As a child in Queens, New York in the late 1970s and early 1980s I didn’t possess the vocabulary to describe the differences between my family and every single other family at PS 221 Queens or at my Hebrew school, Marathon Jewish Community Center. I just knew my family had a lot of rules and differences.
In today’s parlance, I could say I was a “unicorn.” Or, that I was a firstborn Persian Jewish girl in a traditional observant family being raised in an Conservative Ashkenazi community.
Nevertheless, during Passover, public schools in Queens were open. I ate matzah and charoset sandwiches at lunchtime. In 1979, after the Iranian Revolution, my Hebrew School classmate brought the differences between us home, and accused me in the middle of class of being an “I-Ranian.” The teacher did not intervene. This was shocking to me, since I had never been to that place and did not realize that they knew my parents came from that country: it was not something I had ever verbalized. I began to pay closer attention to differences between my family and the others.
In Hebrew School, we all learned about seders from the Manischewitz Haggadah. We all learned the Four Questions and to sing “Chag Gad Ya.” Over the years, I came to realize that the other kids’ charoset had different ingredients and texture; they did not eat charoset through the holiday; they didn’t hit one another with scallions during “Dayenu”; and, they did not cover the table with a tablecloth during the recital of the ten plagues.
Another difference I came to learn was that my Ashkenazi classmates were allowed to eat dairy products during Passover, but I was not. My parents explained that, in Iran, the dairies had been controlled by Muslims. Jews, in an abundance of caution to avoid anyone tampering with chametz, developed a minhag, custom, to avoid dairy for the entire chag. No ice cream, no cheese, no yogurt or matzah pizza for me during the entire chag back then.
Each of these differences between my family’s traditional Persian Jewish customs and my Ashkenazi classmates has been written about elsewhere, by others. However, looking back now as an adult, with a family of my own, I wish to raise up and preserve another distinctive tradition which seems to have fallen into disuse since: Mo-ed Deedani.
Mo-Ed Deedani was a custom of visiting family and friends “to see and be seen” during chol ha-moed. It was for the off-days that were not chag, which did not have time-bound halachic restrictions. People could drive, could visit those members of the family who had not been at seders. Over the years, mo-ed deedani was like an extended drop-in/ playdate/meet-and-greet, whether in my parents’ living room, my aunts’ or uncles’ living rooms, a huge synagogue social hall in Forest Hills, Queens, or outside, on the lawn of a park in Manhasset, New York.
Mo ed Deedani was based on a Persian tradition of “Eid Deedani” in the Middle East. “Deedan” means “to be seen” and “visitation.”
Of course, “mo-ed” is Hebrew for “appointed times,” holy days, “eids.” (I suppose, it should have been called “Chol Ha Mo Ed Deedani,” so as not to conflict with the first and last two days of chag.)
Nevertheless, at mo-ed deedani, everyone could catch up on one another’s families. How did the house look? Who had singles to match? Who had business deals to consummate? Health issues? Pregnancies? All prior to the advent of the Persian Yellow Pages, the World Wide Web, cellular phones and social media.
When mo-ed deedani was held in a house, the tradition was to “only” serve tea, dried nuts, fruit and kosher for Passover cookies. Setting up for mo-ed deedani was not as difficult as making a seder, or serving a full course meal. However, considering the accretive amount of work that went into preparing the household for Passover, mo-ed deedani meant that after the cleaning, and the seders, there was still more hosting and more guesting.
In addition, in the 1970s and 1980s, there were not-yet stores, brands, and caterers exclusively catering to Persian Jews. Families like mine would purchase, roast, and salt their own raw nuts, as well as make their own kosher for Passover almond cookies, badom sookhteh, date cookies, and meringues.
When mo-ed deedani was held at a park or synagogue social hall, it meant that someone in a position of leadership had gotten the requisite permits to make it happen. Looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, it also meant that the United States was a safe place to be Jewish out in the open, in public. By contrast, I am told that, in Iran, mo-ed deedani only took place indoors, in private homes.
Notably, mo-ed deedani in Iran was likely influenced not only by eid deedani, in general, but by the Zoroastrian and secular traditions of Seezdah Be Dar associated with Nowruz which, like Passover, celebrates a rite of Spring. So, the morphing of mo-ed deedani to the outdoors here in the United States made for an almost inexorable natural extension of what had previously been an exclusively indoor Persian Jewish tradition in a predominantly Muslim culture.
In the early 1980s, at the assigned time, everyone just knew to “drop by” to see and be seen for mo-ed deedani. Mind you, this was before the internet. This was before cell phones. This was right after enghelab, the Revolution, which had upended the lives and livelihoods of thousands of families. Yet, they literally used word-of-mouth and a sincere desire to find one another in community to go forth at Passover and embrace the Persian tradition of mo-ed deedani here in the United States.
To be honest, as a child, preteen and teenager, I did not personally enjoy mo-ed deedani very much. At my house, it seemed overly formal. In the synagogue and park, it seemed chaotic and overwhelming. There were so many babbling Farsi-speaking adults and strange children! I remember thinking that people grabbing at the fruit and nuts in the synagogue was unseemly and made me lose my appetite. I remember being frustrated that I could not have an ice cream from the ice cream truck at the park. I remember gazing quizzically at dressed-up women teetering on their stiletto heels in the park, wondering if they did not have other shoes to wear? I also remember seeing what looked like an infinite number of holes in the ground left from those heels.
As a teenager, I was told I had to wear white to mo-ed deedani as a symbol of being eligible and single. As an adolescent Persian Jew and female, I was not allowed to date in any common sense of the word; but I had to wear white to mo-ed deedani, a tradition dating back to the time of the Torah and singles meeting in the fields. As an American teenager in Queens and Long Island, New York, this seemed forced and discomfiting.
Yet, looking back now, as a married adult involved in Persian Jewish communal leadership, with a family and young adult children of my own, I marvel at the foresight of the patriarchs, matriarchs, and community leaders who facilitated the mo-ed deedani tradition to enable a community to find its bearings, to find one another, to regain their footing: I would say, mo-ed deedani served a valuable purpose; it worked. Now, all these years later, I remember it, somewhat fondly. Indeed, I now host my Persian inlaws as well as Ashkenazi machetunim (in-laws) at seders and for mo-ed deedani. The Persian Jewish community is thriving. Our customs are the norm, and I no longer feel like a Passover Unicorn. Indeed, perhaps, a generation after the Iranian Revolution, with natural acculturation and assimilation, with our Persian Jewish singles relying on dating apps and Shabbatons to meet, perhaps nondenominational traditions such as mo-ed deedani should be resuscitated for the next generation to see one another in person, in lieu of social media and outside of synagogues.
Serving some tea, nuts, and cookies seems a small price to pay to preserve familial and communal bonds.
Serving some tea, nuts, and cookies seems a small price to pay to preserve familial and communal bonds.
Rebecca Yousefzadeh Sassouni is an essayist, lawyer, mediator, unpaid public official, immediate past president of Sephardic Heritage Alliance, Inc., mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, and mother-in-law who draws strength and inspiration from the SheerZans of Persian Jewry who came before her.
