"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٥‎١‎٠] (٧١٤/٥٦٩)

PERSIA
Finally, let me speak of the attitude of the Persian Govern
ment towards the Jews. Five years ago the number of Jews in
The Jews Persia was conjecturally returned as 19,000 ; but T incline
in Persia to ^ 0 pi n i 0n that this total is below the mark. I have
indeed, been supplied with a table in which their total census is
fixed at 05,000, but this appears to be a gross exaggeration. The
chief centres of Jewish residence are Teheran (4,000), Hamadan
(2,000), Isfahan (3,700), Shiraz (3,000), Urumiah, Meshed, Kashan,
Saveh, Kermanshah, and Bushire,
As a community, the Persian Jews are sunk in great poverty
and ignorance. They have no schools of their own, except in the
Backward synagogues, where they are only taught to repeat their
condition prayers, which the majority do not understand. Except
in leheran, Hamadan, Kashan, Khonsar, and Gulpaigan only
Hebrew is taught, and not Persian, feuch as can read or write the
language of the country have studied it privately. In Hamadan,
about a hundred young men receive tuition in the school of the
American Mission ; in r l eheran, .about fifteen study foreign lan
guages under similar auspices. In Isfahan, a converted Jew of
Teheran, Mirza Nurullah by name, who has been educated in Eng
land, has recently started a school, where he instructs about twenty
young men in Hebrew, Persian, and English.
Throughout the Mussulman countries of the East these unhappy
people have been subjected to the persecution which custom has
Disabilities tau ^ t themselves, as well as the world, to regard as their
and perse- normal lot. Usually compelled to live apart in a Ghetto or
r»nfirm
separate quarter of the towns, they have from time im
memorial suffered from disabilities of occupation, dress, and habits,
which have marked them out as social pariahs from their fellow
creatures. The majority of Jews in Persia are engaged in trade,
m jewellery, in wine and opium manufacture, as musicians, dancers,
scavengers, pedlars, and in other professions to which is attached
no great respect. They rarely attain to a leading mercantile posi
tion. In Isfahan, where there are said to be 3,700, and where they
occupy a relatively better status than elsewhere in Persia, they are
not permitted to wear the holah or Persian head-dress, to have
shops in the bazaar, to build the walls of their houses as high as a
Moslem neighbour's, or to ride in the streets. In Teheran and
Kashan they are also to be found in large numbers and enjoying
a fair position. In Shiraz they are very badly off. At Bushire
wis. a
nljate a series
lahiLiiiffliieli
te. iafe life
iams afraid
isksek in co