You ever look at a map of the Middle East and realize that the places we hear about in the news every single day as hotbeds of tension are actually the exact same coordinates where the most famous stories of the Bible played out? It is this strange, jarring overlap between ancient history and modern geopolitics. Today's prompt from Daniel is about the history of the Jews of Iran, and it is a heavy one because we are talking about a community that has been there for over two thousand seven hundred years, yet today they are living under a regime that is essentially the world's leading antagonist toward the Jewish state.
It is a massive paradox, Corn. I am Herman Poppleberry, and I have been looking forward to this because the history here is just so layered. You have the land of Iran, which is currently governed by a revolutionary Islamic regime, but it is also the land where some of the most pivotal moments in Jewish history happened outside of Israel itself. We are talking about the home of Daniel the prophet, Esther, Mordecai, Ezra, and Nehemiah. It is a land that the Bible treats with a surprising amount of respect, largely because of Cyrus the Great, who is a figure that still looms huge in the political imagination today.
We are recording this in mid-March of twenty-six, and the timing could not be more poignant. Just this month, UnHerd published a report titled The Uncertain Fate of Iran's Jews. It paints a picture of a community that is essentially living in a state of total silence. Because of the ongoing tensions between Israel and the Iranian regime, the Jewish community in Iran has reportedly cancelled all weddings, all large public gatherings, and they are keeping the lowest profile imaginable. It is a stark contrast to the ancient glory we are going to talk about.
It really is. And to understand how we got here, we should probably start with a bit of a vocabulary check, because people use the terms Iranian and Persian interchangeably all the time, and they really are not the same thing. If you call everyone in Iran Persian, you are actually missing more than half the population.
That is a mistake I see in the media constantly. Why do we conflate the two, and why does it matter so much for the Jewish story?
It matters because Iranian is a nationality. It refers to anyone who is a citizen of the modern state of Iran. Persian, on the other hand, is an ethnicity. From the most recent data we have, Persians make up only about forty-seven percent of the population of Iran. The rest is this incredible mosaic of Azerbaijani Turks, who are about twenty-three percent, plus Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and others. We actually did a deep dive on this back in episode one thousand sixty-eight, Beyond Cyrus, if people want the full breakdown of that ethnic mosaic. But for our purposes today, it is important because many Jews from Iran identify specifically as Persian Jews. In the diaspora, especially in places like Los Angeles or Great Neck, you will often hear people call themselves Persian rather than Iranian. Part of that is historical pride, and part of it is a way to distance themselves from the current political regime in Tehran.
It is a bit of a branding exercise for some, right? If you say you are Persian, people think of ancient empires, poetry, and beautiful rugs. If you say you are Iranian, people think of the news cycle and the Islamic Republic. But the Jewish connection to that land actually predates the term Iran by a long shot. They first arrived around seven hundred twenty-seven before the common era. These were the captives of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. So, Jews were living in that region centuries before the Islamic conquest and even before many of the other ethnic groups that are there now.
They are one of the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the world. And when you look at the geography of the Bible, it is wild how much of it is actually set in what is now Iran. Take the city of Susa, for instance. In the Bible, it is called Shushan. That was the winter capital of the Achaemenid Empire. That is where the entire Book of Esther takes place. When you read about King Ahasuerus and the royal palace, you are reading about a place in modern-day Khuzestan Province in southwest Iran.
And that is also where the Tomb of Daniel is located, right? Shush, the modern city on the site of ancient Susa. I have seen photos of that building with the distinct white pinecone-shaped dome. It is one of those rare spots on earth that is a holy site for Jews, Christians, and Muslims all at once.
The Tomb of Daniel, or Aramgah-e Danyal-e Nabi, is a fascinating case study in shared sacred space. Daniel is a major figure in the Hebrew Bible, serving in the courts of both Babylonian and Persian kings, but he is also revered as a prophet in Islamic tradition. The site has been documented for nearly a millennium. Benjamin of Tudela, the famous twelfth-century Jewish traveler, visited it in the eleven sixties. He recorded this amazing story about how the different communities on opposite sides of the river used to fight over who got to keep the prophet's remains.
Wait, they actually fought over the coffin?
