Podcast appearances and mentions of ruhollah khomeini

Offerta di ESCLUSIVA NORDVPN: Vai su https://nordvpn.com/dentrolastoria per acquistare NordVPN + 4 mesi Extra + 6 mesi da regalare a chi vuoi +30gg soddisfatti o rimborsati Il nostro canale Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1vziHBEp0gc9gAhR740fCw Sostieni DENTRO LA STORIA su Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dentrolastoria Abbonati al canale: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1vziHBEp0gc9gAhR740fCw/join Il nostro store in Amazon: https://www.amazon.it/shop/dentrolastoria Sostienici su PayPal: https://paypal.me/infinitybeat Dentro La Storia lo trovi anche qui: https://linktr.ee/dentrolastoria Nell'Iran pre-rivoluzionario circolavano molte audiocassette. Il contenuto però non era musicale: erano sermoni e discorsi di un predicatore che invitava il popolo a "svegliarsi", ribellandosi allo Scià. Quella voce apparteneva a un anziano ayatollah che nel 1963 aveva osato sfidare il potere imperiale e la Rivoluzione Bianca. Esiliato dal suo Paese, Ruhollah Khomeini aveva continuato a diffondere le sue prediche religiose incitando gli iraniani a rovesciare il governo dello Scià che, a suo dire, era ormai servo degli americani. Dopo la fuga dell'imperatore, Khomeini tornò per realizzare il suo ambizioso progetto, quello di creare una enorme teocrazia. Ma il suo modello politico era davvero più libero rispetto alla dittatura precedente? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the Last Shah's reforms - known as the White Revolution - starting to take effect, Iran looked to be in a healthy position. Economic growth is strong, Tehran is a thriving cultural centre, and women now had the vote. Before long, however, the economy began to overheat and inflation soars. Criticism of the Shah grows and the man who articulates the discontent of the nation best is an exiled ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini. He desires a theocratic future for Iran that has no room for the Shah, and his support is growing. Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Ali Ansari to discuss Iran as it slides towards revolution. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: empirepoduk@gmail.com Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Revolução Iraniana, ocorrida em 1979, foi um evento transformador que resultou na derrubada do xá Mohammad Reza Pahlavi e na instauração de um regime islâmico liderado pelo aiatolá Ruhollah Khomeini. Impulsionada por uma combinação de descontentamento popular com a autocracia do xá, desigualdades sociais e o desejo de instaurar um governo baseado nos princípios islâmicos, a revolução teve amplo apoio de diversos setores da sociedade iraniana. O novo regime trouxe mudanças significativas na estrutura política, social e econômica do Irã, consolidando a teocracia islâmica como o sistema dominante. A Revolução Iraniana teve impactos regionais e globais, contribuindo para a reconfiguração do equilíbrio de poder no Oriente Médio e influenciando as relações internacionais, especialmente nas décadas seguintes. CONTATO: Instagram: @historiaemversoes E-mail: m7studiospodcast@gmail.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/historiaemversoes/message

Trong xung đột ở dải Gaza, bùng lên từ hôm 07/10/2023 sau cuộc tấn công đẫm máu của Hamas, lực lượng Hồi giáo vũ trang Palestine, Iran nổi lên như là một trong những tiếng nói gay gắt nhất chống lại cuộc phản công Israel tại Gaza. Điều này phù hợp với chính sách đối ngoại kiên quyết chống Israel của Teheran. Hai quốc gia Trung Đông thường được mô tả là kẻ thù không đội trời chung. Nhưng người ta đã nhanh chóng quên rằng Teheran và Tel Aviv từng là những đồng minh tương trợ. Từ 40 năm qua, chính sách về nước Cộng hòa Hồi giáo Iran của phương Tây được diễn giải dưới hai khía cạnh : Ở bên ngoài là một mối « đe dọa » và ở trong nước là chính sách « trấn áp ». Tuy nhiên, đằng sau những phát biểu gay gắt, kêu gọi « xóa sổ Israel ra khỏi bản đồ thế giới », và đe dọa phát động chiến tranh hạt nhân chống Iran, hai quốc gia này từ 70 năm qua chưa bao giờ ngừng duy trì các mối quan hệ thực sự, nhưng thường được giấu kín.Trong một hội thảo được tổ chức ở Edinburgh, Scotland vào tháng 06/2013, ông Trita Parsi, một nhà chính trị học, chuyên gia về Iran, trước hết nhắc sơ lại lịch sử quan hệ giữa người Ba Tư và Do Thái đã có từ ngàn năm trước.« Mối quan hệ giữa người Iran và người Israel thực ra khá là tích cực trong suốt lịch sử, nhân duyên bắt đầu từ 539 TCN, khi vua Cyrus của Đế chế Ba Tư giải phóng người Do Thái khỏi ách tôi mọi của người Babylon. 1/3 dân số Do Thái sống ở Babylon. Ngày nay họ là những người Do Thái ở Irak, 1/3 thì nhập cư vào Ba Tư. Hiện nay họ là những người Do Thái ở Iran, vẫn còn 25.000 người sống ở Iran, tạo thành cộng đồng Do Thái lớn nhất sinh sống ngoài Israel tại Trung Đông. Một phần ba còn lại quay về Palestine thực hiện công trình phục dựng lần thứ hai Đền thờ ở Jerusalem, được tài trợ từ thuế của người Ba Tư ».1950 – 1979 : Israel và chính sách ngoại viVậy thì mối quan hệ giữa Iran và Israel thời hiện đại đã được bắt đầu như thế nào ? Dưới triều đại Pahlavi, cai trị từ năm 1925, cho đến khi bị lật đổ trong cuộc cách mạng năm 1979, mối quan hệ giữa Iran và Israel không có gì là thù địch. Tuy nhiên, vấn đề về người Palestine đã là một trong số các mối bận tâm trong chính sách đối ngoại của Iran.Trả lời kênh truyền hình Al Jazeera của Qatar, nhà sử học Eirik Kvindesland, trường đại học Oxford nhắc lại, Iran là một trong số 11 thành viên của ủy ban đặc biệt do Liên Hiệp Quốc thành lập năm 1947 nhằm đưa ra giải