A Wedding Song

I left Iran on July 4, 1975, returned the following year for a visit, not realizing that I would never return. The Islamic Revolution toppled the government of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979, forcing most of the Iranian Jewish community to leave a country we had called home for over 2000 years. Undoubtedly, the exile has allowed the Iranian Jews to sharpen our sense of pride and belonging to our heritage. Having lived on the fringes of often anti-Semitic populations, we had rarely believed in our own strength, rarely been allowed to study our history. In Iran, we tried to keep a low profile, to be invisible. In exile, although many yearn for our homes, we have the freedom to write, to talk, to explore. My memoir is a continuum of this struggle to document, to recapture a life that is rapidly disappearing. This thesis chronicles my childhood, my family's lives, and the lives of women who went unnoticed in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz. I attempt to acquaint my western readers with the essence of Jewish life in the shadow of Islam, the magnetism of western technology and freedom against the lulling effect of Persian literature, thoughts, customs and ethics. This is my story.