Oudlajan

Oudlajan, in addition to Arg, Dolat, Sangelaj, Bazar and Chalmeidan, constituted Old Tehran during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1848-1896).

[3] The Jews of Tehran did not settle en masse into one neighborhood because they were forced to, but, rather, due to the significance of traditional Jewish considerations, they gathered around their synagogues.

The importance of baths, Kosher meat and security likewise stimulated the Jews of Tehran to live together.

[3] Prior to the Persian Constitutional Revolution, Oudlajan was concomitantly the host to many synagogues while also being the one neighborhood of Tehran where most of its Jewish inhabitants lived.

[3] The synagogues of this time period are marked by their small architectural size, simplicity and minimal visual overlap with the urban texture of the surrounding area.

This trend has changed Oudlajan from a wealthy neighborhood into a storage area for Bazar and many old houses were turned into places for addicts.

[1] In the 1940s-1950s, during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as a result of the neighborhood's decline and the growth of Tehran and its enlargement to the north, the Jewish inhabitants of Oudlajan gradually moved to Tehran's northern parts, in particular Bagh-Saba (East), Hasan Abad (West) and its neighborhoods.