Following is a short overview of articles presented in this volume.

Persian Section:

1)Articles

1.Words on Soleiman Haim.
Born in Tehran in 1887, Soleiman Haim entered the American College in 1906, where he started to teach English in 1915. Soon after, he began working on the first ever series of bilingual dictionaries printed in Persian; a task that earned him the pseudonym "Word Master." His publications include:

Dictionaries:
            English-Persian / Persian-English
            French-Persian / Persian-French
            Hebrew-Persian / Persian-Hebrew
            A compilation of Persian proverbs and their English equivalents
            A book of collected poems

Three plays:
            Esther and Mordecai
            Ruth and Naomi
            Yüsuf o Zulaykhä

Other than writing these plays and composing their music, Haim also directed and performed in them. Soleiman Haim died in 1969 at the age of 82, with many projects left incomplete.
Dariush Haim, Davood Adhami, Jahanguir Banayan, and Manouchehr Amiri have each written about their personal memories of Haim.

2. "The Jewish Image in Contemporary Iranian Media" by Menasheh Amir.
Basing his views on personal experience and observations, Amir discusses the representation of Jews in Iran’s mass media to examine four main aspects of this representation: 1. The religious belief of the public at large, and the negative repercussions of this belief on the image of Jews. 2. Anti-Semitic propaganda during Hitler’s rule. 3. Foreign countries’—namely England and France—protection of religious minorities in Iran, and these minorities reciprocal solicitation of this protection.
The issue of Palestine and the struggle for Israel’s independence after WWII.
Amir’s thesis is that, from the late 1940’s until the end of the Pahlavi regime, the Iranian media made a consorted effort not to represent Jews in a negative light, and at times even to examine the positive contributions of many Jews to Iran’s culture. This trend was turned around with the Islamic Revolution, after which point anti-Semitism took on a specific role in the new government’s agenda-driven ideologies, strategies, and tactics.
The second half of Amir’s article contains documents taken from his personal archive, which he examines in support of his thesis.

3. "The Controversial Life of Monsieur Shemoil Haim" by Davood Adhami.
Discussing the Shemoil Haim affair, Adhami’s article engages partly in a dialogue with Amnon Netzer’s thesis on the matter. Presenting a counterpoint to Netzer’s theory, Adhami develops the argument that Haim’s imprisonment and ultimate execution for his alleged conspiracy and treason against Reza Shah was fueled predominantly by the split that had occurred within the Jewish community around the Haim and Loghman campaign. Adhami’s theory is that the Jewish community’s inability to reunite after the campaign created a wave of antagonism that ultimately disabled a collective support for Haim, one that may have saved him from execution.
Adhami’s theory is based, in part, on interviews he himself has conducted with first-hand witnesses of the Haim affair.

4. "Iranian Jews in Europe During WW11" by Ahmad Mahrad
This study is based on the findings of Mahrad’s thirty-year research in the archives of Germany’s State Department, and those of various universities and libraries throughout that country. The extended result of his research on the Jews of Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine in Europe during WWII has previously been published in German.
Starting with a brief overview on anti-Semitic movements in Europe, Mahrad goes on to discuss the repercussions of these movements in Reza Shah’s Iran, to develop the thesis that Nazi scientists were actively trying to prove that Iranian Jews had the same characteristics as German ones and should, therefore, be subject to the Final Solution.
Discussing the outcome of two particular inquiries--one in Belgium and another in Bern--Mahrad documents a declaration made by Graf Von Der Schulenburg, the ex-Ambassador of Berlin in Moscow. Dated April 14, 1943, this sixteen-line declaration states that the "Juguden" are members of a Muslim sect and followers of Mohammedan laws. Schulenburg goes on to declare that these people are Iranian in origin and not Semitic; a declaration that, according to Mahrad’s research, saved the Iranian Jews that were residing in Europe from deportation to concentration camps.

