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.

Lior Sternfeld is an associate professor of history and Jewish Studies at Penn State Unversity, and the author of  “Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran,” (Stanford University Press, 2018).