Ma`rifat Adyan

The Jews in Tehran are the oldest and largest minority living in this city. However, there is little information about the minority's religious buildings compared to other minorities in Tehran. Part of this little knowledge is due to the inattention of the researchers to Jewish religious architecture because they do not have an outstanding architecture; and more importantly, it is due to the reluctance of the Jews to introduce their religious works. Visiting Jewish religious sites is consciously hindered and it is due to the historical and social conditions of this minority. The visibility of synagogues in the city of Tehran has changed corresponding to social changes. During the Qajar period, there was a clear attempt to hide the synagogues for religious reasons; but with the developments after the “Persian Constitutional Revolution” and the beginning of the first Pahlavi government, there was a tendency to show and create large synagogues with outstanding architecture. Towards the end of the first Pahlavi period, political changes did not provide much opportunity for Jews to build synagogues; but the international policies of the second Pahlavi led to the creation of several synagogues in Tehran. However, social conditions and popular opposition to the government's policies toward Israel led to a second opposition to the visibility of synagogues across the city and concealment of the synagogues in the form of Jewish schools. This article uses "field research" and library research methods and a descriptive-analytical method to present an analysis of the social and political conditions of this religious minority, examining the religious architecture of Tehran’s synagogues from the Qajar period to the end of Pahlavi period.