#sarchal

[zamancollective]

Sarchal: The Forgotten History of Tehran’s Jewish Ghetto

By Kyle Newman

To reminisce is to remember with pleasure, to recollect past events while indulging in the enjoyment of nostalgic return. It would be too simplistic to say that the Jews of Iran reminisce blissfully about their past in a country with a fraught history of antisemitism, yet too harsh to conclude that the calamities they endured ought to completely overshadow their 2500 years of rich history. Memories of Sarchal, the Jewish ghetto of Tehran, serve as living manifestations of this ambivalent train of thought. A dynamic community that was forced to adapt to the ebb and flow of life under monarchical Shi’a regimes, Sarchal was much more than a physical location that housed Iran’s urban Jews from the dawn of the Safavid dynasty through to the troughs of a new Islamic Republic. 

In 1588 CE, the Safavid Shah Abbas I revived the Persian empire after centuries of Mongol and Turkic governance. Fairly benign in policy during the first half of his rule, Shah Abbas I reversed his friendly attitude towards the Jewish population when a convert from the city of Lar impelled a royal edict that would force Jews to wear distinctive badges and headgear. Under this edict, Jews were now formally categorized as najjes (ritually impure) under the empire’s Shi’a theocratic law, and ghettoization would begin with the forced expulsion of Jews from Esfahan who refused to convert to Islam. Those who did convert were forced to practice Judaism secretly until 1661, when an edict would allow them to conditionally return to Judaism through payment of the jizya (a tax levied on religious minorities) and wearing their designated badge. 

Conditions worsened for Jews during the Safavid era until one of the last kings of the dynasty, Nadir Shah, came to power in 1736 and abolished Shi’ism as the empire’s official religion. This action enabled Jews in cities like Mashhad, who had previously been subject to forced conversion, to reestablish and regrow their communities. Still, neither prosperity nor persecution were experienced by Jews in a linear fashion: the rise of the Qajar dynasty in 1794 spelled the onset of tightening oppression. The Romanian Jewish traveler and historian J.J. Benjamin wrote about the horrid conditions of Jewish life in Qajar Iran in an account from the mid-19th 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.”

Given the Jews’ status as a najjes group, the most straightforward way to limit physical contact between Muslims and Jews was to segregate them geographically. In Iranian cities with high Jewish populations like Esfahan, Kashan, Tehran, and Hamadan, Jews were segregated into designated neighborhoods, sometimes within the main city walls and sometimes outside of them. The internal layout of each mahaleh (ghetto) played an important role in distinguishing Jewish life in Iran from the history of other ethno-religious communities.  

One such mahaleh was Sarchal, the Jewish quarter of Tehran. Sarchal was different from other Jewish ghettos in Iran given its location in the nation’s capital city of Tehran, an especially volatile and ever-transforming urban enclave since its founding by Qajar King Agha Mohammad Khan in 1786. Unlike the ghettos of Esfahan and other cities, Sarchal was located within Tehran’s old city walls. It is also unique in its oxymoronic overlap with a network of mosques and its proximity to a center of commerce, Tehran’s grand bazaar. Jews and Muslims in Tehran therefore must have interacted very frequently despite the Qajar regime’s heavy-handed, active efforts to quarantine and suppress Jewish life under their rule. 

Sarchal is situated in the southeast corner of old Tehran, contemporarily known as the 12th district. It is directly west of Emamzadeh Yahya, or the birthplace of Imam Yahya, north of Tehran’s grand bazaar, east of Pamenar Bazaar, and south of the Qajar era Masoudieh palace (Map 1). I have also included below a map in Farsi created by Eshaq Shaoul that highlights landmarks, religious structures, and other important sites in the ghetto (Map 2). I have translated his map and included a key identifying the aforementioned sites in English (Map 3). 

