Persian Home
A typical Persian yard was often situated in front of the home, and where one would walk into upon entering the dwelling. The yard was the center of the house, and typically housed a shallow pool of water in its center. The bedrooms were located few steps up and surrounded the yard. Few families often times lived together, consisting of the parents, their children and their son's wives and children. Each nuclear family would share a room and everyone would cook and eat together.
The homes in the Jewish quarter were not nearly as nice as the one pictured here, often times run down and much less grand.
Mahaleh
The Jewish Quarter
This is an image of a typical road in the Jewish quarter. The roadways were oftentimes quite narrow. Pedestrian and their mules or heavy carts filled the tiny ways. During rainy seasons the space was even harder to maneuver as it was filled with water and mud.
Mahaleh
Jewish Ghetto
The Jewish quarter housed the majority of the Jews as well as its synagogues and small shops and businesses. It was also the dwelling place for most of the low-income Jewish families.
The mahaleh in Iran was a concentration of Jews who voluntarily lived together in the small area of the town to support one another and face the outside pressures that were imposed on them by the larger Shiite Muslim population.
The mahaleh, unlike its European counterparts, was not enclosed by walls or closed at night. The buildings were intergraded within the larger city.
