Personal Stories

“When I think of the frightening journey I had to take to illegally flee Iran, chills still run down my spine,” said Fahrokh Askari, a 60-something Iranian Jewish grandmother now living in Tarzana.

If you ask retired Iranian Jewish accountant and author Simon “Sion” Ebrahimi about being held hostage for many months in his office in Tehran during the Iranian revolution, he will tell you the circumstances were a sort of a tragic comedy. Ebrahimi’s office was located across the street from the U.S. Embassy.

Ruben Melamed is an 80-year-old Los Angeles-area businessman and a fifth cousin of mine who escaped near death in Iran. I did not know of his story until recently, when I began searching for stories of Iranian Jews who escaped their homeland during the revolution some 30 years ago.

Nearly 13 years ago, 13 Jews living in the Iranian city of Shiraz were arrested on trumped-up charges of spying for Israel and were facing execution by the clerics who ruled Iran. At the time, many of the leaders of Southern California’s Iranian-Jewish community asked their fellow activists to keep a low profile as they attempted secure the Jews’ release through back-channel communication with the regime.

I would like to share with you my life experience as an Iranian Jew and my perspective in regard to Iran and Hezbollah—A period of my life that no one should experience.

51-year-old Soraya Nazarian lives in Los Angeles like many other Persian Jews. And like the individuals that make up the community her story is both similar and widely different than that of other Persian Jews. But she is making sure that those stories aren’t forgotten.

Last night, I attended a speech given by Tabby Davoodi, an Iranian Jew whose family escaped from the Islamic Republic in 1988 and who was invited to speak at the University of Illinois about the Iranian regime and her experiences growing up there before she and her family fled to America.

Summertime discovery about my Mizrahi heritage.I’ve had only one real epiphany in my life. I was on spring break during high school, reclining in the passenger seat and humming to Idan Raichel’s “Im Tachpetza” as my friends and I drove home from a day at the beach.