pháp cho Palestine sau khi quyền kiểm soát lãnh thổ của Anh chấm dứt. Tuy nhiên, Iran là một trong số ba quốc gia bỏ phiếu chống lại kế hoạch phân chia Palestine của Liên Hiệp Quốc, khi cho rằng dự án này sẽ làm leo thang bạo lực trong khu vực trong nhiều thế hệ sau đó.Theo giải thích của vị giáo sư trường đại học Oxford, « Iran cùng với Ấn Độ và Nam Tư, đã đưa ra một dự án thay thế, một giải pháp liên bang nhằm giữ Palestine là một quốc gia có một Quốc Hội, nhưng được chia thành các bang Ả Rập và Do Thái. Đó là sự thỏa hiệp của Iran để cố gắng duy trì mối quan hệ tích cực với phương Tây vốn ủng hộ chủ nghĩa Phục quốc Do Thái, với chính phong trào Phục quốc Do Thái, cũng như với các nước Ả Rập và Hồi giáo láng giềng. »Dù vậy, hai năm sau khi Israel chiếm đóng nhiều lãnh thổ hơn mức Liên Hiệp Quốc phê duyệt và tuyên bố thành lập Nhà nước Do Thái, bất chấp việc 700 ngàn người Palestine bị cưỡng bức di dời và bị tước đoạt đất đai tài sản, Iran – dưới thời Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, vị vua thứ hai của triều đại Pahlavi, hay còn gọi là Shah – là quốc gia có đông người Hồi Giáo thứ hai, theo chân Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ, công nhận Israel.Đối với sử gia Kvindesland, động thái này của Teheran thời đó chủ yếu là để quản lý tài sản của khoảng 2.000 người Iran sinh sống ở Palestine và đã bị quân đội Israel tịch thu trong cuộc chiến Ả Rập-Israel lần thứ nhất năm 1948.Nhưng điều này cũng diễn ra trong bối cảnh « chính sách ngoại vi » của Israel. Nhà sử học Eirik Kvindesland giải thích, « để chấm dứt thế cô lập ở Trung Đông, thủ tướng Israel David Ben Gurion ngay từ khi lên cầm quyền năm 1948, đã theo đuổi mối quan hệ với các quốc gia không phải là Ả Rập ở "rìa" Trung Đông, điều mà sau này được gọi là học thuyết ngoại vi. Chính sách này bao gồm cả Ethiopia, nhưng Iran và Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ cho đến nay được cho là những cách tiếp cận thành công nhất của Israel. »Israel-Iran : Nỗi sợ Liên Xô và các cường quốc Ả RậpMối quan hệ này giữa Iran và Israel xuất phát từ một cảm giác chung : Cả hai nước e sợ Liên Xô và các cường quốc Ả Rập thời đó như Ai Cập và Irak. Là những đồng minh trung thành của Mỹ trong khu vực, cả hai nước tăng cường các mối hợp tác quân sự và an ninh. Tuy nhiên, theo quan sát của Eirik Kvindesland, trong mối quan hệ này, Israel cần đến Iran nhiều hơn là chiều ngược lại.« Israel luôn là bên chủ động, nhưng quốc vương Iran cũng muốn tìm cách cải thiện mối quan hệ của Iran với Mỹ, và vào thời điểm đó, Israel được coi là một cách tốt nhất để đạt được mục tiêu này. Ngoài ra, còn có triển vọng xây dựng bộ máy an ninh. Cơ quan an ninh và tình báo SAVAK của Iran thời đó đã được Mossad (Cơ quan tình báo Israel) đào tạo một phần. Đây là những thứ mà Iran có thể nhận được từ nơi khác, nhưng Israel rất muốn cung cấp chúng vì họ cần một đối tác ở Trung Đông, bất kể là có tư tưởng chống chủ nghĩa Phục quốc Do Thái và chống Israel. »Trong giai đoạn này, quan hệ thương mại giữa hai nước cũng phát triển mạnh. An ninh năng lượng của Israel được bảo đảm nhờ vào việc xây dựng đường ống dẫn dầu Eilat – Ashkelon, được cung ứng từ nguồn dầu hỏa của Iran. Tuy nhiên, mối quan hệ này giữa Iran và Israel phần lớn được giữ bí mật. Nhà chính trị học Trita Parsi nhắc lại :« Tuy nhiên, theo quan điểm của Shah, ông muốn càng giữ kín điều này càng tốt, ví dụ như khi thủ tướng Israel Yitzhak Rabin (nhiệm kỳ 1974-1977) đến Iran vào những năm 70, ông ấy thường đội tóc giả để không ai nhận ra. Những người Iran đã xây một đường băng đặc biệt tại sân bay Teheran, cách xa nhà ga trung tâm, để không ai để ý đến việc rất nhiều máy bay của Israel đi lại giữa Tel Aviv và Teheran. »Cách Mạng Hồi Giáo 1979 : Một bước ngoặt lớnCách mạng Hồi Giáo Iran nổ ra năm 1979, vua Ba Tư bị lật đổ. Giáo chủ Ruhollah Khomeini, người lãnh đạo cuộc cách mạng, đưa ra một thế giới quan mới, chủ yếu ủng hộ Hồi Giáo. Kể từ giờ, Iran ủng hộ cuộc đấu của người Palestine và khẳng định sự đối đầu với Israel, đồng minh của Mỹ, một « Đại Quỷ », theo như cách gọi của chế độ thần quyền Teheran. Ngày 12/02/1979, Yasser Arafat là lãnh đạo chính trị nước ngoài đầu tiên đến thăm Cộng Hòa Hồi Giáo Iran.Theo giải thích từ nhiều nhà nghiên cứu, tham vọng của nước Iran Cách mạng Hồi Giáo theo hệ phái Shia là tự khẳng định như là một lãnh đạo mới của thế giới Hồi giáo, vượt lên trên cả sự chia rẽ giữa người Ả Rập và người Ba Tư, cũng như là giữa hai hệ phái Sunni và Shia. Nhà địa lý học Bernard Hourcade, cựu giám đốc Viện Pháp về Thế giới Iran, trên tờ báo Pháp Le Un, cho rằng, khi giương ngọn cờ đấu tranh của Palestine để « giải phóng Jerusalem », Iran đã có được một tấm « giấy thông hành » để được lắng nghe trong thế giới Ả Rập. Đương nhiên, chính sách tích cực này của Iran đã đặt các chế độ Ả Rập liên minh với Mỹ vào thế phòng thủ.Tuy nhiên, nhà chính trị học Trita Parsi, cũng trong cuộc nói chuyện ở Scotland năm 2013, từng lưu ý, bất chấp cuộc cách mạng Hồi giáo, quan hệ « tích cực » giữa Israel và Iran vẫn còn tiếp diễn trong những năm sau đó, nhất là trong giai đoạn Irak xâm lược Iran vào những năm 1980:« Khi Irak xâm lược Iran năm 1980, Israel lo sợ Irak sẽ giành chiến thắng, nên đã sốt sắng hỗ trợ Iran bằng cách bán vũ khí và cung cấp nhiều phụ tùng thay thế dành cho kho vũ khí Mỹ, vào thời điểm, Iran vô cùng yếu thế do các lệnh cấm vận vũ khí của Mỹ mà Israel đã cảm thấy thoải mái vi phạm. Trên thực tế, trong những năm 1980, chính Israel đã vận động Washington đàm phán với Iran, bán vũ khí cho Iran và không mảy may để ý đến hệ tư tưởng chống Israel của Iran. »Chiến tranh kết thúc, giáo chủ Khomeini qua đời năm 1989, Iran phải nỗ lực tái thiết kinh tế. Thỏa thuận Oslo năm 1993 mở ra nhiều triển vọng hòa bình cho Palestine. Tổng thống Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) chủ trương cải cách nối lại các mối liên hệ bí mật với Israel, nhiều cuộc họp không chính thức liên tiếp diễn ra trong khuôn khổ trao đổi kinh tế, văn hoá, hay giáo dục.Trở mặtNhưng những biến động môi trường địa chính trị trong khu vực một lần nữa đã bẻ gãy sự năng động này của mối quan hệ. Thỏa thuận Oslo thất bại, Liên Xô sụp đổ, Chiến tranh lạnh kết thúc, rồi cuộc tấn công khủng bố 11/9/2001 và cuộc chiến xâm lược Irak của Mỹ năm 2003 đã làm tan vỡ những thế cân bằng cũ, đồng thời đặt vấn đề hạt nhân của Iran vào trung tâm của các mối lo an ninh khu vực, cũng như là toàn cầu.