Leaving Iran Between Migration and Exile

In 1976, at the age of twenty-three, Farideh Goldin left Iran in search of her imagined America. She sought an escape from the suffocation she felt under the cultural rules of her country and the future her family had envisioned for her. While she settled uneasily into American life, the political unrest in Iran intensified and in February of 1979, Farideh’s family was forced to flee Iran on the last El-Al flights to Tel Aviv. They arrived in Israel as refugees, having left everything behind including the only home Farideh’s father had ever known.

Baba, as Farideh called her father, was a well-respected son of the chief rabbi and dayan of the Jews of Shiraz. During his last visit to the United States in 2006, he handed Farideh his memoir that chronicled the years of his life after exile: the confiscation of his passport while he attempted to return to Iran for his belongings, the resulting years of loneliness as he struggled against a hostile bureaucracy to return to his wife and family in Israel, and the eventual loss of the poultry farm that had supported his family. Farideh translated her father’s memoir along with other documents she found in a briefcase after his death. Leaving Iran knits together her father’s story of dislocation and loss with her own experience as an Iranian Jew in a newly adopted home. As an intimate portrait of displacement and the construction of identity, as a story of family loyalty and cultural memory, Leaving Iran is an important addition to a growing body of Iranian–American narratives.

So many people were uprooted from their homelands during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. And while that tragedy left people searching for a piece of soil for their torn roots, Leaving Iran describes how it also destroyed family units—scattering mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers throughout the world. Goldin’s memoir makes remarkable observations about the psyche of an immigrant: describing the progression from a time marked by loneliness and humiliation to a time where the rules and codes of their new world begin to reveal themselves. And although Goldin and the rest of her family never stop feeling like foreigners in their new countries of choice—the United States and Israel—they continue to press forward, in the hopes of giving their children the privilege of a homeland. As a daughter of immigrants, I found this skillfully written account to be both moving and enlightening and it reminded me that the experience of an immigrant is universal.

Savyon Liebrecht, author of Apples from the Desert

About the Author

Born in Shiraz, Iran to a family of dayanim, Farideh Goldin now lives in Virginia and is the director of the Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding at Old Dominion University. Goldin is a frequent lecturer and presenter on Iranian culture. Her first memoir, Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman was published in 2003.

Reviews

Farideh told her family’s story in detail, without cancelling out her father’s voice, but letting the reader see the heights she has reached. Her voice combines the worlds she has faced, accepting and rejecting aspects of each and maturing as she finds herself and her impressive means of expression.

Nashim

Self-described as a work of creative non-fiction, Leaving Iran, draws heavily from the memoirs of Esghel Dayanim (Baba), the author’s father, translated from the Persian and very tastefully molded into a factually accurate narrative. […] Leaving Iran, both physically and psychically, is a gripping work.

Jewish News

Table of Contents

1. Prefatory Note and Acknowledgements
2. Preface
3. 1. 1975, Portsmouth, Virginia
4. 2. February 1979, Israel, Kiriat Sharet
5. 3. Baba: September 1980, Tel Aviv
6. 4. October 1980, New Orleans
7. 5. Baba: 1981, Tehran
8. 6. 1982–83, Chesapeake
9. 7. Baba: 1983, Shiraz
10. 8. 1983–84, Chesapeake
11. 9. Baba: 1983–84, Shiraz
12. 10. 1984, Chesapeake
13. 11. Baba: 1984, Tehran
14. 12. 1984, Chesapeake
15. 13. Baba: 1984, Rome
16. 14. December 1984, Norfolk
17. 15. Baba: 1985–86, Tel Aviv
18. 16. Baba: 1987, Philadelphia
19. 17. 1987, Portsmouth
20. 18. Baba: 1987, Shiraz
21. 19. 1987, Portsmouth
22. 20. 1989, Nags Head
23. 21. 1991, Portsmouth
24. 22. Baba: 1992, Shiraz
25. 23. 1992, Norfolk
26. 24. Baba: 1992, Shiraz
27. 25. 1966, Shiraz
28. 26. Baba: 1992, Shiraz
29. 27. 1993, Norfolk
30. 28. Baba: 1994, Tel Aviv
31. 29. 1994, Baltimore
32. 30. Baba: 2003, Holon
33. 31. 2002–03, Norfolk
34. 32. 2005, Tel Aviv
35. 33. 2006, Norfolk
36. 34. Baba: December 2006, Holon

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.