Iranian Jewish Women: Domesticating Religion and Appropriating Zoroastrian Religion in Ritual Life

In this article, I explore Iranian Jewish ritual life as understood by women who grew up in traditional Iranian Jewish households during the rule of Reza Shah (1921–1941) and immigrated to the United States with the onset of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. My research draws, in part, on a series of interviews with Iranian Jewish immigrant women, in which I examined how they expressed their piety and participated in the Jewish community in both Iran and the United States. I will demonstrate that although women were excluded from the traditional Iranian Jewish cultural domain of the synagogue and Torah study, they cultivated a robust religious life by turning their day-to-day profane activities into sacred acts. I will also discuss women's pilgrimages to the Esther-Mordechai tomb, and how and why Iranian Jewish women appropriated many Zoroastrian beliefs and traditions into their own Jewish rituals, in order to express their piety and protect their loved ones. Through what Susan Sered has described as the domestication of religion, my interviewees were able to sacralize their daily lives, ensure the safety of their loved ones, establish themselves as good Jewish wives, and show their respect for God.