Iran

A woman named Iran was born in 1918. At least, we think she was born in 1918. And yes, her name was Iran, though she was born in the country that, at the time, was still called Persia. Her parents, including her mother, Leah, were finally allowed to leave the confines of Tehran’s Jewish ghetto, making Iran and her siblings among the first in their Jewish family to have access to greater Iranian society and all that it entailed vocationally, educationally and culturally. Educated at one of the beloved “Alliance” schools (created and funded by French Jewish philanthropists across the Middle East and North Africa), Iran spoke French beautifully.

Her gondi and ab ghoost, or Iranian-Jewish meatballs and rich broth prepared for Shabbat, were something of legend, and the dish is said to have originated in her home town of Tehran. An extraordinary cook, the woman never met a jar of chicken fat she didn’t open. Ironically, she was as thin as a rail.  

She was the epitome of kindness. Like all of the women in her family, Iran most connected with her Jewish identity in the home. Every mezuzah was checked meticulously; every shochet, or kosher ritual slaughterer, questioned repeatedly over his technique. Iran was even known to take Passover cleaning to an extreme. She was more Jewish than Persian, because she hadn’t been exposed to the secularism of greater Persian society (that exposure would be reserved for her children).

But Persia (the country that, in 1935, became known as “Iran”) was deeply ingrained in her. Iran raised seven children there, one of whom, a little boy, was running through the house one day when he collided with a massive samovar, or tall, heavy metal container of boiling water. Iran was beside herself, until her son proved on the mend. With his burns healing, he arrived home, but suddenly fell ill. Iran was inconsolable when she learned that he had contracted pneumonia at the hospital. Her little boy perished a few days later.

She was never the same. And decades later, when the violence and antisemitism of post-revolutionary Iran forced Iran, the woman, to flee Iran, the country, she quickly visited her late son’s grave before secretly making aliyah to Israel. Iran never saw her homeland again. But the Jewish homeland redeemed her, and proved bountiful in chicken, turmeric and chickpea flour — everything she needed in her kitchen. Shortly before her death in 2011, while in her nineties and struggling with dementia, Iran nevertheless spoke an extraordinary combination of Persian, French and Hebrew. She never did give away the secret of her imitable gondi and ab ghoosht.

Iran was my maternal grandmother.

Mohtaram

The Iranian Jewish family of Mohtaram (meaning respectable) hailed from a picturesque town called Golpayegan, in the province of Isfahan. Whereas Iran (mentioned above) always smelled like raw onion and turmeric, Mohtaram always smelled like fried onion and cumin. And unlike Iran, she was, let’s say, lovably corpulent. In fact, to have been wrapped in her chunky arms and breathe in the scent of caramelized onions slow-cooked in cumin was nothing short of divine.

She loved to serve a Shabbat dinner over her massive Persian rug, and her grandchildren never understood how she and her husband, who were in their sixties, were able to comfortably sit cross-legged on that carpet and pass succulent foods to guests for hours. She felt Judaism deep in her bones because assimilation wasn’t even an option at the time.

Mohtaram never yelled, though her five sons sometimes gave her plenty to yell about, especially when they rough-housed. She raised her sons to be kind, responsible, even-tempered and wholly grateful for life. Mohtaram’s sons were the jewels of her eye, but she was overjoyed when her two eldest sons married and she became a grandmother to five little girls (and later, when her other sons married, a slew of boys). When her second-oldest son escaped post-revolutionary Iran amid the carnage of the Iran-Iraq War, Mohtaram was understanding, but heartbroken. Shortly after her son fled the country with his wife and two little girls, Mohtaram’s husband suddenly passed away. Mohtaram often wondered if he had died of a broken heart, given the pain of being separated from his loved ones. Suddenly a widow, Mohtaram was nevertheless supportive when her third and fourth sons (and their wives and children) told her of their plans to escape Iran a few years later.

Mohtaram spent the rest of her life in Iran, among a Jewish community that had dwindled from over 100,000 before the 1979 revolution to roughly 8,000 today. 

She never saw those three sons and their families again, but 7,500 thousand miles away, from her home in Tehran, she lived for those international phone calls that connected her back to half of her heart. Mohtaram spent the rest of her life in Iran, among a Jewish community that had dwindled from over 100,000 before the 1979 revolution to roughly 8,000 today. She passed away in 2005, but her grandchildren still say a “Besamim” blessing over sweet cumin and think of her larger-than-life kindness.

Mohtaram was my paternal grandmother; her second-eldest son, my father, fled Iran with my mother, my sister and me in the late 1980s.

Flora

Felor (Flora) is a self-identifying elitist from Tehran. Never ask whether she, or even her mother, Iran (mentioned above), grew up in Tehran’s Jewish ghetto, unless you’d like to lose an eye. “Me? In the Jewish ghetto? My mother didn’t even set foot there!” she insists. Flora hails from a pious, middle-class Jewish family and her father, Aziz, and her mother were known for their kindness and service to the community. 

Felor (Flora) is a self-identifying elitist from Tehran. Never ask whether she, or even her mother, Iran, grew up in Tehran’s Jewish ghetto, unless you’d like to lose an eye.

