From Mashhad to New York: Family and Gender Roles in the Mashhadi Immigrant Community

Abstract

The crypto-Jewish community of Mashhad, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest cities in Iran, owes its inception to the settlement of several Jew ish families in the city in the first half of the eighteenth century.1 The community's forced conversion to Islam in 1839, combined with its members' tenacious though covert fidelity to their Jewish faith for over a century, called into being a unique collective identity. These families had to lead a double life for as long as they stayed in Mashhad, recur ring pogroms as well as changes of rulers and regimes notwithstanding. Indeed, only after World War II and another pogrom did a real exodus begin. Most of them moved to Tehran, while many emigrated to Israel. By the time of the Khomeini revolution in 1979, they were scattered to every major city of commerce on earth. The revolution removed the bulk of the Tehran community—about half the total—to New York.1 The purpose of this article is to chart the patterns of gender roles forged during these years, with particular focus on the post-immigration period. What were past patterns, how did they mold the immigration