What percentage of the Iranian population is Jewish?
1694940#47
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. Siamak Moreh Sedgh is the current Jewish member of the parliament, replacing Maurice Motamed in the 2008 election. In 2000, former Jewish MP Manuchehr Eliasi estimated that at that time there were still 60,000–85,000 Jews in Iran; most other sources put the figure at 25,000. As of 2018, only 8,500 Jews still live in Iran and they constitute 0,01% of Iranian population, a number confirmed by Sergio DellaPergola, a leading Jewish demographer.
Persian Jews
1694940#75
Kings Point, a village constituting part of Great Neck, has the greatest percentage of Iranians in the United States (approximately 40%). Unlike the Iranian community in Los Angeles, which contains a large number of non-Jewish Iranians, the Iranian population in and around Great Neck is almost entirely Jewish.
Persian Jews
40845537#12
Some sources put the Iranian Jewish population in the mid- and late 1980s as between 50,000–60,000. An estimate based on the 1986 census put the figure for the same time period, at approximately 55,000. For the 1990s there has been more uniformity in the figures, with most sources since then estimating roughly 25,000 Jews remaining in Iran.
Many Iranian Jews chose to immigrate to the United States and have built large communities in Los Angeles, Miami, Texas, and New York. According to the 2010 Foreign Born Population Survey, an estimated 100,000 Iranian Jews are currently living in Los Angeles alone. At first, Iranian Jews did not receive a warm welcome from the other Jewish groups living in the United States. Most of these Jews are Ashkenazi, while Iranian Jews are Sephardic, and they do not share the same culture or some of the same tradition. These new Iranian Jewish communities in the United States have thrived and have become great centers of Jewish learning and study for all Jews. The Iranian Jewish communities in the United States have kept many of their traditions alive through the teaching of Sephardic Jewish customs in schools and synagogues across the United States. Iranian Jews living in the United States have also helped to bring other Jews from Iran and other parts of the world into the United States so they can escape religious persecution and harassment as well.
Exodus of Iran's Jews
7773244#32
In order to fight the growing racial antisemitism among the Iranian population, many Jews joined the Tudeh party and advocated for communism. Even though Jews comprised less than 2 percent of Iranian population, almost fifty percent of the members of the Tudeh party were Jewish. Tudeh party was the only party among the Iranian political parties that accepted Jews with open arms. Most writers for publications of the Tudeh party were Jewish. Furthermore, many Iranian Jews viewed communism as a Jewish movement since many leading members of the communist revolution in Russia were Jewish and were looked upon favorably by Persian Jews.
History of the Jews in Iran
1694940#67
Iran's Jewish population was reduced from 100,000–150,000 in 1948 to about 80,000 immediately before the Iranian Revolution, due mostly to immigration to Israel. While immigration to Israel had slowed in the 1970s and the Jewish population of Iran had stabilized, the majority of Iran's remaining Jews left the country in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Shah. In the 2000s, the Jewish population of Iran was estimated by most sources to be 25,000, (sources date from 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2006, respectively) though estimates varied, with some as low as 17,000 by 2010 and as high as 40,000 in 1998. However, the official census in August 2012 indicated that there were only 8,756 Jews still living in Iran. Notable population centers include Tehran, Isfahan (1,200), and Shiraz. Historically, Jews maintained a presence in many more Iranian cities. Jews are protected in the Iranian constitution and allowed one seat in the Majlis. After Israel, it is home to the second-largest Jewish population in the Middle East.
Persian Jews
2234641#20
A 2012 national telephone survey of a sample of 400 Iranian-Americans, commissioned by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans and conducted by Zogby Research Services, asked the respondents what their religions were. The responses broke down as follows: Muslim 31%, atheist/realist/humanist 11%, agnostic 8%, Baha’i 7%, Jewish 5%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 2%, Zoroastrian 2%, "Other" 15%, and "No response" 15%. The survey had a cooperation rate of 31.2%. The margin of error for the results was +/- 5 percentage points, with higher margins of error for sub-groups. Notably, the number of Muslims decreased from 42% in 2008 to 31% in 2012.
Iranian Americans
2234641#16
Half of the nation's Iranians reside in the state of California alone. Other large communities include New York/New Jersey, which have 9.1% of the U.S.'s Iranian population, followed by Washington, D.C./Maryland/Virginia (8.3%) and Texas (6.7%). Kings Point, New York, a village in Great Neck, New York, is said to have the largest concentration of Iranians in the United States (approximately 40%). However, unlike the population in Los Angeles, the Great Neck population is almost exclusively Jewish.
Iranian Americans
42378271#20
Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles communities of Bel-Air and Brentwood were the destinations of many Iranian immigrants, who were the first immigrant groups to settle in these communities. In addition to those places Iranians also live in Santa Monica, West Los Angeles, and Westwood. As of 2007 there were about 8,000 Iranians in Beverly Hills, making up about 20% of the city's population, and as of 1990 the majority of Iranians in Beverly Hills were Jewish. By that year many Iranian restaurants and businesses were established in a portion of Westwood Boulevard south of Wilshire Boulevard. In 1990 Ivan Light, a sociologist for the University of California, Los Angeles, stated that the Westwood Boulevard area was the only "central location" for Iranians in Los Angeles and that they were otherwise dispersed throughout the area.
History of the Iranian Americans in Los Angeles
1694940#36
After the deposition of Mossadegh in 1953, the reign of shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the most prosperous era for the Jews of Iran. In the 1970s, only 1% of Iranian Jews were classified as lower class; 80% were middle class and 10% wealthy. Although Jews accounted for only a small percentage of Iran's population, in 1979 two of the 18 members of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, 80 of the 4,000 university lecturers, and 600 of the 10,000 physicians in Iran were Jews.
Persian Jews
16043#91
Jerusalem's Jewish population is overwhelmingly religious. Only 21% of Jewish residents are secular. In addition, Haredi Jews comprise 30% of the city's adult Jewish population. In a phenomenon seen rarely around the world, the percentage of Jewish men who work, 47%, is exceeded by the percentage of Jewish women who work, 50%. The young and less religious continue to leave according to a 2016 Central Bureau of Statistics report which noted 6,740 people left. The opening of high speed rail transit to Tel Aviv next year and the New Jerusalem Gateway Business District currently under construction is designed to alter business, tourism, and hopefully reverse the population exodus.
Jerusalem