When Flora lost her younger brother to pneumonia, she lost her childhood. And because her mother and father were overwhelmed with their own inconsolable grief (and it was 1950s Iran), Flora didn’t have access to the kind of grief counseling and intervention that many children receive today after losing a loved one. The pain and trauma entered her heart and never left.

The years passed and Flora blossomed into a chic teenager who bought Beatles’ records in Tehran and daydreamed about Paul McCartney. Though by her own admission, her mother overtly exploited her with grueling housework because she was the only daughter in a family of seven sons. But as Flora grew older, she gained a better understanding of her mother’s pains, as well as her resilience. 

A talented poet and songwriter, Flora had a unique connection with the land of Iran. Nothing could have prepared her for having to escape the country. Thirty years later, she still refers to it as “my soil.” She also drops coins into a tzedakah box each day, which she sends to Friends of the IDF every single month. 

With her mother and father having escaped to Israel, Flora and her family resettled in Los Angeles, and at first, she retained all of her mother’s mouth-watering recipes. Unfortunately, upon horrified first glance at obese Americans at a few Southern California amusement parks, Flora ceased cooking with oil and salt. This is the same woman who, back in Iran (and like her mother), never met a jar of chicken fat she didn’t use. And like her late mother, Flora is also maddeningly thin.

At first, Flora was more secular than her mother. Under the second Shah of Iran, her generation enjoyed unprecedented modernization and secularization. But a decade after arriving in America, she understood the seductive potential of assimilation in this country and declared to her family that, at home at least, they would observe strictly kosher dietary restrictions and that she would no longer cook or vacuum on Shabbat. Like her late mother, Flora takes Passover cleaning to a whole other level. And her slow-cooked beef tongue and black-eyed-peas, which she prepares for a Rosh Hashanah siman, is so extraordinary that even her small grandchildren fight over it. Despite repeated attempts, her daughters still haven’t managed to replicate her famous recipe. 

Flora is my mother.

Parastoo 

During the Iran-Iraq War, Parastoo couldn’t help but feel so scared of near-daily missile raids that she would inevitably vomit on several expensive Persian rugs at home. Between begging her to vomit somewhere else and hugging her for comfort, Parastoo’s mother, Flora, was often found with a mop in one hand and a siddur (Jewish prayer book) in another. The siddur was employed for extra protection against the merciless Iraqi bombs, and perhaps, Flora hoped, as a source of divine intervention against the hail of vomit on her prized rugs.

Like all schools after the revolution, her school became a cesspool of propaganda, and Parastoo, along with every other little girl, was forced to chant “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” daily.

At school, which, before the Islamic revolution in Iran, was a Tehran-based Jewish institution founded by Iraqi Jews, Parastoo earned the highest marks. But like all schools after the revolution, her school became a cesspool of propaganda, and Parastoo, along with every other little girl, was forced to chant “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” daily. Ever wise, she reassured her younger sister not to believe those poisonous words. She also taught her younger sister how to properly tie her hijab, or mandatory Islamic head covering, though her sister never did manage to learn how to peel a persimmon in one, perfect curl. Only Parastoo could do that.  

True to her name, which means a swallow (bird), Parastoo took literal and metaphoric flight, escaping Iran on an airplane and soaring to new heights in America, where she arrived as a child survivor of the Iran-Iraq War. When she and her family resettled in Los Angeles, Parastoo was shocked to find that many Americans actually believed a child who didn’t speak English had cognitive delays (this was the early ’90s). It wasn’t easy to have been at the top of her class back in Iran and then suddenly perceived as inept in the United States. So Parastoo set out to prove everyone wrong. 

She studied late into the night and set class curves; she didn’t work twice as hard as the American-born kids — she worked 10 times as hard. Forgoing lunch or recess break, she often stayed with her teacher and asked for extra help (or homework). There was no time to lose, whether academically or culturally. And while she wasn’t sure exactly who M.C. Hammer was, she made it her mission to find out. The American train had left the station and she wasn’t about to miss the stop.

Years later, at her Harvard graduation (with a master’s in education), her refugee family’s shouts of joy could be heard across the Charles River at MIT. As a young adult, Parastoo learned more about Orthodox Judaism and, along with her husband, a French Jewish immigrant, became a baalei teshuva. Her mother, Flora, was ambivalent. Delighted that Parastoo was committing to more Jewish practice, Flora nevertheless warned her daughter that if she ever wore a wig, she’d kill herself.

Today, Parastoo’s Shabbat table is famous for its wildly delicious food and hilarious company. Simply put, no one hosts like her. She’s come a long way from the child refugee whose extracurricular activities were mostly confined to descaling dead trout in her mother’s kitchen. Parastoo still lives in Los Angeles, but for some reason, doesn’t have a single Persian rug in her home.

Parastoo is my older sister. 

In truth, I could devote an entire column to each extraordinary woman in my family, and that includes my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my cousins and all of my remarkably resilient aunts (as well as my husbands’ aunts and grandmothers). Their collective experience and life stories, some of which are still unfolding, are testament to one of the greatest truths of Purim and the uniqueness of Queen Esther: Pound for pound, Persian women are amazing. Purim Sameach.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning, L.A.-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TabbyRefael.