Đây cũng là thời điểm Iran và Israel trỗi dậy như là hai trong số các cường quốc mới trong khu vực. Thay vì trở thành những đối tác tiềm năng, cả hai nước dần đi đến xem nhau như là những đối thủ cạnh tranh và kẻ thù của nhau. Chuyên gia về Iran Trita Parsi giải thích : « Israel, trong những 1980, từng vận động Hoa Kỳ cải thiện quan hệ với Iran, khi ấy tỏ ra lo ngại về việc Mỹ và Iran nối lại quan hệ và nghĩ rằng điều đó sẽ gây tổn hại đến lợi ích an ninh của Israel. Thay vào đó, Israel đã tìm cách đẩy Iran vào thế ngày càng bị cô lập. »Giờ đây, sự thù địch ngày càng gia tăng khi cả hai bên đều tìm cách củng cố và phát triển tầm ảnh hưởng trong khu vực. Iran ra sức hỗ trợ mạng lưới « trục kháng chiến », gồm các nhóm chính trị và vũ trang ở một số quốc gia trong khu vực như Liban, Syria, Irak và Yemen, những nước ủng hộ lý lẽ của người Palestine.Israel trong những năm qua cũng ủng hộ nhiều nhóm phản đối chính quyền Teheran, trong đó có nhiều tổ chức bị Iran xếp vào hàng « khủng bố » như Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), một tổ chức có trụ sở ở châu Âu, các tổ chức Hồi giáo hệ phái Sunni ở tỉnh Sistan và Baluchistan đông nam Iran, cũng như là các nhóm vũ trang người Kurd có trụ sở tại vùng Kurdistan Irak.Iran và Israel còn mở những cuộc tấn công nhằm vào các lợi ích của nhau, đặt bên trong và ngoài lãnh thổ. Trên bình diện ngoại giao, Iran và Israel nỗ lực lôi kéo một số nước Ả Rập. Tháng 3/2023, dưới sự trung gian hòa giải, Ả Rập Xê Út – một đồng minh của Mỹ - đã tuyên bố nối lại bang giao với Iran.Hoa Kỳ cũng cố gắng làm trung gian cho một thỏa thuận tương tự giữa Ả Rập Xê Út và Israel. Nhưng mọi triển vọng bình thường hóa quan hệ giữa nhà nước Do Thái và vương quốc Ả Rập này đã bị đình lại, ít nhất cho đến hiện tại, sau vụ phe Hamas tấn công Israel và Israel phản công dữ dội, gây ra một cơn ác mộng nhân đạo, giết chết gần 10 ngàn người Palestine, một phần ba trong số này là trẻ em.Theo đánh giá của ông Trita Parsi, hiện nay là phó chủ tịch điều hành Viện Quincy, một tổ chức cố vấn độc lập tại Mỹ, cuộc xung đột này cho thấy, « đối với chế độ hiện hành ở Iran, bất kỳ sự xích lại gần nào với Israel giờ là điều không thể. »Mệnh lệnh an ninh chung trong nhiều thập kỷ trước đây, từng biến hai nước thành đồng minh, thật sự đã biến mất vào đầu những năm 1990. Teheran phản đối thế bá quyền của Mỹ ở Trung Đông, trong khi Israel tìm cách đẩy lùi mọi nỗ lực của Washington nhằm triệt thoái quân khỏi khu vực.  Trả lời Al Jazeera, nhà chính trị học người Mỹ gốc Iran này kết luận : « Đây là một cuộc cạnh tranh để giành quyền thống trị và ảnh hưởng trong khu vực. Hai quốc gia này đã bị lôi kéo vào một cuộc chiến tranh cấp thấp trong hơn một thập kỷ qua. Không có dấu hiệu nào cho thấy có sự thay đổi đó. »(Nguồn Al Jazeera, Le Un, và TED.com)

Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Yaron Brook about the current state of Israel; how the Israeli government has been failing its people for the past 20 years; the important connections between Hamas' attack and 9/11, Iran, and the rise of Ruhollah Khomeini; why we can no longer ignore the civilizational battle going on; the lack of courage in American leadership; why the West should declare war on Islamic totalitarianism and restrict the activities of its sympathizers; the cultural dominance of the Left, and the need for an alternative vision based on the founding principles of America and the Enlightenment thinkers of Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conversazioni con Michele Brunelli sul suo libro edito da Le Monnier. Ruhollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Juhayman al-‘Utaybī e Hafizullah Amin sono solo alcuni tra i più noti personaggi che, alla fine degli anni Settanta del XX secolo, hanno contributo a dare una svolta radicale alle politiche e alle società dei loro paesi, così come alla condotta delle relazioni internazionali, in un contesto, come quello della guerra fredda, solo in apparenza immobile. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonello-sacchetti/message

