The Dr. Habib Levy Program

Dr. Habib Levy Program in Iranian Jewish History is dedicated to the advancement of academic study and the promotion of knowledge concerning the history and cultural heritage of Iranian Jewry.

As an important and integral part of the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel-Aviv University, the Dr. Habib Levy Program in Iranian Jewish History is dedicated to the advancement of academic study and promotion of instruction and knowledge concerning the centuries long history and cultural heritage of Iranian Jewry.

Inspired and guided by the vision and sustained commitment of the late Dr. Habib Levy, the accomplished scholar and historian of Iranian Jewry, the program is devoted to a broad range of academic, cultural and educational goals and activities dealing directly with the history and cultural heritage of Iranian Jews. More specifically, the program seeks to offer academic courses of instruction at university level and to promote scholarly research and publication focusing on diverse aspects of history, culture, community, religion, literature, language, and more among the Persian and Aramaic speaking Jews of Iran.

Relying on the knowledge and expertise of the academic staff at Tel-Aviv University at large and the Center for Iranian Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern and African History in particular, one of the program's main objectives is to encourage and enable graduate students to devote their M.A. and Ph.D. theses and dissertations to the study of Iranian Jewish history and heritage. A second and closely related goal of the program is to encourage and support qualified researchers and scholars in the field to conduct original studies and research projects dealing with diverse aspects of the past and recent history of Iranian Jews.

With a view to inform the general public and the interested circles of readers and students, the Center and the Program are committed to the publication of studies (in English, Persian and Hebrew) dealing with diverse areas and aspects of history, culture and community among the Jews of Iran. In conjunction with the latter goal, the Program conducts international as well as local academic conferences, seminars and lectures by specialists and guest lecturers from Israel and abroad. Finally, due to the highly scattered nature of the documents and archival sources related to the history of Iranian Jews, the Center for Iranian Studies and the Habib Levy Program at Tel-Aviv University are committed to the collection and preservation of valuable records and documents related to the field.

The Center and the Program presently possess a large body of historical documents, rare 19th -20th century photographs as well as several personal, family and communal records and documents. Together with an extensive amount of oral recordings which were conducted among the older generation Iranian Jews by the Center for Iranian Jewish History in Los Angeles, the latter mentioned archival sources, photographs and oral recordings were kindly endowed by the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, Los Angeles, to the Center for Iranian Studies and the Dr. Habib Levy Program in Iranian Jewish History at Tel-Aviv University.