Map 3 Key:

1. Tamadon School

2. House of Seyed

3. Pamenar Gym (zoorkhaneh)

4. Midwife Zivar’s house 

5. Mosque

6. Eshagh Bathhouse

7. Reza Goli Khan Mosque

8. Birthplace of Imam Yahya (Emamzadeh Yahya)

9. Mosque

10. Sepir Hospital

11. Midwife Sabia’s house

12. Mullah Haninah Synagogue

13. Aghajan Bakhshi’s house

14. Chaim Golabgir’s house

15. Ayatollah Behbahani’s house

16. Mosque

17. Ezra Mikhail Synagogue

18. Bookstore

19. Fereshteh Pharmacy

20. Seven Synagogue Alley

21. Eshagh’s second house

22. Sarchal Bathhouse

23. Sarchal Plaza

24. Mosque

25. Morteza Navi Butchershop

26. Hakim Moshiah Bathhouse

27. Hakim Synagogue

28. Torbati Pharmacy

29. Ezra Yaghoub Synagogue

30. Eshagh’s birthhouse

31. Dekhantal house

32. Dardashti’s house

33. Bakery

34. Yogurt Maker

35. Tekiyeh Mosque

36. Zoorkhaneh

Very few of Sarchal’s original structures remain intact today. The “Seven Synagogue Alley,” an alley literally surrounded by seven synagogues behind Sarchal’s main plaza, is now nowhere to be found. All the old Jewish hammams (bathhouses), which were built because Jews and Muslims were not allowed to use the same public baths, are gone, as are the Jewish butcher shops, bakeries, and zoorkhanehah (gymnasiums). The Ezra Yaghoub and Mullah Haninah synagogues are still standing, along with Sapir hospital, Pamenar Mosque (dating to the late Sasanian period), Abol Hassan Mosque, Haj Ali Khan Mosque, and Ayatollah Shah Abadi Mosque. 

Street names were also changed following the Islamic Republic regime’s campaign to erase historical and cultural remnants of the Pahlavi era, often replacing them with the names of Shi’a religious and revolutionary martyrs. Cheragh Bargh Street is now Amir Kabir Street, Siroos (Cyrus) Street is now Mostafa Khomeini Street (commemorating Khomeini’s son who died before the 1979 revolution), while Pamenar Bazaar street endured little change and is now Pamenar street (Map 4). 

Map 4 Key:

5. Ayatollah Shah Abadi Mosque

8. Birthplace of Imam Yahya (Emamzadeh Yahya)

10. Sepir Hospital

12. Mullah Haninah Synagogue

16. Abol Hassan Mosque

23. Sarchal Plaza

24. Pamenar Mosque

29. Ezra Yaghoub Synagogue

Sarchal originally included every necessity for Iranian Jews to conduct Jewish life in an incredibly small quarter with an area of less than one square mile. On an average day, one could stop by the bakery to pick up bread, visit the yogurt maker or butcher to prepare a meal, exercise at the zoorkhaneh, pray and study at one of nine synagogues, buy medication from either of two local pharmacies, and engage in scholarly life by buying a book from the bookstore. Reminders of a bygone era of Jewish life in the ghetto are echoed in prominent family names like Dardashti, Torbati, Elghanyan, and Hakim that originated in Sarchal, as well as the titles of surviving architectural spaces: “rag seller and tailor” alleyway, “welder’s bazaar,” and “cannonball storage facility.”

Slowly but surely, the massive discrimination of Iranian Jews that kept them ever close to one another in the confines of the mahaleh would reduce to subtlety after Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power in 1925. The official categorization of Jews and other religious minorities as najjes would be abolished, and the political power of the Shi’a clergy greatly weakened, ushering in a new zeitgeist marked by relative religious tolerance, which the Iranian Jewish historian Habib Levy would call “The Golden Age of Iranian Jewry.” Beginning in the 1940s and bleeding into the 1950s, the last remaining Jewish families of the mahalehs of many Iranian cities left their communities of origin for better jobs and assimilation in Northern Tehran. The Jewish communities of Iran-- and with them, Sarchal-- would eventually see their quasi-extinction after the 1979 Revolution, when the vast majority of Jews were compelled or forced to flee their home of 2500 years due to the new wave of institutionalized antisemitism established by the world’s first parliamentary theocracy, The Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Whether you read The Proverbs of John Heywood from 1562 or listened to Snoop Dogg’s album “I Wanna Thank Me” from 2019, we are all well aware of the phrase “let bygones be bygones,” but to what degree does this sentiment merit acceptance in the context of Iranian sociopolitical history? As far as Jewish Iranians like me are concerned, forgetting the past can be detrimental to the continuation of our existence. There is a stigma surrounding the word Sarchal; many Persian Jews are reluctant to admit our history of poverty and ghettoization. But anything short of active remembrance would serve as a disrespectful gesture to the rag sellers, fabric dealers, grocers, midwives, homemakers, rabbis, butchers, dairymen, and tailors that made life in ghettoes like Sarchal sustainable and even vibrant, not to mention the Muslim business owners and civilians who continued to associate with Jewish communities despite institutional restrictions that prohibited them from doing so. 