In September 2022 werd de 22-jarige Mahsa Amini opgepakt door de Iraanse moraalpolitie omdat ze niet de verplichte islamitische hoofddoek droeg. Haar dood werd het startsein voor massale straatprotesten, die nog steeds voortduren onder het indringende motto 'Jin – Jiyan - Azadi'. Vrouw, leven, vrijheid. Het regime beantwoordt de onrust sinds deze maand met publieke executies.Jaap Jansen en PG Kroeger duiken in historie en actualiteit van deze gebeurtenissen en wijzen op de unieke Perzische beschaving die in het geding is.In het bewind en de ondergang van sjah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi liggen ook nu nog veel oorzaken van de actuele omstandigheden. Ook hij manipuleerde een facadedemocratie, corrupte staatsbedrijven en meedogenloze terreur door de geheime dienst. Tegelijkertijd wilde hij van Iran een modern, hoogopgeleid en machtig bondgenoot van het Westen maken. Zijn succes daarmee werd zijn ondergang.De revolutie van Ruhollah Khomeini was vervolgens een triomf van de verwaarloosde rurale streken op de urbane moderniteit. In deze aflevering van Betrouwbare Bronnen vertellen we hoe lokale comités van het regime de straat controleerden en hoe geestelijke stichtingen de burger afhankelijk maakten van sociale gunsten. Intussen ontstond rond de Raad van Hoeders met de geestelijk leider – na Khomeini volgde Ali Khamenei - een nieuwe machtselite: de Revolutionaire Garde. Deze gewapende militie domineert het staatsapparaat en heeft een derde van de economie in handen.Door corruptie, wanbeleid en westerse sancties zijn essentiële levensbehoeften als voedsel peperduur geworden en medicijnen schaars. Bovendien pikt de relatief zeer jonge bevolking de culturele onderdrukking niet meer. De protesten zijn dan ook allereerst gericht tegen de symbolen daarvan - bovenal de verplichte hijab - en tegen het dictatoriale uniformisme van de sjia ideologie. Maar ook de klimaatveranderingen spelen mee. In Iran zijn kleine burgeroorlogjes gaande vanwege watergebrek en verdroging in regio's en steden. Dit maakt mensen wanhopig en destabiliseert ook de economie.Uniek is dat vrouwen en meisjes de spirituele leiding hebben en daarmee dit protest definiëren. Het regime lijkt daardoor bijna hulpeloos. Jaap en PG schetsen hoe die aard van de protesten bepaald wordt door de Perzische cultuur, die veel verder strekt dan een Iraans nationalisme en die sjia ideologie. Poëzie, dans en muziek staan centraal. Een 21ste eeuwse uiting daarvan is het lied Baraye dat nu overal gezongen wordt.Daarom is het goed om ook te kijken naar de vele vruchten van beschaving en wetenschap die wij danken aan de Perzen. Van banken en cheques tot tulpen. Van papier tot astronomie. Van abstracte kunst tot medische kennis. Zelfs de dichtkunst van Goethe kon niet zonder Perzische inspiratie! En wijn, dankzij sjah Jamshid in 5000 voor Christus.***Deze aflevering is mede mogelijk gemaakt met donaties van luisteraars die we hiervoor hartelijk danken. Word ook vriend van de show! Vrienden kunnen bij deze aflevering meedingen naar een originele fles wijn van Perzische wijnbar De Filosoof in Den Haag!Heeft u belangstelling om in onze podcast te adverteren of ons te sponsoren? Stuur voor informatie een mailtje naar adverteren@dagennacht.nl***Hieronder nog meer informatie. Op Apple kun je soms niet alles lezen. De complete tekst vind je altijd hier***Verder luisteren311 - De wereld volgens Simon Sebag Montefiore299 - Dramatische verschuivingen in de wereldpolitiek. Europa heeft eindelijk een telefoonnummer270 - Hoe Sigrid Kaag de hoogste Nederlander werd bij de Verenigde Naties262 - Waarom India - ook voor Nederland - steeds belangrijker wordt244 - Frans Timmermans over klimaatbeleid, geopolitiek en weerbare democratie236 – Václav Havel, de dissident die president werd154 - Watergezant Henk Ovink: 'Negentig procent van alle rampen in de wereld heeft met water te maken'151 - Terug naar Uruzgan128 - Artsen zonder Grenzen: de grootste noodhulp-operatie uit haar geschiedenis***Tijdlijn00:00:00 – Deel 100:37:52 – Deel 201:25:00 – Einde Zie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Too few people know that parts of the Arab world and Iran were once home to large Jewish communities. This Mizrahi Heritage Month, let's change the story, with the final episode of the first season of The Forgotten Exodus, the first-ever narrative podcast series devoted exclusively to the rich, fascinating, and often-overlooked history of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewry. Thank you for lifting up these stories to celebrate Mizrahi Heritage Month. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to listen to the rest of The Forgotten Exodus, wherever you get your podcasts.   __ Home to one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, the story of Jews in Iran has been one of prosperity and suffering through the millennia. During the mid-20th century, when Jews were being driven from their homes in Arab lands, Iran assisted Jewish refugees in providing safe passage to Israel. Under the Shah, Israel was an important economic and political ally. Yet that all swiftly changed in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ushered in Islamic rule, while chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” rang out from the streets of Tehran.   Author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian shares her personal story of growing up Jewish in Iran during the reign of the Shah and then Ayatollah Khomeini, which she wrote about in her memoir Journey From the Land of No. Joining Hakakian is Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history who wrote From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of AJC Los Angeles, home to America's largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants.  In this sixth and final episode of the season, the Hakakian family's saga captures the common thread that has run throughout this series – when the history of an uprooted community is left untold, it can become vulnerable to others' narratives and assumptions, or become lost forever and forgotten. How do you leave behind a beloved homeland, safeguard its Jewish legacy, and figure out where you belong? __ Show notes: Listen to The Forgotten Exodus and sign up to receive updates about future episodes.  