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T H E J E W I S H QUA R T E R LY RE V I E W, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Winter 2004) 172–175 VERA BASCH MOREEN, ed and trans. In Queen Esther’s Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature. Yale Judaica Series 30. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. Pp. xxiv Ⳮ 392. Ever since the first half of the nineteenth century, when European scholars of Iranian philology studied some written records and texts produced by the Persian-speaking Jews of Iran, there has been a gradual increase in scholarly interest in the literary and cultural heritage of Iranian Jewry. However, despite the significant and in some cases pioneering contributions of a handful of researchers in Israel, Europe, and the United States over the last five decades or so, many aspects of the general history, culture , and literature of the Iranian Jews still remain unknown and unexplored . The relative obscurity of the subject has led to a lack of interest in broader academic circles, which is striking when we consider the impressive recent growth in publications and studies related to the history, culture, and literature of Jewish communities in the Arabic-speaking lands of the Middle East, North Africa, and Yemen. This comparative deficiency in research concerning the heritage of the Jewish communities of Iran is all the more conspicuous in light of the large body of available manuscripts, records, and texts that were produced and preserved by Iranian Jews, particularly between the tenth and nineteenth-centuries C.E. These writings, which were composed mostly in the Persian vernacular of central Iran known as Fārsı̄ and written in a variety of square and cursive Hebrew scripts, provide a rich source for the study and understanding of the cultural and spiritual conditions under which Iranian Jews lived and created. These texts and compositions —touching upon a broad range of literary, religious, and mundane topics—also illuminate the manner in which the Jews of premodern Iran shaped and expressed their identity and worldview by feeding on Hebrew and Jewish texts and traditions on the one hand and on Persian-Islamic and ancient Iranian (oral and written) cultural sources on the other. In view of the relative scarcity of edited, annotated, and translated JudeoPersian texts, Vera Basch Moreen’s In Queen Esther’s Garden must be welcomed and appreciated. Although this original book is first and foremost an anthology of Judeo-Persian literature, it offers the reader more than thoughtfully selected and gracefully translated texts composed by JudeoPersian poets, thinkers, commentators, and anonymous writers. A continuation of the author’s extensive research and publications over a quarter MOREEN, IN QUEEN ESTHER’S GARDEN—YEROUSHALMI 173 of a century, the book makes accessible to the English-speaking general reader, as well as to students and specialists in Jewish, Iranian, and Middle Eastern literatures, a vast body of textual and general information necessary for a better understanding and appreciation of the literature of the Iranian Jews. The book consists of three major parts, the introduction (pp. 1–21), translated texts (pp. 23–301), and notes to the translated texts, bibliography , and index (pp. 302–392). The introduction to the book provides a useful outline of Iranian Jewish cultural history from the earliest known stages of Jewish life on Iranian soil (beginning with the Babylonian exile, ca. 586 B.C.E.) through the mid-twentieth century. The introduction likewise discusses the major linguistic, religious, intellectual, and sociocultural factors that account for the formation and continuation of the JudeoPersian literary tradition over a millennium. The introduction and the texts of the anthology itself highlight the central position of poetry and of versified works within the broader corpus of Judeo-Persian literary texts. These texts employ and integrate a broad range of literary devices, genres, themes, and styles derived from classical Persian literature and from the sources and branches of Jewish literature, including Bible translations and commentaries, Mishnah, midrash, aggadah, Kabbalah, medieval Jewish philosophy and polemics, medieval Hebrew poetry, and as well as works of other genres. The texts thus reflect the diverse expressions in form and content that flow from the encounter and blending of Persian and Jewish literary streams...

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