David Yeroushalmi – författare

Light and Shadows highlights the 2,700-year history of Jews in Iran. It reveals centuries of oppression, fascinating cultural borrowings, and great artistic achievements. The story is told through rare archaeological artifacts, illuminated manuscripts, beautiful ritual objects and amulets, ceremonial garments, musical instruments, photographs, and more.It examines as well the large-scale exodus of the Jewish community following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Today, at least 25,000 practicing Jews remain in Iran, unwilling to give up their ancestral home and the distinctive way of life they have led there.Light and Shadows is a co-publication between the Fowler Museum at UCLA and Beit Hatfutsot--The Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.

The history of Iranian Jews after the establishment of the Safavid State in Iran in 1501 C.E. has formed the subject of growing academic and broader interest over the last few decades. However, despite the significant increase in the quantity and quality of the publications in this area, some of the main aspects and periods in the history of Iranian Jews have received little or no systematic treatment. Dealing with some broad but closely related areas of history, community, society, and culture among the Jews of nineteenth-century Iran, the present book provides sources of information as well as discussions and explanations related to some of the main conditions and realities that shaped the lives of the Iranian Jews prior to their accelerated transformation in the course of the twentieth-century. Included among the eight sections and over forty annotated and analyzed sources in the book are those that shed light on some of the major areas of Jewish life in nineteenth-century Iran.