The Jews of Hamadan in 1892

Little is known about Morris Cohen, a Jewish educator in the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) schools in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in what is now Iraq and Iran. Cohen was also a communal official and activist who worked on behalf of the Anglo Jewish Association (AJA). The AJA’s involvement in what it saw as the defense and uplift of Jews in the Mesopotamia region came in the larger context of the expanding British imperial economic and political penetration of the region, rising antisemitic persecution in Iran, and increased missionizing efforts aimed at local Jews by British Protestant groups. Persian Jewish communities, such as that of Hamadan, were in frequent contact with Jewish community leaders in Britain, and turned to them to pressure their government to influence the Persian crown to stop the widespread violence against Jews.