Review of Sarah Sorour Soroudi, The Folktales of the Jews from Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan: Tale-Types and Genres

Sarah Sorour Soroudi (1938-2002) was born in Tehran, Iran and immigrated to Israel in 1959, where she resumed at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem her academic studies that she had begun at the University of Tehran. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1972 and returned to Israel, joining faculty of the department of Indian, Iranian and Armenian studies of the Hebrew University. Persian literature and poetry was her primary scholarly concern, but over the years her interest in Persian culture and folklore evolved with a particular focus on the folklore of Iranian Jews. The present tale type index of tales told in Israel by narrators from Jewish communities in Iran, Central Asia, and Afghanistan is her first major folklore book, which, sadly, was published posthumously.