Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies Series

Foreword

The Center for Israel Studies is dedicated to deepening Yeshiva University’s longstanding relationship with the State of Israel. Our area studies approach to Israel, its land and peoples, brings together Yeshiva University’s rich faculty, museum, and library resources to explore Israel in all of its complexities. Our work is expressed through diverse schol- arship, publications, academic programs, museum exhibitions, public events, and educational opportunities.

In this spirit, I am most pleased to introduce Iran, Israel, and the Jews: Symbiosis and Conflict from the Achaemenids to the Islamic Republic. This marvelous volume is edited by my distinguished colleagues, Daniel Tsadik and Aaron Koller, and brings together a community of scholars of uncommon depth to explore one of the longest and most complex re- lationships between two peoples in the history of humanity. The twenty- five hundred years of “symbiosis and conflict” that have connected the Jewish and Iranian peoples are quite exceptional. This fascinatingly long span is a virtual laser beam through human history, and I am proud that our Center is the soil in which it has germinated.

Iran, Israel, and the Jews: Symbiosis and Conflict from the Achaeme- nids to the Islamic Republic began as a conference organized by the YU Center for Israel Studies in 2010. I thank Aaron, Daniel, and all of the authors for bringing this publication to fruition with this exceptional volume.

This volume inaugurates the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies Series in Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock. This series will be a place to assemble and celebrate the riches of CIS academic conferences and projects. This is an exciting development, made possible by the Leon Charney Legacy Fund of the Center for Israel Studies and The Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press. I thank Tzili Charney and Jeffrey Gurock for their support of this project, and of the people of Wipf and Stock for their congeniality and professionalism.

It is my hope that Iran, Israel, and the Jews, like all projects of the Ye- shiva University Center for Israel Studies, will contribute broadly to the academic conversation on Israel, and also to a broad and excited reader- ship within the Yeshiva University community, and beyond.

Steven Fine

Dean Pinkhos Churgin Professor of Jewish History

Director, Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies

New York and Jerusalem