Song credits:  Chag Purim · The Jewish Guitar Project Hevenu Shalom · Violin Heart Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Oud Nation”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Haygaz Yossoulkanian (BMI), IPI#1001905418 “Persian”: Publisher: STUDEO88; Composer: Siddhartha Sharma “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: N/; Composer: DANIELYAN ASHOT MAKICHEVICH (IPI NAME #00855552512), UNITED STATES BMI Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Persian Investigative Mystery”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Peter Cole (BMI), IPI#679735384 “Persian Wind”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Sigma (SESAC); Composer: Abbas Premjee (SESAC), IPI#572363837 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Persian Fantasy Tavern”: Publisher: N/A; Composer: John Hoge “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ___ Episode Transcript: ROYA HAKAKIAN: In 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. When I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: Leaving Iran MANYA: Outside Israel, Iran has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East. Yes, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2022. Though there is no official census, experts estimate about 10,000 Jews now live in the region previously known as Persia.  But since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Jews in Iran don't advertise their Jewish identity. They adhere to Iran's morality code: women stay veiled from head to toe and men and women who aren't married or related stay apart in public. They don't express support for Israel, they don't ask questions, and they don't disagree with the regime. One might ask, with all these don'ts, is this a way of living a Jewish life? Or a way to live – period?  For author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian and her family, the answer was ultimately no. Roya has devoted her life to being a fact-finder and truth-teller. A former associate producer at the CBS news show 60 Minutes and a Guggenheim Fellow, Roya has written two volumes of poetry in Persian and three books of nonfiction in English, the first of which was published in 2004 – Journey From the Land of No, a memoir about her charmed childhood and accursed adolescence growing up Jewish in Iran under two different regimes.  ROYA: It was hugely important for me to create an account that could be relied on as a historic document. And I did my best through being very, very careful about gathering, interviewing, talking to, observing facts, evidence, documents from everyone, including my most immediate members of my family, to do what we, both as reporters, but also as Jews, are called to do, which is to bear witness. No seemed to be the backdrop of life for women, especially of religious minorities, and, in my own case, Jewish background, and so I thought, what better way to name the book than to call it as what my experience had been, which was the constant nos that I heard. So, Land of No was Iran. MANYA: As a journalist, as a Jew, as a daughter of Iran, Roya will not accept no for an answer. After publishing her memoir, she went on to write Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, a meticulously reported book about a widely underreported incident. In 1992 at a Berlin restaurant, a terrorist attack by the Iranian proxy Hezbollah targeted and killed four Iranian-Kurdish exiles. The book highlighted Iran's enormous global footprint made possible by its terror proxies who don't let international borders get in the way of silencing Iran's critics.   Roya also co-founded the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, an independent non-profit that reports on Iran's human rights abuses.  Her work has not prompted Ayatollah Khameini to publicly issue a fatwa against her  – like the murder order against Salman Rushdie issued by his predecessor. But in 2019, one of her teenage sons answered a knock at the door. It was the FBI, warning her that she was in the crosshairs of the Iranian regime's operatives in America. Most recently, Roya wrote A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious about the emotional roller coaster of arriving in America while still missing a beloved homeland, especially one where their community has endured for thousands of years. ROYA: I felt very strongly that one stays in one's homeland, that you don't just simply take off when things go wrong, that you stick around and try to figure a way through a bad situation. We came to the point where staying didn't seem like it would lead to any sort of real life and leaving was the only option. MANYA: The story of Jews in Iran, often referred to as Persia until 1935, is a millennia-long tale. A saga of suffering, repression, and persecution, peppered with brief moments of relief or at least relative peace – as long as everyone plays by the rules of the regime. SABA SOOMEKH: The history of Jews in Iran goes back to around 2,700 years ago. And a lot of people assume that Jews came to Iran, well at that time, it was called the Persian Empire, in 586 BCE, with the Babylonian exile. But Jews actually came a lot earlier, we're thinking 721-722 BCE with the Assyrian exile which makes us one of the oldest Jewish communities.  MANYA: That's Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history and the author of From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, home to America's largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants. Saba's parents fled Iran in 1978, shortly before the revolution, when Saba and her sister were toddlers. She has devoted her career to preserving Iranian Jewish history.   