Jewish Iranians’ eventual outmigration from the mahalehs was surely a turning point that bolstered their financial success in later years and decades, but our escape from oppression should not negate our responsibility to honor our ancestors who built lives within its confines. In fact, we have much to learn from the Sarchalis who managed to raise families, provide for their community as a whole, and motivate Jewish life in less than one square mile-- with all the odds stacked against them.

References

Bentley, Jerry H, and Herbert F. Ziegler. Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.

Fischel, Walter J. “The Jews of Persia, 1795-1940.” Jewish Social Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 1950, pp. 119–160. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4464868. Accessed 10 Jan. 2020.

Foltz, Richard (2015). Iran in World History. New York: Oxford University Press.

Levy, Habib (1999). Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.

Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam: Updated Edition. REV - Revised ed., Princeton University Press, 1984. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wq0nq. Accessed 10 Jan. 2020.

Sanasarian, Eliz (2000). Religious Minorities in Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shaoul, Eshagh. “Sarechal.com.... Come Home to the Place You Came From.” Welcome to Sarechal, Eshagh Shaoul, http://sarechal.com/.

Tsadik, Daniel. “JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES v. QAJAR PERIOD (1).” Encyclopædia Iranica, XV/1, pp. 108-112 and XV/2, pp. 113-117, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/judeo-persian-communities-v-qajar-period. Accessed 10 Jan. 2020.

Vladimir Minorsky. "The Turks, Iran and the Caucasus in the Middle Ages." Variorum Reprints, 1978.

Published on January 10th, 2020.

[delemis]

Stundulus, and the Esoteric Order of Shor

Content Warning: Blood

“You are more than a Colovian,” The voice boomed in his ear, making Stundulus wince. “You are a Nord! You are descended from those proud adventuring men who fought for fame and fortune, in the service of Queen Alessia! You are a Knight of Freedom, a Knight of Privilege...”

The room was small and crowded with other young boys and girls, about Stundulus’ age. All the youngest nobility of Sarchal were here at this lodge; standing along the western wall was a line of old, bearded men in furs and leathers, with legion medals decorating their chests. His father was near the end of the line, not even looking at him. No, his eyes were drawn to the stained glass windows, which depicted the glories of ancient colo-nordic kings in victory against the elves or wicked witch-nedes of old.

This was his initiation into the Order. He’d need to earn his father’s attention.

“...Indeed, you are among the privileged few in this land with Ysgramor’s blood running through their veins!” The grim-looking, black-bearded elder who was speaking pointed at that moment to the statue adorning one corner of the room. It depicted a handsome, clean-shaven young man wearing naught but a crown of laurels. He held a stone tablet in one hand, inscribed with nordic runes, and was using a massive two-bladed axe to protect his dignity. 

“Yes, yes...” The old man continued. “...It is the sober, cold life of the nords that we live. That is the burden of nobility, in these lands. We do not live in excess, like the merchants and hierophants of the East! We do not live in blissful ignorance of our own subjects, nor do we plot or play in the courts of venomous, Reman-murdering snakes!” The old man’s voice rose sharply as he spoke, and a few of the men on the western wall were mumbling or chortling their agreement. Stundulus reached up to brush a hand through his silken blonde hair and noticed that it was trembling with anticipation.

