There used to be a sizeable Jewish community in Siahkal with synagogue(s) and neighborhoods. The written historical sources on this community are limited, and mostly lost to history limited, as the Gilan province was largely isolated, and mostly ignored in history, but they might have been present since antiquity given speaking theJudeo-Siahkali dialect, as opposed to other Jewish communities of Gilan and surrounding provinces.[6] The community married among themselves and had a long tradition that they were descendants ofKing David. Some were descendants of Jews ofDilaman, who were ordered byNadir Shah Afshar in the year 1746 to relocate toMashhad.[7][8]
The community faced one or several pogroms and mass conversions in recent history based on their collective memory. Possibly, around 1880, there was a pogrom in Siahkal in which many Jews were killed, many were subjected to forceful conversion to Islam, and others left the city to live in Rasht (Netzer, Siahkal). In the following years, Many of the remaining members of this isolated community converted toBaháʼí Faith,Islam, or joinedthe Marxist movement. Others gradually left the town, commenced by events of the pogrom of 1880, the Marxist insurrection of 1921, the Soviet Occupation, and then as well as the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, which prompted emigration of the remaining practicing Jews to eitherIsrael,Rasht,Tehran, orthe United States;.[9][10][11]
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the city's population was 15,274 in 4,343 households.[12] The following census in 2011 counted 18,176 people in 5,645 households.[13] The 2016 census measured the population of the city as 19,924 people in 6,796 households.[3]
^abcسرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1395 : استان گیلان [General Population and Housing Census 2016: Gilan Province].مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived fromthe original(Excel) on 4 December 2020. Retrieved19 December 2022.
^Siahkal can be found atGEOnet Names Server, atthis link, by opening the Advanced Search box, entering "-3085619" in the "Unique Feature Id" form, and clicking on "Search Database".
^Habibi, Hassan (30 July 1997) [تاریخ تصویب (Approval date) 1376/05/08 (Iranian Jalali calendar)].تغییرات تقسیمات کشوری در استانهای گیلان و مازندران [Changes in national divisions in Gilan and Mazandaran provinces].لام تا کام [Lam ta Kam] (in Persian).وزارت کشور [Ministry of the Interior].هیات وزیران [Council of Ministers].شناسه [ID] FD2EBD22-EE72-4199-94FC-E295D8074EF7.شماره دوره [Course number] 76,شماره جلد [Volume number] 252. Archived fromthe original on 25 June 2025. Retrieved13 November 2025.
^L. Rabino, Les provinces caspiennes de la Perse (1917)
^سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1385 : استان گیلان [General Population and Housing Census 2006: Gilan Province].مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran] (in Persian). Archived fromthe original(Excel) on 20 September 2011. Retrieved25 September 2022.
^سرشماري عمومي نفوس و مسكن 1390 : استان گیلان [General Population and Housing Census 2011: Gilan Province].Iran Data Portal—Syracuse University (in Persian).مرکز آمار ایران [Statistical Centre of Iran]. Archived fromthe original(Excel) on 8 October 2023. Retrieved19 December 2022.
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