Saba said Zoroastrian rulers until the 7th Century Common Era vacillated between tolerance and persecution of Jews. For example, according to the biblical account in the Book of Ezra, Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian rule, granted all of them citizenship, and permitted them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple.  The Book of Esther goes on to tell the story of another Persian king, believed to be Xerxes I, whose closest adviser called Haman conspires to murder all the Jews – a plot that is foiled by his wife Queen Esther who is Jewish herself. Esther heroically pleads for mercy on behalf of her people – a valor that is celebrated on the Jewish holiday of Purim.  But by the time of the Islamic conquest in the middle of the 7th Century Common Era, the persecution had become so intense that Jews were hopeful about the new Arab Muslim regime, even if that meant being tolerated and treated as second-class citizens, or dhimmi status. But that status had a different interpretation for the Safavids. SABA: Really things didn't get bad for the Jews of the Persian Empire until the 16th century with the Safavid dynasty, because within Shia Islam in the Persian Empire, what they brought with them is this understanding of purity and impurity. And Jews were placed in the same category as dogs, pigs, and feces. They were seen as being religiously impure, what's referred to as najes. MANYA: Jews were placed in ghettos called mahaleh, where they wore yellow stars and special shoes to distinguish them from the rest of the population. They could not leave the mahaleh when it rained for fear that if water rolled off their bodies into the water system, it would render a Shia Muslim impure. For the same reason, they could not go to the bazaars for fear they might contaminate the food. They could not look Muslims in the eye. They were relegated to certain artisanal professions such as silversmithing and block printing – crafts that dirtied one's hands.  MANYA: By the 19th century, some European Jews did make their way to Persia to help. The Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Paris-based network of schools founded by French Jewish intellectuals, opened schools for Jewish children throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including within the mahalehs in Persia.  SABA: They saw themselves as being incredibly sophisticated because they were getting this, in a sense, secular European education, they were speaking French. The idea behind the Allianz schools was exactly that. These poor Middle Eastern Jews, one day the world is going to open up to them, their countries are going to become secular, and we need to prepare them for this, not only within the context of hygiene, but education, language.  And the Allianz schools were right when it came to the Persian Empire because who came into power was Reza Pahlavi, who was a Francophile. And he turned around and said, ‘Wow! Look at the population that speaks French, that knows European philosophy, etc. are the Jews.' He brought them out of the mahaleh, the Jewish ghettos, and said ‘I don't care about religion. Assimilate and acculturate. As long as you show, in a sense, devotion, and nationalism to the Pahlavi regime, which the Jews did—not all Jews—but a majority of them did. MANYA: Reza Pahlavi took control in 1925 and 16 years later, abdicated his throne to his son Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1935, Persia adopted a new name: Iran. As king or the Shah, both father and son set Iran on a course of secularization and rapid modernization under which Jewish life and success seemed to flourish. The only condition was that religious observance was kept behind closed doors. SABA: The idea was that in public, you were secular and in private, you were a Jew. You had Shabbat, you only married a Jew, it was considered blasphemous if you married outside of the Jewish community. And it was happening because people were becoming a part of everyday schools, universities.  But that's why the Jewish day schools became so important. They weren't learning Judaism. What it did was ensure that in a secular Muslim society, that the Jewish kids were marrying within each other and within the community. It was, in a sense, the Golden Age. And that will explain to you why, unlike the early 1950s, where you had this exodus of Mizrahi Jews, Arab Jews from the Arab world and North Africa, you didn't really have that in Iran.  MANYA: In fact, Iran provided a safe passage to Israel for Jewish refugees during that exodus, specifically those fleeing Iraq. The Pahlavi regime considered Israel a critical ally in the face of pan-Arab fervor and hostility in the region. Because of the Arab economic boycott, Israel needed energy sources and Iran needed customers for its oil exports.  A number of Israelis even moved to Tehran, including farmers from kibbutzim who had come to teach agriculture, and doctors and nurses from Hadassah Hospital who had come to teach medicine.  El Al flew in and out of Tehran airport, albeit from a separate terminal. Taking advantage of these warm relations between the two countries, Roya recalls visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins in Israel.  ROYA: We arrived, and my mom and dad did what all visiting Jews from elsewhere do. They dropped to their knees, and they started kissing the ground. I did the same, and it was so moving. Israel was the promised land, we thought about Israel, we dreamed about Israel. But, at the same time, we were Iranians and, and we were living in Iran, and things were good.  