Until mass emigration began in 1948, Jews constituted one of the largest and longest-settled non-Muslim populations in Iran. Dispersed in every city and town in the country, Iranian Jews were almost always a minority except in a few rural settlements, where they occasionally constituted a majority. Jewish communities of Afghanistan, Daghestan, and Central Asia were culturally and linguistically very closely related to those of Iran. All Iranian Jews speak Farsi, an Indo-European language. Each community also has its individual Jewish dialect, often mutually unintelligible to Jews from other regions. These dialects are grammatically and phonetically distinctive from standard Farsi and utilize Hebrew loanwords and metastasis. The traditional cottage industries of Iranian Jews included warp winding and the manufacture of wine and liquor, jewelry, musical instruments, ritual artifacts, and mosaics. More recently, coppersmithing, "antiques," and tourist items for foreign Jews were also made by Jewish artisans.

Concepts

iran

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Additional Tags

all iranian jews speak farsi, before 1948, jews constituted one of the largest and longest-settled non-muslim populations in iran, counties and their cultures, iranian jews included warp winding and the manufacture of wine and liquor, jewelry, musical instruments, ritual artifacts, and mosaics, jews of iran, jewish doctrines

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Classroom Considerations

• Knovation Readability Score: 2 (1 low difficulty, 5 high difficulty)
• The intended use for this resource is Instructional