A study of the Converso community in Mashhad, Iran. Shiite Iran was always less tolerant toward the Jews than the Sunni Muslim world. In 1839 anti-Jewish riots erupted in Mashhad, in the wake of which ca. 150 Jewish families were forcibly converted to Islam. Their new status did not save the "Jadids" from persecutions - anti-Jadid riots, some of them accompanied by blood libels, took place in 1890-1902 and in the 1940s. The mobs firmly identified the converts as Jews. The events of 1839 and of 1892 (a blood libel case) are reflected in the folklore of the "Jadids. " The "Jadidi" community of Mashhad survived as an intensely Jewish community for some four generations, until its mass emigration following the establishment of Israel.