ABSTRACT

This article offers a thematic examination of the significant role education played among the Jews of Iran from the mid-1940s to the late 1960s. I focus on the work of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Franco-Jewish philanthropic organization which established its first school in Iran in 1898. The Alliance – which viewed Iranian Jews as backwards and degenerate – aimed to modernize them via Western education. In this article, I demonstrate that the Alliance’s work in Iran helped the Jews move up the socio-economic ladder and provided them with opportunities to integrate into the broader non-Jewish Iranian milieu. By exploring the disputes that arose between the Alliance and local Iranian Jews, I also show that Iran’s Jews did not always accept the Alliance’s paternalistic attitudes. To discuss the overall impact of education on Iranian Jews, I situate the history of Jewish education in Iran within the Pahlavi state’s nationalizing campaigns.

摘要

本文对教育在 1940 年代中期至 1960 年代后期在伊朗犹太人中发挥的重要作用进行了专题研究。我关注的是 Alliance Israélite Universelle 的工作，这是一个法裔犹太人慈善组织，于 1898 年在伊朗建立了第一所学校。该联盟认为伊朗犹太人是落后和堕落的，旨在通过西方教育使他们现代化。在这篇文章中，我展示了联盟在伊朗的工作帮助犹太人在社会经济阶梯上更上一层楼，并为他们提供了融入更广泛的非犹太人伊朗环境的机会。通过探讨联盟与当地伊朗犹太人之间出现的争端，我还表明伊朗的犹太人并不总是接受联盟的家长式态度。讨论教育对伊朗犹太人的整体影响，