Harry and I had an interesting question Tuesday afternoon as a student, who has read The Namesake, wanted assistance in finding information about Iranian Jews who have resettled in the U.S. Although he didn't go into great detail, he said his idea was to show some similarities in the experiences in his paper. These are some sources that I found helpful:
Ethnic Newswatch for feature stories about Iranian Jews who have resettled in the U.S.
Many came after the Shah of Iran was overthrown; there are large communities in New York, including Great Neck, and Los Angeles (80,000 live in L.A.)
Factiva and the New York Times for features and news articles.
There are several memoirs that have been written that have been reviewed in the NYT and in Factiva. These include Wedding Song by Goldin and Journey from the Land of No, by Roya Hakakian. Other CUNY schools have the two titles.
I didn't locate much in the sociological or anthro databases that we have, or in SSRN. I tried WorldCat and found several books that included information about the resettlement of Iranian Jews. The student received the information. If anyone has other suggestions, please share them.
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I found two different associations in the US that represent Iranian American Jews: the Iranian American Jewish Association and the Iranian American Jewish Federation. Both offer a magazine that may be a source of information.
From searching for "Iranian American Jews" in Google Book Search, I found at least one book that discusses this community: Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration.
A Google Book Search for "persian jew" and "united states" and "immigration" turned up more promising leads.
The Encyclopedia Judaica also has many in depth articles with extensive bibliographies. We have access to it through the Gale Virtual Library.
Thanks Mike and Stephen for your suggestions. I have forwarded them to the student.
This morning I received a very appreciative note from the student for the first resources I sent him. I am sure that these additional resources will also be very much appreciated. Initially when he came to the desk yesterday I didn't have much luck so I took his contact information and said we would get back to him.
I wrote the student that I had learned a lot from his question as I had not known the size of the Jewish community in Iran and here in the U.S.
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