Born in a relatively assimilated mixed educated Jewish family in Iran - the father from Shiraz, the mother an Askenazi Jew from London - belonging to the so-called doeragehs, a person whose parents are from two distinct nationalities, Jacqueline Saper spent her 26 first years of life in Iran. At the beginning, in an Iran going through a rapid modernisation on one side, but coping with outrageous abuses during the Shah, then, in an Iran that promised a brighter future of equality, but ended up again in terrible abuses and violence against another part of the citizens, especially women enforced to wear the hijab.
Although sympathetic towards the Shah´s regime, Jacquline Saper - named for the elegant America´s first lady at the time- provided in From Miniskirt to Hijab. A Girl in Revolutionary Iran, an uncomplicated account of her life at the crossroad of dramatic changes, for the whole region. Shortly after the Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war continued that brought another significant weight of personal and national trauma. Through the contacts with the people working for her family or the school mates, she is able to notice the clear distinctions between different social categories, their geographical distribution within Tehran as well as the pressure towards change. ´I knew and loved citizens who belonged to two different worlds, separated by an uncrossable boundary´. Educated in a Jewish school, she grew up connecting with individuals from different religions and cultural backgrounds. Her relatives practiced the mentality of religious minorities - which reminds me of my childhood in East European lands - of showing gratitute towards the temporary political rulers - no matter what - and conforming, although they were later put in prison, killed and their properties illegally confiscated by an ungrateful state. It was not easy for the Jews during the Shah - although there were a significant Jewish and Israeli presence in Iran but more about that on another occasion - , but after that, it become life threatening both in terms of personal and community survival: ´The remaining Iranian Jews, in order to survive, tried their best to acclimate to the new government and leadership´. True, Jews in Iran are not under the threat of street beatings and they can even get their wine for the kiddush, but the local practice of the taroof translated at the everyday religious survival level does very bad to the soul.
For instance, the practice of Judaism continue to be legal, but supporting the state of Israel and ´Zionism´ is considered a crime. Contacts of any kind with the state of Israel are forbidden. It´s crazy how the propanganda operates, like King Cyrus the Great - a historical personality not too good nowadays in the religious cards, as the Shah loved him but history is history - did not allowed the Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Was he a ´Zionist´ too or not? And what about the over 2,500 years of Jewish history the Iranian Jews are so proud of, that produced characters like Esther the Queen and the prophet Daniel and the tomb attributed to Serah bat Asher, a noteworthy feminist figure in the Jewish history? Religious fanaticism operates extremely low when it comes to historical facts. And it does not have to do only with religious minorities. Take, for instance, the famous Azadi Tower, a brand image of Iran. It was built on the occasion of the 2,500 years lavish - an understatement - ceremonies the late Shah organised to celebrate the Persian monarchy. Initially named Shahyad Tower - King´s memorial - and after the revolution - Azadi (freedom) tower. Nowadays, no matter who built it, this monument is part of the local and global representation of Tehran. (For the connoisseurs, and for having a complex overview of this political/visual appropriation, the architect, Hossein Amanat currently living in Canada is famous for the Baha´i Arc Building in Haifa, state of Israel, and belongs to the oppressed Baha´i minority).
There are many details in the book about what happened in Iran after the revolution, but generally there is information I was aware of long before from other journalistic and historical sources, but my main reason to start reading this book was the curiosity about the situation of the Iranian Jews, their challenges, traditions and everydaylife. Unfortunatelly, there is not too much information in this respect, probably due to the fact that both her and her family were not extremely well connected to the Jewish life - it is only my guess. Her family was not extremely affected by the change, although her father with degrees in both chemical engineering and meteorology, used to work for Habib Elghanian, the leader of the Jewish community murdered by the regime of the mullahs. There are small details spread in different parts of the book, like for instance details about Jewish-Persian weddings and various holidays - Jacqueline and her family left Iran for America on Pessach/Passover which marks the end of the exile from Egypt of the Jewish people - the extreme opinions of some simple Shi´a followers assuming that what Jews are touching is becoming impure, therefore avoidable at any price etc. But there are no full slices of the Jewish life in Iran, both in Tehran and Shiraz, where Jacqueline lived after getting married. Which is a big pity as I would have prefered such a focus, instead of facts and figures easily described in other memoirs or historical and political accounts.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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