2/20/2018
CHOICE, April 2018 Vol. 55 No. 8
By no means a comprehensive history of Iranian Jewry, this book is nevertheless an important contribution to the miniscule English-language collection of historical materials about this community. The eight chapters are divided into two main sections. The first, "History and Community," is a brief introduction to the Jewish presence in Persia/Iran, which emphasizes the 15th-20th centuries and offers some discussion of emigration to Palestine. The second section, "Cultural Heritage," introduces Iranian Jewish literature, religious scholarship, and creative religious poetry, especially biblical exegesis, primarily in the writings of Shahin and 'Emrani, 14th and 15th centuries respecitively. Yeroushalmi (Tel Aviv Univ.) explains how difficult historical research can be when there is very little documentation, often unreliable sources, and only fragmentary oral history. So, for example, in trying to establish some population figures for the late 19th and early 20th centuries for Jewish communities scattered about, numbers vary substantially. Used together with other resources, this is a valuable work, and its bibliography is especially important for newcomers to the subject. Used alone, it might prove somewhat sketchy for those readers
--L. D. Loeb, University of Uta
Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.