Jews and Zoroastrians
I have reported on my five visits of Esfahan in Central Iran many times. The city is famous for being one of the most beautiful in the world. Its final grandeur arose in the early 17th century when the Safavid Shahs’ architecture culminated in magnificence which has not been seen before. It is not so well-known that Esfahan was colonized already during the Achaemenid reign by Jews. When Cyrus the Great freed them from Babylonian captivity in 539 BCE, some of the exiled went to the Northeast until they settled at the Zayandeh-Rud, where they founded Yahudiyah, now Jubareh, the Jewish Quarter. I have posted previously some astonishing discoveries I had made when strolling along the tree-lined alley in the old city of Esfahan last November. The more than 2000 years old Jewish cemetery in Pir Bakran and its still active synagogue are other amazing examples of the important contribution Jews played in Iranian history. After the fall of the Achaemenian Empire upon Alexander’s conquest, th...