[1] He obtained a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran and then became a civil servant.

[1] During the rule of Pahlavi dynasty, Daneshrad was a dissident associated with the Tudeh Party of Iran and he was imprisoned in the 1960s and the 1970s.

[3][4] He co-founded the Association of Jewish Iranian Intellectuals (Jame‘eh-ye rowshanfekran-e kalimi-ye Iran; abbreviated AJII) in 1978, a revolutionary organization that tried to challenge the old guard leadership of the Jewish community which had royalist and Zionist orientations.

[3] After the Iranian Revolution, he took charge as the interim chairman of the Tehran Jewish Association because the previous officeholder Habib Elghanian was executed.

[1] There he was one of the four members who represented religious minorities[5] and he is likely to have sided with opposition to inclusion of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists in the constitution.