A Long-Distance Relationship: Jerusalem’s Persian Jews and the Qajar Empire, 1888–1914

In the late 19th century, a community of approximately 1500 Persian Jews settled in Ottoman Jerusalem. They built a neighbourhood west of the city, and community institutions distinct from Jerusalem’s wider Sephardi society. Originating from southern Iran, these migrants were subjects of the Persian Qajar empire. Although settling in Jerusalem permanently, most kept their Persian passports for decades, retaining a bond to the Qajar state. Such bonds were also upheld by Jerusalem’s Persian consul, who renewed travel documents and managed the Persian Jews’ ties to their empire of origin.

This paper studies the relationship between Jerusalem’s Persian Jews and the Qajar state through the prism of legal belonging. As emigrees, how did they relate to the Qajar state? What benefits did Qajar subjecthood offer them, in comparison to other forms of legal belonging, such as Ottoman subjecthood? From the state’s perspective, what was the political significance of Jerusalem’s Persian-Jewish community? And what was at stake in its enduring ties to the Qajar state?

Extra-territoriality shines a particular light on subjecthood and citizenship. These questions are therefore relevant for understanding the position of Jews in 19th-century Iran. Moreover, the daily practice of consul-subject relations matters in exploring overlapping patterns of governance between the Ottoman and Qajar empires. As the paper will argue, the Qajar state sought to govern its subjects in Jerusalem, through taxation and other forms of coercion. Yet, despite these disadvantages, Persian Jews maintained ties to the Qajar state, enjoying benefits that other Jerusalemites eventually coveted as well.