Category: Persian

  • The Status of Persian Kohanim

    The Status of Persian Kohanim

    Some decades ago a rumor started spreading that Iranian Kohanim were not actually Kohanim; rather, the uneducated Persian Jews would often “volunteer” to be Kohanim for some period of time as a token of thanks to Hashem for some personal salvation. Although the Iranian rabbis who had been on the ground in Iran in the 20th century penned a letter testifying that they never witnessed this phenomenon, the damage was already done, and some Poskim even till today will consider the possibility in cases of Jewish status determination for Kohanim from Iran.

    Rav Djavaheri and Rav Eliyahu Bar Shalom, the chief rabbi of Bat Yam, published an article and rebuttal in the HaMashbir journal refuting and defending these rumors and their halachic value.

    You can read the article below and listen to the shiur here: The Priestly Republic of Iran – Defending the Lineage of Persian Kohanim.

    נדרי כהונה בערי פרס ומדיDownload
  • Spelling the Persian Name Pejman in a Ketubah or Get

    Spelling the Persian Name Pejman in a Ketubah or Get

    The correct spelling of names in the Get is critical to its efficacy. In this article, Rabbi Djavaheri discusses the transliteration of Persian (Iranian) names. The name at hand, Pejman, includes the Farsi letter ز (the /ʒ/ phoneme, a voiced postalveolar fricative, which sounds like J as in Jacques).

    Ashkenazim traditionally mark this sound with a זש, but there are different customs among Sepharadim. Some do a ג’ (a gimmel with an apostrophe), while others use a ז’.

    The responsum include a letter from Hacham Asher Hatchuel from the Sephardic Bet Din of Brooklyn and references to the views of other great Sephardic Dayanim of Israel and America today, including Rav Moshe Basri, Rav Eliyahu Ben-Haim, Rav Nissim Davidi, Rav Shmuel Khoshkerman,

    Le’Halacha: both פג’מאן and פז’מאן are acceptable.

    It was published in Beis Yitzchok vol. 50 pg. 232.

    ז שבורהDownload