They did. According to Benjamin's account, the people on one side of the river were wealthy and claimed it was because the prophet's tomb was on their side, bringing them a blessing. The people on the other side were poor and wanted the tomb moved. They eventually made a deal where they would move the coffin back and forth across the bridge every year so that both sides could benefit from the economic boom of the pilgrims. Eventually, a local ruler stepped in and suspended the coffin in a glass case from the middle of the bridge to keep the peace. It sounds like a legend, but it speaks to how deeply embedded Daniel is in the local culture. He is not seen as a foreign figure; he is part of the land's spiritual architecture.
That is such a vivid detail. It makes the history feel less like a textbook and more like a lived reality. But we cannot talk about Jews and Persia without talking about the big one, the man who changed everything: Cyrus the Great.
Cyrus is arguably the most important non-Jewish figure in the entire Hebrew Bible. In the year five hundred thirty-nine before the common era, he conquered Babylon and issued what we now call the Cyrus Cylinder. Many historians consider it the first declaration of human rights because it allowed displaced peoples to return to their homelands and practice their own religions. He told the Jews they were free to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. He even funded the project and returned the holy vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen.
And he is the only non-Jew in the Bible to be given a specific title, right?
He is the only gentile explicitly called Messiah, or Mashiach in Hebrew, in the book of Isaiah, chapter forty-five, verse one. The text says, Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus. That word anointed is Mashiach. It is the same root we use for the ultimate redeemer. The Bible views Cyrus as a tool of divine providence. He was the restorer. And because of that, the Persian identity became synonymous with a kind of benevolent, pluralistic empire in the Jewish mind.
Which explains why that name is coming up so much in the news lately. I was reading about the Knesset Speaker, Amir Ohana, giving a speech back in October of twenty-five when the last hostages were coming home. He explicitly compared Donald Trump to Cyrus the Great. He said Trump stands before the people of Israel not just as another president, but as a giant of Jewish history.
That comparison has become a very powerful piece of political rhetoric. When Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, many in the Jewish world saw a direct parallel to Cyrus. They saw a powerful world leader from a distant empire supporting the Jewish people's right to their ancestral land and their holy sites. It is a framing that bridges twenty-five hundred years of history. Even IranWire ran a big feature recently looking at why Israelis call Trump the Cyrus of our time. It shows that these ancient categories are not just for Sunday school; they are actively shaping how people perceive modern power dynamics.
It is a bit of a slap in the face to the current Iranian regime, too. They try to claim the legacy of the land, but they have a totally different ideological framework. They represent the Islamic Republic, which is very different from the Achaemenid legacy that Cyrus represents.
There is a massive tension there. The current regime actually has a very complicated relationship with Cyrus. On one hand, he is a national hero of the Iranian people. On the other hand, the religious leadership sees the pre-Islamic Persian past as something that can be dangerous if it encourages secular nationalism. They want the identity to be Islamic first. But for the Jews of Iran, Cyrus is the golden age.
So, let's talk about those Jews who are still there today. We are in March of twenty-six, and the situation on the ground sounds incredibly precarious. Before the nineteen seventy-nine revolution, there were over one hundred thousand Jews in Iran. Today, the estimates are much lower.
The numbers are sobering. Most sources, including the World Jewish Congress, estimate there are between eight thousand and ten thousand Jews left in Iran. They are mostly in Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan. It is a tiny fraction of what it once was. After seventy-nine, there was a massive exodus, mostly to Israel and the United States. The ones who stayed have had to learn a very specific and difficult way of existing.
That UnHerd report from this month describes a community that basically has to live in total silence. They have to perform this very public separation between their religion and their politics.
It is a forced performance. To survive, the Jewish leadership in Iran has to constantly and publicly declare that they are Jews, not Zionists. They have to denounce the state of Israel to prove their loyalty to the Islamic Republic. It is a survival mechanism, but it puts them in an agonizing position. Especially lately, with the tensions between Israel and Iran reaching these fever pitches, the pressure on them is immense. They have synagogues and schools, but the curriculum is heavily monitored. They can study Hebrew for prayer, but not as a modern language. Everything is curated to ensure that no Zionist influence creeps in.
