At the time of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there were approximately 140,000–150,000 Jews living in Iran, the historical center of Persian Jewry. About 95% have since migrated, with the immigration accelerating after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the population dropped from 100,000 to about 40,000. Following the Iranian Revolution, some 30,000 Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel, while many others went to the United States and Western Europe.