“All of you, listen up!” The Raven-Haired Lodgemaster shouted, staring down the room of young boys and girls until they stared back, each with an expression that was bored, nervous, or some combination of both. “There is an honest man on the Ruby Throne now, of proper nordic blood! His name is Varen Aquilarios, and by Shor, all of you will learn to respect him! He is the greatest King to have graced this land since Bendu Olo first rallied our fair Estates in the War of Righteousness! Each of you will leave this lodge today having taken an oath before Shor, but you will also leave having taken an oath before your new Emperor!”

There was a moment’s silence.

“IS THAT CLEAR!?” The Lodgemaster shouted. 

“Yes, worshipful Master!” Stundulus answered alongside his lodgemates, all in less-than-perfect union. The Lodgemaster frowned before beckoning one of them forward.

“...Alright, line up behind Julius. We take our blood-oaths.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I swear, by my ancestors...”

“I swear by my ancestors-”

“...To protect and serve those beneath my charge, be they in vassalage or humbler supplication,” 

“To protect and serve those beneath my charge be they in vassalage or humbler supplication-”

“...To do my duty faithfully,”

“To do my duty faithfully-” 

“To uphold the sacred Nordic traditions of honor, piety, sobriety, austerity and voice,”

“To uphold the sacred nordic traditions of honor, p-piety, sobriety, austerity and voice-”

“And to do well by Shor, my founder-father and righteous king of men.”

“And to do well by Shor, my founder-father and righteous king of men.”

Stundulus held his hand out over the bowl and felt the lodgemaster’s hand cold around his wrist, eliciting a shiver. He took a deep breath and tried not to let the fear in his heart show on his face, as the grim elder drew the ceremonial blade across his hand in a single smooth motion. Before his eyes, blood began to pool in the lines of his palm. 

“Another oath.” The lodgemaster said solemnly. “Do you swear to give to your emperor, what to your emperor is due? Do you swear to stand by him, as a brother in blood, and to protect him as one of Shor’s own?”

“I do.” Stundulus said, raising his voice so that his father could hear.

“Then congratulations Stundulus, son of Hoaris, on becoming a sworn blood-brother of the Order of Shor.” 

As Stundulus returned to his seat, there was a smile on his face. Years of hard training had been overcome, and he’d exceeded his family’s expectations by become a blood-brother! But as his gaze settled on the western wall, the smile faded.

Standing at the end of the line, his father’s attention had remained affixed on the windows. 

His own initiation hadn’t even warranted a glance.

[eyeofapocrypha]

And in those days the empire of the Cyrodiils was dead, save in memory only, for through war and slug famine and iniquitous rulers, the west split from the east and Colovia's estrangment lasted some four hundreds of years. And the earth was sick with this sundering. Once-worthy western kings, of Anvil and Sarchal, of Falkreath and Delodiil, became through pride and habit as like thief-barons and forgot covenant. In the heartland things were no better, as arcanists and false moth-princes lay in drugged stupor or the studies of vileness and no one sat on the Throne in dusted generations. Snakes and the warnings of snakes went unheeded and the land bled with ghosts and deepset holes unto cold harbors. It is said that even the Chim-el Adabal, the amulet of the kings of glory, had been lost and its people saw no reason to find it.

And it was in this darkness that King Hrol set out from the lands beyond lost Twil with a sortie of questing knights numbered eighteen less one, all of them western sons and daughters. For Hrol had seen in his visions the snakes to come and sought to heal all the borders of his forebears. And to this host appeared at last a spirit who resembled none other than El-Estia, queen of ancienttimes, who bore in her left hand the dragonfire of the aka-tosh and in her right hand the jewels of the covenant and on her breast a wound that spilt void onto her mangled feet. And seeing El-Estia and Chim-el Adabal, Hrol and his knights wailed and set to their knees and prayed for all things to become as right. Unto them the spirit said, I am the healer of all men and the mother of dragons, but as you have run so many times from me so shall I run until you learn my pain, which renders you and all this land dead.

