Chaya Celebrates Persian Jewish Women in Honor of Purim

On Purim, we retell the story of Queen Esther, who saved the Jewish people in Persia. In anticipation of the upcoming holiday, along with Nowruz, the Persian New Year, a local nonprofit, Chaya, is holding a panel of Persian Jewish women discussing their roles as changemakers and influencers in the community. 

The event will be held Sunday, March 13 and will feature a panel consisting of Jessica Naziri, a digital lifestyle expert, Davina Farahi, co-founder and CEO of the luxury brand Shaya, real estate developer Parisa Roshan, editor-in-chief at Los Angeles Confidential magazine Ramona Saviss and Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh, Hillel at UCLA’s director of student life. Shannon Delijani, a Chaya board member, will moderate, and it’ll take place at a private home in Brentwood. 

“We brainstormed women in our community who we think are changemakers and succeeding in unconventional career paths,” said Tara Khoshbin, executive director of Chaya. “We had a list and tried to pick women from different industries.”

Chaya holds events that empower the Jewish Iranian community, such as “Women on Purpose,” where women get together to discuss topics like leadership, friendship, mother-daughter dynamics and goal manifestation, and “Dinner With Strangers,” where once a month, five women and five men sit down to discuss a hot topic like dating, politics and self-expression. 

According to Khoshbin, the work Chaya does is important because her community “has a set life path for many of the women: choosing a conventional and steady career path like a lawyer or doctor, getting married and having children. We want to show the young people in our community, especially the young women, that there are more options out there than the ones we have been told.” 

“Over the last seven or eight years, to a great extent due to organizations like Chaya, there has been a greater interest in and recognition of what it means to be a Jewish Persian American woman,” said Roshan, one of the speakers on the upcoming panel. “While I’m so glad that women of our generation are beginning to share their stories, it is my hope that there will be opportunities for our mothers to tell their stories as well, because we are standing on their shoulders.”

Rabizadeh, a trailblazing rabbi, is inspired by Purim, and specifically, Queen Esther. “What I love about the story of Purim, but Queen Esther in particular, is that she used her femininity to realize her ultimate goal – which in the case of the Purim story – was to save the Jewish people from total destruction,” she said. “One of the lessons I learned from her behavior in the story is that a person should use their gifts [and] their talents, whether hidden or visible, in which God gave [them], in order to help other people in life.”

Khoshbin calls the panelists “modern-day Queen Esthers” and hopes that people go into the event with an open mind and learn there are different career paths – not just the conventional ones parents may expect them to choose.

Khoshbin calls the panelists “modern-day Queen Esthers” and hopes that people go into the event with an open mind and learn there are different career paths – not just the conventional ones parents may expect them to choose. 

“We should follow our passion and do what we love when it comes to our careers and in all of our life choices.”

Roshan, who worked at RAND Corporation prior to entering real estate, echoed a similar sentiment. “I’m really proud of these women,” she said. “Though the details of our lives may differ, we are rooted in the same rich history, we uphold similar traditions and values and we have all navigated the divide between being modern American women and being the daughters of immigrants. Together we are writing the story of our generation of Persian Jews.”

She continued, “It’s a gift to be a Persian Jewish woman. It’s not always easy, but it’s a gift.”

Tickets for Chaya’s event are available online at secure.actblue.com/donate/chayapowerhouse.