Persian Jews

Haruni / Azizollahoff Family

Mashhad – Bombay – London/Israel

Dress of Haji Bibi Haruni worn at Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings) meals in the week after the wedding. Courtesy of ANU Museum.
Necklace with six pointed star and crescent, worn by Haji Bibi Haruni in Mashhad. Courtesy of Haruni family.
Family picture, Mashhad 1920s. Haji Bibi Haruni is second from the right, with her firstborn. Courtesy of Haruni family.

Privacy note: pictures on this website are from private archives and cannot be reused without permission of the owners.

Wedding Dress of Haji Bibi Haruni. Courtesy of ANU Museum.

Haji Bibi Haruni wrote her memoirs when she lived in London in the 1960s. The memoirs are written in Judeo-Persian (in Mashhad also called Jadidi). In them, she explains her marriage at the age of 13, and the role of the significant women of her husband’s ancestry: his great-grandmother Rahel Mashade, as well as his mother and her mother in law, called Rahel Mashade II,  both of whom  worked as  midwives and cosmeticians in Mashhad. Haji Bibi also wrote about how her aunt taught her to read and write the Hebrew alphabet, after which she taught herself to read the Torah and siddur. She also talks about the contacts of the Jewish community with Muslim notables and the celebration of religious feasts, as well as her role as wife and mother and the hardships of daily life she experienced in Mashhad and later on when she moved to Bombay.