A New Diaspora Press: Persian Periodicals in 1950s Israel

Abstract

ABSTRACT Iranian Jews produced roughly 15 periodicals during the twentieth century, on which some initial work has been undertaken. These periodicals, newspapers, and pamphlets gave a voice to the community and served to foster the consolidation of political subjectivity and syncretic national ideologies within the public sphere. With that, scholarship still lacks any significant exploration of the publications produced by those Iranian Jews who emigrated to Israel after it declared independence in 1948. In an initial step towards illuminating these fruitful historical resources, this article views in parallel two publications produced by the community during the first years of Israeli statehood: Kurosh and Setareh-ye Sharq. Following a short background on the arrival of Iranian Jews in the country and the conditions they faced, the article analyses the publications as manifestations of two distinct approaches to adaptation to the new environment. In Kurosh, there is evidence of an anti-establishment spirit of independence, facilitating an activistic and assertive Iranian Jewish consciousness in the land that was anchored in connection to Iranianness. In Setareh-ye Sharq, meanwhile, we find top-down discursive and social pressures on the community to accept a normative vision of Iranian identity in Israel.