Right, and as of this month, the community has reportedly cancelled all weddings and large public gatherings. They are keeping the lowest possible profile. There was even a warning sent out to the diaspora, basically telling Israelis and Jews abroad, do not try to contact us. Do not send us messages. Do not call us. Because any link to Israel or the West can be interpreted as espionage by the regime.
It is a heartbreaking reality. You have a community that is literally living in the land of the Purim story. Think about the irony of that. Purim was just a few days ago. The holiday celebrates the Jewish people surviving a decree of genocide in the Persian Empire. The Book of Esther is set in Susa. And today, the Jews in Susa and Tehran are celebrating that story while living under a regime that frequently calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. They are celebrating their survival in the very place where the threat originated thousands of years ago, and where a new version of that threat exists today.
It is like they are living inside a loop of history. And the regime uses them as a bit of a prop, right? They will point to the fact that there are still synagogues and even a Jewish member of Parliament to claim that they are not anti-Semitic, only anti-Zionist. But the JPPI report from February of twenty-six suggests that if you actually look at the underlying sentiment, there is broad support among the global Jewish community for a regime change in Iran.
The Jewish People Policy Institute report was very clear about that. There is a deep desire to see a return to a version of Iran that looks more like the Cyrus model, a place that is a friend to the Jewish people rather than an existential threat. But for the people living there, that kind of talk is dangerous. They are hostages to geography. They are living in a country where the Supreme Leader regularly tweets about Israel being a cancer, yet they have to go to synagogue and pray for the welfare of the state of Iran.
What I find really interesting is how this affects the way we think about the Iranian people versus the Iranian government. We have touched on this before, but it bears repeating. There is often a disconnect between what the regime wants and what the average person on the street in Tehran thinks.
We touched on that in episode nine hundred thirty-two when we talked about reimagining a post-regime Iran. Many Iranians, especially the younger generation, are very proud of their pre-Islamic history. They look at the Cyrus Cylinder as a source of national pride. And interestingly, there is a lot of documented evidence of philosemitism among secular Iranians. They see the Jewish community as a link to their ancient, glorious past. There is this shared sense of being part of a civilization that was great long before the current religious ideology took over. We see a similar dynamic with other ancient faiths, like the Zoroastrians, which we discussed in episode six hundred eighty. They also have to navigate this narrow path between their ancient heritage and the modern Islamic state.
It is like the Jews and the secular Iranians are both looking back at the same golden age, just from slightly different angles. But for the Jewish community specifically, the practicalities of daily life are just so restricted. I was reading that while they have schools and hospitals, the curriculum is heavily monitored. Everything is curated to ensure that no Zionist influence creeps in.
And that extends to their holy sites. We mentioned the Tomb of Daniel. It is still a pilgrimage site, but it is managed by the Islamic authorities. The Jews can visit, but it is not theirs. It is a state-managed monument. There is this constant sense of being a tolerated minority whose presence is conditional on their absolute political submission.
It makes me wonder about the long-term viability of the community. If you have gone from a hundred thousand to maybe nine thousand in forty-five years, and the current generation is living in fear, is there a future for Jewish life in Iran?
That is the big question in that UnHerd piece. Many people think we are seeing the final chapter of a three-thousand-year history. As the older generation passes away, and the younger people look for any way to get out, the community is shrinking toward a point of no return. But at the same time, Jewish history is full of these moments where a tiny remnant survives against all odds. The fact that there are still Jews in Tehran today, after everything that has happened since nineteen seventy-nine, is a miracle of resilience in itself.
It really is. And it changes how you should consume the news. When we see headlines about Iranian missiles or nuclear programs, we should remember that there are thousands of Jews living right there in the middle of it. They are under the same flight paths. They are facing the same consequences of their government's actions, but with the added layer of being a vulnerable minority.
It is a reason to be very careful with our rhetoric and our actions. Like you said, the warning from the community to not make direct contact is serious. In our world of instant communication and social media, we might think we are being supportive by reaching out, but we could be putting a target on someone's back. The best way to support them is to understand the complexity of their situation and to advocate for a world where that Cyrus-style pluralism can return to the region.
