of access to higher education and employment.
Iranian Jews in Israel
Iranian Jews in Israel refers to the community of Iranian Jews who migrated to Israel after the formation of the modern state and living within the state of Israel. They have a deep and strong connection to Iran, so overall Iranian Jews who immigrated to Israel or Israeli-Iranian and their descendants keep on using the Persian language and also hold a strong Iranian identity. At the same time most of the Iranian Jews are religious or traditionals and have a very strong and deep connection to the Jewish religion and to the state of Israel.
Persian Jews
A June 2009 "Los Angeles Times" blog article about Iranian-Israeli Jews showing solidarity with the Iranian protestors said, "The Israeli community of Iranian Jews numbers about 170,000 – including the first generation of Israeli-born – and is deeply proud of its roots." The largest concentration of Persian Jews in Israel is found in the city Holon. In Israel, Persian Jews are classified as Mizrahim. Both former President Moshe Katsav and former Minister of Defense and former head of the opposition in the Knesset Shaul Mofaz are of Persian Jewish origin. Katsav was born in Yazd and Mofaz was born in Tehran.
Iran
Percentages of spoken language continue to be a point of debate, as many opt that they are politically motivated; most notably regarding the largest and second largest ethnicities in Iran, the Persians and Azerbaijanis. Percentages given by the CIA's World Factbook include 53% Persian, 16% Azerbaijani Turkish, 10% Kurdish, 7% Mazenderani and Gilaki, 7% Lurish, 2% Turkmen, 2% Balochi, 2% Arabic, and 2% the remainder Armenian, Georgian, Neo-Aramaic, and Circassian.
History of the Jews in Iran
ٍEven though Mohammadreza Pahlavi was very positive towards religious minorities and especially Jews in the beginnings of his reign as king, he displayed antisemitic tendencies in the last decade of his rule. During an interview with Mike Wallace in 1976 Shah spoke of a highly organized and influential Jewish lobby in the United States that controls banking, politics and media and is pushing people around for the interests of Israel.
Azerbaijani population
According to a report by Ethnologue, in 2013, out of the total population of 70,496,000 million people in Iran there were 15.5 million Azerbaijani living in Iran(Above to 20% of the total population). New America Foundation has reported in 2009 that the Azerbaijani population in Iran is 21.6%. According to the World Factbook and Library of Congress, Azerbaijani people make up 16% of Iran's population (about 12-13 million, out of 77 million people) the online encyclopaedia of writing systems & languages report South Azerbaijani variety has about 16.9 million speakers mainly in the northwest of Iran, and also in parts of Iraq and Turkey, and in Afghanistan and Syria.
Persian Jews
The violence and disruption in Arab life associated with the founding of Israel and its victory in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War drove increased anti-Jewish sentiment in Iran. This continued until 1953, in part because of the weakening of the central government and strengthening of clergy in the political struggles between the shah and prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. From 1948–1953, about one-third of Iranian Jews, most of them poor, immigrated to Israel. David Littman puts the total figure of Iranian Jews who immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1978 at 70,000.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
Historian Ervand Abrahamian estimated that 50,000 Jews were living in Iran around 1900, with majority of them residing in Yazd, Shiraz, Tehran, Isfahan and Hamadan.
West Azerbaijan Province
There are no official statistics or census figures on the ethnic makeup of Iran. Most of the population in West Azerbaijan Province are Azerbaijanis and Kurds. There are three other ethnic and religious groups who are native to the province and have minority status: Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews. There are also Kurdish immigrants from neighbor province in some southern cities of the province.
Iranian Americans
According to extrapolated U.S. Census data and other independent surveys done by Iranian-Americans themselves in 2009, there were an estimated one million Iranian-Americans living in the U.S., with the largest concentration—about 72,000 people—living in the Los Angeles area. For this reason, the L.A. area, with its Iranian American residents, is sometimes referred to as "Tehrangeles" or "Irangeles" among Iranian-Americans. Regarding Iranian-Americans of Armenian origin, the 1980 US Census put the number of Armenians living in Los Angeles at 52,400, of whom 71.9% were foreign born: 14.7% in Iran, 14.3% in the USSR, 11.5% in Lebanon, 9.7% in Turkey, 11.7% in other Middle Eastern countries (Egypt, Iraq, Israel, etc.), and the rest in other parts of the world. Beverly Hills, Irvine, and Glendale all have large communities of Iranian Americans; 26% of the total population of Beverly Hills is Iranian Jewish, making it the city's largest religious community.
Demographics of Iran
Other sources, such as the Library of Congress, and the Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden) give Iran's ethnic groups as following: Persians 65%, Azerbaijanis 16%, Kurds 7%, Lurs 6%, Arabs 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmens 1%, Turkic tribal groups (e.g. Qashqai) 1%, and non-Persian, non-Turkic groups (e.g. Armenians, Georgians, Assyrians, Circassians, Basseri ) less than 1%. For sources prior to and after 2000, see Languages and ethnicities in Iran.