This seems to non-Iranian Jews an impossibility. But I think for most of us, it was the way things were. We lived in the country where we had lived for, God knows how many years, and there was this other place that we somehow, in the back of our minds thought we would be going to, without knowing exactly when, but that it would be the destination. MANYA: Relations between the Shah and America flourished as well. In 1951, a hugely popular politician by the name of Mohammad Mosaddegh became prime minister and tried to institute reforms. His attempts to nationalize the oil industry and reduce the monarchy's authority didn't go over well. American and British intelligence backed a coup that restored the Shah's power. Many Iranians resented America's meddling, which became a rallying cry for the revolution. U.S. officials have since expressed regret for the CIA's involvement.  In November 1977, President Jimmy Carter welcomed the Shah and his wife to Washington, D.C., to discuss peace between Egypt and Israel, nuclear nonproliferation, and the energy crisis.  As an extension of these warm relations, the Shah sent many young Iranians to America to enhance their university studies, exposing them to Western ideals and values.  Meanwhile, a savvy fundamentalist cleric was biding his time in a Paris basement. It wouldn't be long before relations crumbled between Iran and Israel, Iran and the U.S,. and Iran and its Jews.  Roya recalls the Hakakian house at the corner of Alley of the Distinguished in Tehran as a lush oasis surrounded by fragrant flowers, full of her father's poetry, and brimming with family memories. Located in the heart of a trendy neighborhood, across the street from the Shah's charity organization, the tall juniper trees, fragrant honeysuckle, and gold mezuzah mounted on the door frame set it apart from the rest of the homes.  Roya's father, Haghnazar, was a poet and a respected headmaster at a Hebrew school. Roya, which means dream in Persian, was a budding poet herself with the typical hopes and dreams of a Jewish teenage girl.  ROYA: Prior to the revolution, life in an average Tehran Hebrew Day School looked very much like life in a Hebrew Day School anywhere else. In the afternoons we had all Hebrew and Jewish studies. We used to put on a Purim show every year. I wanted to be Esther. I never got to be Esther. We had emissaries, I think a couple of years, from Israel, who came to teach us how to do Israeli folk dance. MANYA: There were moments when Roya recalls feeling self-conscious about her Jewishness, particularly at Passover. That's when the family spent two weeks cleaning, demonstrating they weren't najes, or dirty Jews. The work was rewarded when the house filled with the fragrance of cumin and saffron and Persian dishes flowed from the kitchen, including apple and plum beef stew, tarragon veal balls stuffed with raisins, and rice garnished with currants and slivers of almonds.  When her oldest brother Alberto left to study in America, a little fact-finding work on Roya's part revealed that his departure wasn't simply the pursuit of a promising opportunity. As a talented cartoonist whose work had been showcased during an exhibition in Tehran, his family feared Alberto's pen might have gone too far, offending the Pahlavi regime and drawing the attention of the Shah's secret police.  Reports of repression, rapid modernization, the wide gap between Tehran's rich and the rest of the country's poor, and a feeling that Iranians weren't in control of their own destiny all became ingredients for a revolution, stoked by an exiled cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini who was recording cassette tapes in a Paris basement and circulating them back home.  SABA: He would just sit there and go on and on for hours, going against the Shah and West toxification. And then the recordings ended up in Iran. He wasn't even in Iran until the Shah left. MANYA: Promises of democracy and equality galvanized Iranians of all ages to overthrow the Shah in February 1979. Even the CIA was surprised.  SABA: I think a lot of people didn't believe it. Because number one, the Shah, the son, was getting the most amount of military equipment from the United States than anyone in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. And the idea was: you protect us in the Gulf, and we will give you whatever you need. So they never thought that a man with a beard down to his knee was able to overthrow this regime that was being propped up and supported by America, and also the Europeans. Khomeini comes in and represents himself as a person for everyone. And he was brilliant in the way he spoke about it. And the reason why this revolution was also successful was that it wasn't just religious people who supported Khomeini, there was this concept you had, the men with the turbans, meaning the religious people, and the you know, the bow ties or the ties, meaning the secular man, a lot of them who were sent by the Shah abroad to Europe and America to get an education, who came back, saw democracy there, and wanted it for their country.  MANYA: Very few of the revolutionaries could predict that Tehran was headed in the opposite direction and was about to revert to 16th Century Shia Islamic rule. For almost a year, Tehran and the rest of the nation were swept up in revolutionary euphoria.  