It is also a reminder that the word Persian carries a lot of weight. When you meet someone who identifies as Persian, they are often making a very specific statement about which version of history they belong to. They are claiming the heritage of the poets, the philosophers, and the kings who built a civilization that once welcomed the Jews home.
It is a beautiful heritage. And it is one that the Jewish people have never forgotten. Every year at the Passover Seder, and every year at Purim, we are reminded of those Persian connections. We have to hope that the current era is just a blip, a dark chapter in a much longer and more positive story between these two ancient peoples.
Let's pivot to some practical takeaways, because this is a lot of history and heavy politics to digest. If someone is listening to this and they want to be a more informed observer of the Middle East, what should they keep in mind?
The first takeaway is to be precise with your language. Stop using Iranian and Persian as synonyms. If you want to honor the culture and the history, recognize that Iran is a multi-ethnic state. When you call someone Persian, you are referring to a specific ethnicity and a specific cultural legacy. When you talk about the government, use the term Iranian regime or the Islamic Republic. Precision matters because it respects the diversity of the people living there, including the fifty-three percent of the population that is not ethnically Persian.
And the second thing is to understand the Cyrus comparison. When you hear a political leader like Amir Ohana or even a commentator in the United States compare a modern figure to Cyrus the Great, don't just dismiss it as hyperbole. It is a reference to a very specific theological and historical archetype. It is about the idea of a powerful outsider who acts as a protector of the Jewish people's sovereignty. Whether you agree with the comparison or not, understanding the source helps you see why it resonates so deeply with a lot of people. It is about the restoration of rights and the recognition of ancestral ties.
Third, we have to respect the silence of the community in Iran. It is tempting to want to hear their voices and want them to speak out against the regime, but we have to recognize the immense danger they are in. Their survival depends on their ability to stay out of the political crossfire. If they are asking for distance, we should give it to them. Our role is to tell their history so it isn't forgotten, not to force them into a spotlight that could be lethal.
And finally, remember that the geography of the Bible is real. These aren't just myths set in a vacuum. Susa is a real place. The tomb of Daniel is a real building you can visit in modern-day Shush. The history of the Jewish people is physically etched into the soil of Iran. That historical depth is why the current conflict feels so tragic. It is a fight between two peoples who have some of the deepest shared roots in human history.
It really is a tragedy of history. You have these two civilizations, the Jewish and the Persian, that were once the ultimate allies. Cyrus the Great and the Jewish prophets were on the same team. To see where we are today, with the regime in Tehran making existential threats against Israel, it is a complete reversal of the foundational relationship that defined the region for centuries.
It makes you wonder if that Cyrus legacy can actually survive. Can an ideology that has been around for forty-seven years really erase a connection that has lasted for twenty-five hundred?
I don't think it can. History has a much longer memory than politics. The fact that we are still talking about Daniel and Cyrus today, and that people are still making those comparisons in twenty-six, proves that the ancient stories have more staying power than the modern slogans. The regime might control the borders and the missiles for now, but they don't control the narrative of the land's history.
That is a good place to leave it. The resilience of that history is pretty incredible. Thanks for walking us through the technical side of the Cyrus Cylinder and the tomb geography, Herman. You have been waiting to get those Daniel details out for a while, haven't you?
Guilty as charged. It is just such a wild story. The idea of a prophet's coffin being moved back and forth across a river to share the wealth is the kind of detail that makes history feel alive. It shows that even in the twelfth century, people understood that these figures were valuable assets to a community's identity and economy.
It definitely does. This has been a deep one, and thanks to Daniel for the prompt that pushed us into this territory. It is a vital conversation to have, especially right now when the news cycle can feel so overwhelming and one-dimensional.
We have to keep these stories in the light.
We will wrap it up there. Huge thanks to our producer, Hilbert Flumingtop, for keeping the gears turning behind the scenes. And a big thanks to Modal for providing the GPU credits that power this show and allow us to dive into these complex topics every week.
This has been My Weird Prompts. If you found this episode helpful for understanding the situation in Iran, please consider leaving us a review on your podcast app. It really does help other people find the show and join the conversation.
We will be back soon with another prompt. Stay curious.
See you next time.
