Many of the Jews of Urmia worked as peddlers in the cloth trade, while others were jewelers or goldsmiths. The degree of education for the boys was primary school, with only some advancing their Jewish schooling in a Talmud yeshiva. Some of these students earned their livelihood by making talismans and amulets. There was a small girls school with only twenty pupils. There were two main synagogues in Urmia, one large one and one smaller one. The large synagogue was called the synagogue of Sheikh Abdulla.
