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In 1839, a mob in the Persian city of Mashhad (Khorasan) attacked the Jewish quarter on a day later called the Allahdad, "God's justice." The community, given the choice between conversion to Shia Islam and death, converted publicly. For roughly 150 years afterward, they lived a double life: Muslim names and mosque attendance in public, secret synagogues and Hebrew prayers at night. They married only among themselves. They smuggled their dead through alleys to hidden Jewish burial. By the early 20th century, branches of the community emerged into open Judaism in Tehran, Jerusalem, and later New York. Today the largest Mashhadi communities live in Great Neck (NY), Brooklyn, and Holon. They are one of history's most successful crypto-Jewish survivals.
Cultural note, The Mashhadi case is unusual among Anusim. The Spanish conversos lost most Jewish practice within three generations. The Mashhadis kept halacha strict for 150 years under daily threat, partly because they kept marrying each other and partly because Mashhad's geography (a remote Shia pilgrim city with no other Jewish neighbors) forced them inward. When they finally emerged, they emerged whole, with Hebrew, with kashrut, with a distinctive Persian-influenced minhag. The community in Great Neck still marries inside the Mashhadi line. Endogamy was the survival mechanism, and it remains the cultural signature.
Allahdad & Forced Conversion
Crypto-Jewish Practices
Double Identity
Modern Mashhadi Communities
Customs & Minhag
A Mashhadi Grandfather Tells His Story
A 90-year-old Mashhadi man in Holon, born in Mashhad in 1936, recounts the double life of his childhood to his Israeli grandson.