Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, 1903 (Photo of the Day)
http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/chief-rabbi-photo.html
Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, 1903 (Photo of the Day)
By Juan Cole | Dec. 24, 2013
The Chief Rabbi of Yazd, Iran, in the center
Irans population in 1900 was around 10 million. There were roughly 100,000 Jews in Iran at that time.
Lord Curzon wrote in the late nineteenth century of different treatment of Jews in different parts of the country:
In Isfahan, where they are said to be 3,700 and where they occupy a relatively better status than elsewhere in Persia, they are not permitted to wear kolah or Persian headdress, to have shops in the bazaar, to build the walls of their houses as high as a Moslem neighbours, or to ride in the street. In Teheran and Kashan they are also to be found in large numbers and enjoying a fair position. In Shiraz they are very badly off. In Bushire they are prosperous and free from persecution.
From M. E. Hume-Griffith and A. Hume, Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia: An Account of an Englishwomans Eight Years Residence Amongst the Women of the East (1909).