[8] The biblical books of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther contain references to the life and experiences of Jews in Persia and accounts of their relations with the Persian kings.

[13] According to Encyclopædia Britannica: "The Jews trace their heritage in Iran to the Babylonian Exile of the 6th century BC[E] and, like the Armenians, have retained their ethnic, linguistic, and religious identity.

Arguing against the authenticity of Ezra 1.1–4 is J. Briend, in a paper given at the Institut Catholique de Paris on 15 December 1993, who denies that it resembles the form of an official document but reflects rather the biblical prophetic idiom.

She also wrote that "appeals to Marduk in the cylinder and to Yahweh in the biblical decree demonstrate the Persian tendency to co-opt local religious and political traditions in the interest of imperial control.

In the winter of 226 AD, Ardashir I overthrew the last Parthian king (Artabanus IV), destroyed the rule of the Arsacids, and founded the dynasty of the Sassanids.

[25] A priestly Zoroastrian inscription from the time of King Bahram II (276–293 AD) contains a list of religions (including Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism etc.)

[28] Ghazan Khan's conversion to Islam in 1295 heralded for Persian Jews in Tabriz a pronounced turn for the worse, as they were once again relegated to the status of dhimmis (Covenant of Omar).

Öljeitü, Ghazan Khan's successor, destroyed many synagogues and decreed that Jews had to wear a distinctive mark on their heads; Christians endured similar persecutions.

In 1839, in an event known as Allahdad incident, many members of the Jewish community were forced to convert to Islam or left Mashhad, to Herat in Afghanistan or cities such as Bukhara in today's Uzbekistan.

Bābāʾī's introduction to the translation of the Psalms of David is unique, and sheds a certain amount of light on the teaching methods of Iranian Jewish schools in eighteenth-century Iran.

[34][35] In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews, describing conditions and beliefs that went back to the 16th century: They are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults.

The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them...

[36]A group of Persian Jewish refugees escaping persecution back home in Mashhad, Qajar Persia, were granted rights to settle in the Sikh Empire around the year 1839.

[42] In 1894, a representative of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Jewish humanitarian and educational organization, wrote from Tehran: "...every time that a priest wishes to emerge from obscurity and win a reputation for piety, he preaches war against the Jews".

An imam began preaching on the importance of eliminating alcohol for the sake of Islamic purity, leading to an assault against Jews for refusing to give up the wine they drank for Sabbath.

[48] According to Charles Recknagel and Azam Gorgin of Radio Free Europe, during the reign of Reza Shah "the political and social conditions of the Jews changed fundamentally."

[66] Soli Shahvar, professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Haifa describes the process of dispossession : "There were two waves of confiscation of homes, farmlands and factories of Jews in Iran.

[72] Iran's Jewish community is officially recognized as a religious minority group by the government, and, like the Zoroastrians and Christians, they are allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament.

He later discussed the matter with an American audience, saying that Israel's attacks on Soleimani had stoked tensions in the Jewish community in Iran, and he felt the need to take public action to de-escalate the situation.

[88] On 31 July 2024, the Tehran Central Jewish committee issued a statement condemning the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and called for an Iranian response.

[99][100][101][102] The Jewish Defense Organization, protested against one such visit by members of a Neturei Karta faction after they attended International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran.

Today, there are an estimated 300,000–350,000 Jews of full or partial Persian ancestry living predominantly in Israel, with significant communities in the United States and Iran.

IAJF is a leading organization in their efforts to fight local and global Antisemitism, protect Iranian Jews domestically and abroad, promote a unified community, participating in social and public affairs, provide financial and psychosocial assistance to those in need through philanthropic activities, and more.

[138] Bukharian Jews traditionally spoke a dialect of Judeo-Persian and lived primarily the region of Central Asia (today modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan).

"[148] An autosomal DNA study carried out in 2010 by Atzmon et al. examined the origin of Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Turkish, Greek, Sephardic, and Ashkenazi Jewish communities.

Atzmon concludes that "Each Jewish group demonstrated Middle Eastern ancestry and variable admixture from host population, while the split between Middle Eastern and European/Syrian Jews, calculated by simulation and comparison of length distributions of IBD segments, occurred 100–150 generations ago, which was described as "compatible with a historical divide that is reported to have occurred more than 2500 years ago" as the Jewish community in Iraq and Iran were formed by Jews in the Babylonian and Persian empires during and after Babylonian exile.

Citing Behar, Atzmon states that "Evidence for founder females of Middle Eastern origin has been observed in all Jewish populations based on non-overlapping mitochondrial haplotypes with coalescence times >2000 years".

Regarding this relationship, the authors conclude that "These observations are supported by the significant overlap of Y chromosomal haplogroups between Israeli and Palestinian Arabs with Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jewish populations".

"It is intriguing that the Mizrahi Iranian and Iraqi Jews—who are thought to descend at least in part from Jews who were exiled to Babylon about 2,600 years ago share the signal of African admixture.

[150][153] Patients with prolonged paralysis following administration of the anaesthetic succinylcholine are often diagnosed with Pseudocholinesterase deficiency which is a clinically silent condition in individuals who are not exposed to exogenous sources of choline esters.