5. "The Kaboud Party(The Iranian Nazi Party)" by Adnan Mazarei.
Mazarei discusses memories from his youth, explaining how the extreme nationalist movement in Iran created sympathies with the Iranian youth for the Nazi party. In Mazarei’s view, the anti-colonialist atmosphere in Iran also contributed significantly to these sympathies, leading many to believe that Hitler’s government provided the only tangible promise of liberation from the danger of British colonialism.
At the time of the Allies’ occupation of Iran, Mazarei and his university student peers decided to put their ideologies into action in order to save Iran. Mazarei goes on to discuss the origins of the Kaboud movement under the influence of Enayatollah Nowbakht’s nationalist and Nazi policies. Discussing his own gradual involvement with the movement, Mazarei describes his nomination and subsequent activities as the head of the Kaboud party in Shiraz.
The Kaboud party eventually dissolved with Germany’s defeat.

2)Tales from the Past: Memory Telling

Mr. Nejat Geola, Mr. Manouchehr Hakkakian, Madame Tavoos Jahanbani, Mr. Moossa Nikbakht, and Ms. Molouk Zagarian took part in the memory telling segment of CIJOH’s third annual conference. Subsequent to the conference, the Center received written memoirs from Ms. Khanom Ejnassian, Ms. Nimtaj Rafailzadeh, and Mr. Ezatollah Yermian, which were appended to the existing list. Dr. William Royce, who also took part in this panel, decided not to provide a written copy of his memoirs for the time being.

1. Khanom Ejnassian, a Hebrew teacher, recounts an anecdote describing the etymology of the last name of one of her students.

2. Nejat Geola speaks about his father Eshagh Geola, and grandfather Molla Yehazghel Molla (Cohan Melamed), and their pioneering roles as the first founders of Western-style schools in Shiraz, starting with a small maktab in a knisa and eventually leading up to the foundation of Alliance Israelite school in Shiraz.

3. Manouchehr Hakkakian retells the events of a typical week in the life of a Jewish family from Tehran in the early 1940s.

4. Tavoos Jahanbani talks about her three-year sojourn in Mashhad in the early 1920s, describing the lives of the Jews who were forced to maintain a Muslim appearance in public.

5. Moossa Nikbakht remembers the festivities in 1918 or 1919 held at the Alliance school in Hamedan in celebration of the Balfour Declaration.

6. Nimtaj Rafailzadeh describes the string of rituals surrounding a woman’s pregnancy in 1940s Shiraz, starting with her early months and ending with the Brit Milla (circumcision). She also shares her memories of the Ebn-e Sina School under the directorship of Fazlollah Sharghi.

7. Ezatollah Yermian the founder of the Ruhishad School in the 1950s in Tehran, Dr. Yermian recounts the struggles he faced in obtaining the license and funds to start a coed Jewish school. The Ruhishad School is still open in Tehran.

8. Molouk Zargarian describes the events leading up to her decision to translate into Persian the Jewish woman’s book of prayers.

3) Play

Yüsuf o Zulaykhä A Play by Soleiman Haim

The play, Yüsuf o Zulaykhä, was brought back to the stage on the conference’s opening night with a cast of leading Iranian stage actors in Los Angeles.

Having found a complete printed copy of this play in Mr. Enayat Khoramian’s personal library, the Center saw it as part of its ongoing duty in the preservation of the Iranian Jewish heritage to reprint this rare text in its entirety. The complete script of Haim’s play has been reprinted in this volume.

English section:

1. "Continuity and Change: New Opportunities in a Traditional Settings" by Leah Bear.

Dr. Baer's article examines various aspects of Jewish-Iranian life during the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79). Issues such as education, employment, social and legal rights, women's status, and the relationship between Jews and Muslims in Iran are discussed. Includes bibliography.

2. "Habib Elghanian and the Iranian Jewish Community" by Aryeh Levin.

In his article, Ambassador Levin talks about Habib Elghanayan-one of Iran's foremost entrepreneurs in the 60s and 70s-and examines his life as a revealing metaphor for the lives of Iranian Jews in general during the Pahlavi dynasty. Recalling various aspects of their long friendship, Ambassador Levin discusses Elghanayan's life and carrier, and comments on some of the possible implications of his late friend's execution in the early years of Islamic rule after the 1979 revolution in Iran.