And the spirit fled from them, and they split among hills and forests to find her, all grieving that they had become a villainous people. Hrol and his shieldthane were the only ones to find her, and the king spoke to her, saying, I love you sweet Aless, sweet wife of Shor and of Auri-el and the Sacred Bull, and would render this land alive again, not through pain but through a return to the dragon-fires of covenant, to join east and west and throw off all ruin. And the shieldthane bore witness to the spirit opening naked to his king, carving on a nearby rock the words AND HROL DID LOVE UNTO A HILLOCK before dying in the sight of their union.

When the fifteen other knights found King Hrol, they saw him dead after his labors against a mound of mud. And they parted each in their way, and some went mad, and the two that returned to their homeland beyond Twil would say nothing of Hrol, and acted ashamed for him.

But after nine months that mound of mud became as a small mountain, and there were whispers among the shepherds and bulls. A small community of believers gathered around that growing hill during the days of its first churning, and they were the first to name it the Golden Hill, Sancre Tor. And it was the shepherdess Sed-Yenna who dared climb the hill when she heard his first cry, and at its peak she saw what it had yielded, an infant she named Reman, which is "Light of Man."

And in the child's forehead was the Chim-el Adabal, alive with the dragon-fires of yore and divine promise, and none dared obstruct Sed-Yenna when she climbed the steps of White-Gold Tower to place the babe Reman on his Throne, where he spoke as an adult, saying I AM CYRODIIL COME.

- Remanada, Chapter 1: Sancre Tor and the Birth of Reman

[piratalarios]

21 on Flickr.

[delemis]

Project Tamriel: The Imperial Succession

(Credit to the PT team for all this lore.)

With Uriel Septim on the verge of death and a succession crisis sure to follow, there are many on either side of the River Niben with ambitions to take the Ruby Throne for themselves.

The Voria Hierophants of Mir Corrup

Once upon a time, the Voria Clan was one of the most prestigious families in Cyrodiil. When the simulacrum occurred, however, the Voria clan besmirched their honor by collaborating with Jagar Tharn. Even Caula Voria, Uriel’s wife, may have been a part of the conspiracy, and for this reason is now under an informal house arrest in the Emperor’s winter palace. The Voria Hierophants support Ebel Septim, the youngest of Uriel’s children, possibly because they believe him to be a daedric doppleganger, and it is said that Ebel himself prefers the company of his mother to that of the Imperial Court.

The Mede Dynasty of Sarchal

The Medes are small-time, backwater country nobility with a claim to the throne through their descendance from Cuhlecain - Emperor Zero. This is a weak claim, and there is very little reason to believe that a Mede will be the next emperor. But who knows? Stranger things have happened, and these are strange times indeed.

The Valga Dynasty of Chorrol

The Valgas are Colovia’s strongest contenders for the Imperial Throne, currently, and they defend this claim openly. Their matriarch, the noble Countess Arriana Valga, has a distant bloodclaim to the Septims as well as the military and political might to take the Imperial City by force, if need be. She also has familial ties the upper echelons of the Imperial Legion High Command, and is currently arranging a marriage for her daughter to the Caro Hierophants of Leyawiin. Arriana is hopeful that her daughter, Alessia Valga, will take the throne if the Septim Dynasty collapses.

Calaxes Septim, Uriel’s Bastard

Calaxes is a rather interesting claimant to the throne, having been publicly acknowledged as Uriel’s bastard son and granted the title of Archprelate of the Temple of the One. He disappeared during the Imperial Simulacrum, presumably assassinated by the Blades for plotting to usurp the throne and reinstate the marukhati theocracy. The truth is that while Jagar Tharn did indeed attempt to have him assassinated, Calaxes escaped and now resides deep within the jungle, training an army of marukhati faithfuls to champion his cause in the coming succession crisis.

The Legion’s Generals

Familial claims aside, there are many Legion Commanders who would seek to follow in Tiber Septim’s footsteps by claiming the Imperial City for themselves - with or without any legitimate claim. In Cyrodiil, the most notable of these are the Pottreid and Alorius dynasties, whose lineage dates back to the Tiber Wars, but in the provinces generals like this also exist. Only time will tell whether any of them have the military might to build their own empire from the ashes of the coming crisis.

[piratalarios]

Alicia en el Sarchal on Flickr.