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The invisible Iranians
Iranian Jews seek more visibility - and acceptance
By Maryam Shargh
May 29, 1998
The Iranian
A spontaneous discussion that transpired in the aftermath of a panel
discussion on changing Iranian identities struck a chord of seeming cultural
contention. It was a discussion on Iranian Jewry and the tendency for
Iranians to question the national allegiances of Iranian Jews. "Iranian or
Jewish?", they ask.
The discourse developed at the recent seminar organized by the Society for
Iranian Studies in Bethesda, Maryland, with the sponsorship of the American
Institute of Iranian Studies. The last panelist's topic of presentation
was "Ethnicity and religion: Maintaining Iranian Jewish Identity." She ended
her discussion by paraphrasing what she said was the collective sentiment of
Iranian Jews on the issue of not being accepted by Muslim Iranians: "We were
there before Islam," she declared. As she sat down applause rose from the
audience. Apparantly there were quite a few Jewish members of the Iranian
community in the audience.
"Jews have been in Iran for 2,700 years. That's ninety generations ago! Why
do you still not accept us as Iranians?", demanded one vociferous member of
the audience standing in the back of the crowded room. "Our parents had two
names, one Persian and one Jewish," recalled another member of the audience,
and added, "In our generation, we only have one name... a Persian one." Some
audience members concurred as she continued. "Sometimes in America, Jewish
people ask me what my Hebrew name is and I say I don't have one. They're
surprised. We've done everything," she proclaimed. "It's you, the Muslims,
who don't accept us."
One young woman, a poet, who had driven all the way from Connecticut to
attend the seminar in Maryland said, "I want you to know this is becoming
very therapeutic." As she drew laughter from the crowd, she went on to
forcefully make her point. "We speak Farsi better than we speak Hebrew, we
listen to Persian music, we rejoice at Noruz, which is not the Jewish
celebration of the New Year but a Persian one, but still we're accused of
having mixed allegiances." She added that her volition to drive from
Connecticut to Maryland for a cultural conference on Iran should demonstrate
her allegiances.
Seeking to make some peace, one bearded gentleman with a congenial tone
stood up to share a childhood memory with us. He recalled that as a Muslim
child born to Muslim parents, he was sent to a Jewish school in Tehran. When
the Jewish children had Torah lessons , he recalled, the Muslim kids would
be sent out for recess, and their Jewish mates were all jealous. "One day,"
he recalled with a smile, "I came home and said to my mother, 'Mom it's a
holiday tomorrow, we don't have school.' My mother thought a little and
said, 'what Holiday?' I said 'Mom, It's Purim tomorrow!'" Again the release
of laughter came from the crowd. "So the relationship between Jews and
Muslims was congenial," he concluded.
"Why shouldn't it have been congenial?" rebutted another member of the
audience. Their was no reason why it shouldn't have been because "the Jews
are such masters at being minorities" that they "made an effort to keep
their Jewry in the background," in order to fit into Persian society. She
speculated that perhaps there was some "resentment" from the Iranian Jewish
community that they were forced to act this way in order to attain the
acceptance from Muslims, that to this day, alludes them.
Leah Baer, the independent scholar that presented the paper concurred.
As the cycle of tension to comic relief began to rebound again, one audience
member standing in the back of the now packed room proclaimed, "We're the
invisible. We're invisible from Iranian history, Iranian literature, Iranian
culture and Iranian society; yet we have made every effort, to assimilate.
Isn't it time to look at us?" "Politics," said a faint voice from the
distance. Heads began nodding in affirmative unison.
"There's no democratic conception of Iranian identity," claimed one audience
member attempting to diffuse the deadlock. The Iranian identity, he
explained, is not defined as one set of rules. It is a definition of
allegiance, circumstance and proclamation. "We don't accept Iranians as just
Iranians, we judge them by their accents, their beliefs, their language
skills, and yes even their religion," he charged. "This is why the question
of allegiance arises as related to Iranians." Afsaneh Najmabadi of Barnard
College, a speaker herself, offered her alternate viewpoint. This is
a "troubling" question, she said, that no other minority demands an answer
to. "It indicates a prejudice," she said. That response drew the ire of one
audience member who walked up to the podium to voice her disappointment that
the issue had just been termed as an example of "prejudice" by a "scholar."
The tension was rising again until one woman got up to share her own
story. "Years ago in Tehran", she began, when she and her brother were
children, they had gone to a gathering where Jews were on one side and
Muslims on another. Her brother, she said, had particularly Muslim features.
As he went to cross over to the Jewish side from the entrance, a doorman
stopped him. "I'm Jewish," he told the doorman. "No you're not," said the
doorman ushering him over to the Muslim crowd. Finally he pleaded, "Agha beh
Ghora'an-e-Majid, Jouhoudam!" ("I swear to the Qoran, I'm Jewish!")
Cries of laughter arose from the crowd. In the end it was clear that the
Jewish community has an Achilles Heel on the issue of "inclusion." Muslim
Iranians in the crowd, for their part, seemed genuinely interested in the
issue and were even receptive to suggestions on how to break the historic
habit of alienating their Jewish compatriots.
The panel had now gone half an hour over its time allotment for that room.
So on an ending note one audience member asked the chair of the panel, Houri
Berberian, an Armenian, "Now that this has become a vetting session of
minority qualms, tell us Madame Chair, what are your thoughts as an Armenian
Iranian...?
Laughter again, and luckily for Madame Chair, who turned immediately red,
adjournment.
www.iranian.com/Times/June98/Tehran/497k.html#letters
www.haruth.com/JewsIran.html
www.rugreview.com/132gib.htm
arizonapersian.com/iranopinion/_disc8/0000000f.htm
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csmweb2.emcweb.com/durable/1998/02/03/intl/intl.3.html
users.sedona.net/~sepa/ferihov.html
users.sedona.net/~sepa/sardarij.html
www.hoveyda.org/index.html
www.haruth.com/HaruthSiteMap.htm
