Aziz Daneshrad

Aziz Daneshrad (Persian: عزیز دانش‌راد; 1920–1991)[1] also known as Gabay (Persian: گبای)[2] and Kiyai (Persian: کیائی)[1] was an Iranian Jewish political activist who represented Jews in the Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution. His was a proponent of left-wing politics while also advocating ethnoreligious identity.[3]

Aziz Daneshrad
Member of the Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution
In office
18 August 1979 – 15 November 1979
ConstituencyJewish community
Majority8,927 (99.4%)
Personal details
Born
Aziz Daneshrad-Kiyai

1920
Golpayegan, Iran
Died1991 (aged 70–71)
Political partyTudeh Party of Iran
Alma materUniversity of Tehran
OccupationEngineer

Early life and education

Aziz Daneshrad-Kiyai was born in 1920 in Golpayegan, Isfahan Province.[1] His father was a rabbi and a merchant in bazaar.[1] He obtained a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran and then became a civil servant.[1]

Political career

During the rule of Pahlavi dynasty, Daneshrad was a dissident associated with the Tudeh Party of Iran and he was imprisoned in the 1960s and the 1970s.[3][4]

He co-founded the Association of Jewish Iranian Intellectuals (Jame‘eh-ye rowshanfekran-e kalimi-ye Iran; abbreviated AJII) in 1978, a revolutionary organization that tried to challenge the old guard leadership of the Jewish community which had royalist and Zionist orientations.[3]

After the Iranian Revolution, he took charge as the interim chairman of the Tehran Jewish Association because the previous officeholder Habib Elghanian was executed.[2] Daneshrad was elected to the Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution shortly after.[1] There he was one of the four members who represented religious minorities[5] and he is likely to have sided with opposition to inclusion of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists in the constitution.[6]

Personal life

Daneshrad married his paternal cousin, Aghdas, in 1944. The couple had three sons and two daughters.[2]

Accolades

National

References
  1. Boroujerdi, Mehrzad; Rahimkhani, Kourosh (2018). Postrevolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook. Syracuse University Press. p. 433. ISBN 9780815654322.
  2. "Presidents of the Tehran Jewish Association: Aziz Daneshrad "Gabay"", Research Studies Center of Iranian Jews, archived from the original on 2021-09-28, retrieved 2021-09-28
  3. Sternfeld, Lior (2014), "The Revolution's Forgotten Sons and Daughters: The Jewish Community in Tehran during the 1979 Revolution", Iranian Studies, 47 (6): 857–869, doi:10.1080/00210862.2014.948744, S2CID 143732194
  4. Yashayaei, Haroun (12 November 2019), interviewed by Mohammad Mehdi Moosakhan, translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi, "Society of Jewish Intellectuals and Islamic Revolution of Iran: Interview with Haroun Yashayaei, One of the Founders", Iranian Oral History, Resistance Literature and Culture Researches and Studies Center
  5. Sanasarian, Eliz (2000), "Religious Minorities in Iran", British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge Middle East Studies, Cambridge University Press, 13: 64–82, ISBN 113942985X
  6. Saffari, Said (1993), "The Legitimation of the Clergy's Right to Rule in the Iranian Constitution of 1979" (PDF), British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Taylor & Francis, 20 (1): 64–82, doi:10.1080/13530199308705571
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