Mashhadi Jews

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The Mashhadi Jews are a Jewish community from Mashhad, Iran. They formed in the 1740s when Nadir Shah Afshar moved forty Jewish families from Qazvin and Dilaman to Mashhad to guard his treasures. The families settled there and built a tight-knit community.

In the 19th century, tensions grew. Some Mashhadi leaders had ties to the British, and Iran’s political shifts around Herat increased hostility toward Jews in Mashhad.

A turning point was the Allahdad of 1839, a blood libel during Ashura that led to a deadly pogrom. About 36 Jews were killed and seven Jewish girls abducted to become Muslim brides. Within 24 hours, many Jewish families pretended to convert to Islam for safety. Some could not maintain the facade and fled to Herat in 1840, while others lived double lives as covert Jews.

Starting in 1886, many Mashhadi families migrated to Marv and nearby areas in what is now Turkmenistan, seeking safety and business opportunities. After completing the Hajj in 1890, some went on to Jerusalem, where the first Mashhadi synagogues were built in 1901 and 1905.

In the 1910s some Mashhadi Jews moved to London. The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought some back to Mashhad, and in 1925 an agreement between Iran and Russia allowed some prisoners to return. Religion could be practiced more openly again.

A second blood libel in 1946 prompted many Mashhadi Jews to relocate to Tehran and Jerusalem, joining families already there. From the 1940s onward, some Mashhadi Jews moved to the United States. By 1948 Mashhad’s Jewish population was about 2,500.

In the 1950s, some moved to Germany and Italy. During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, many Mashhadi Jews in Tehran fled Iran. By the early 2000s, estimates placed thousands of Mashhadi Jews in Israel and the United States, with communities also in Europe and elsewhere. The Jerusalem Post estimated about 15,000 Mashhadi Jews in 2007, many in New York and Israel; by 2010 the worldwide number was reported to be over 20,000.

Today Mashhadi Jewish communities exist in Israel, New York, Milan, Hamburg, and London. Some estimates suggest about 10,000 Mashhadi Jews live in the United States, especially in Great Neck, New York. Many Mashhadi Jews continue to marry within their own community, and some marriage certificates once included verses from the Qur’an, reflecting a blend of traditions.