Roya recalls how the flag remained green, white, and red, but an Allah insignia replaced its old sword-bearing lion. New currency was printed, with portraits bearing beards and turbans. An ode to Khomeini became the new national anthem. While the Shah had escaped on an Air France flight, corpses of his henchmen graced the front pages of newspapers alongside smiling executioners. All celebrated, until the day one of the corpses was Habib Elghanian, the Jewish philanthropist who supported all of Iran's Hebrew schools. Charged and convicted as a Zionist spy.  Elders in the community remembered the insurmountable accusations of blood libel during darker times for Iran's Jews. But younger generations like Roya's, who had not lived through the eras of more ruthless antisemitism and persecution, continued to root for the revolution, regardless of its victims. Meanwhile, Roya's Jewish day school was taken over by a new veiled headmistress who replaced Hebrew lessons with other kinds of religious instruction, and required robes and headscarves for all the students.  ROYA: In the afternoons, from then on, we used to have lessons in a series of what she called: ‘Is religion something that you inherit, or is it something that you choose?' And so I think the intention, clearly, was to convince us that we didn't need to inherit our religions from our parents and ancestors, that we ought to consider better choices. MANYA: But when the headmistress cut short the eight-day Passover break, that was the last straw for Roya and her classmates. Their revolt got her expelled from school.  Though Jews did not universally support Khomeini, some saw themselves as members of the Iranian Communist, or Tudeh Party. They opposed the Shah and the human rights abuses of his monarchy and cautiously considered Khomeini the better option, or at least the lesser of two evils. Alarmed by the developments such as Elghanian's execution and changes like the ones at Roya's school, Jewish community leaders traveled to the Shia holy city of Qom to assure the Supreme Leader of their loyalty to Iran.  SABA: They did this because they wanted to make sure that they protected the Jewish community that was left in Iran. Khomeini made that distinction: ‘I am not against Jews, I'm against Zionists. You could be Jewish in this country. You cannot be a Zionist in this country.'  MANYA: But that wasn't the only change. Right away, the Family Protection Law was reversed, lifting a law against polygamy, giving men full rights in divorce and custody, and lowering the marriage age for girls to nine. Women were banned from serving as judges, and beaches and sports events were segregated by gender.  But it took longer to shut down universities, albeit for only two years, segregate public schools by gender, and stone to death women who were found to have committed adultery. Though Khomeini was certainly proving that he was not the man he promised to be, he backed away from those promises gradually – one brutal crackdown at a time. As a result, the trickle of Jews out of Iran was slow.  ROYA: My father thought, let's wait a few years and see what happens. In retrospect, I think the overwhelming reason was probably that nobody believed that things had changed, and so drastically. It seemed so unbelievable. I mean, a country that had been under monarchy for 2,500 years, couldn't simply see it all go and have a whole new system put in place, especially when it was such a radical shift from what had been there before. So I think, in many ways, we were among the unbelievers, or at least my father was, we thought it could never be, it would not happen. My father proved to be wrong, nothing changed for the better, and the conditions continued to deteriorate. So, so much catastrophe happened in those few years that Iran just simply was steeped into a very dark, intense, and period of political radicalism and also, all sorts of economic shortages and pressures. And so the five years that we were left behind, that we stayed back, changed our perspective on so many things. MANYA: In November 1979, a group of radical university students who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized hostages, and held them for 444 days until President Ronald Reagan's inauguration on January 20, 1981. During the hostages' captivity, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The conflict that ensued for eight years created shortages on everything from dairy products to sanitary napkins. Mosques became distribution centers for rations. ROYA: We stood in line for hours and hours for eggs, and just the very basic things of daily life. And then it became also clear that religious minorities, including Jews, would no longer be enjoying the same privileges as everyone else. There were bombings that kept coming closer and closer to Tehran, which is where we lived. It was very clear that half of my family that was in the United States could not and would not return, because they were boys who would have been conscripted to go to war. Everything had just come apart in a way that was inconceivable to think that they would change for the better again. MANYA: By 1983, new laws had been passed instituting Islamic dress for all women – violations of which earned a penalty of 74 lashes. Other laws imposed an Islamic morality code that barred co-ed gatherings. Roya and her friends found refuge in the sterile office building that housed the Jewish Iranian Students Association. But she soon figured out that the regime hadn't allowed it to remain for the benefit of the Jewish community. It functioned more like a ghetto to keep Jews off the streets and out of their way. Even the activities that previously gave her comfort were marred by the regime. Poetry books were redacted. Mountain hiking trails were arbitrarily closed to mourn the deaths of countless clerics.  SABA: Slowly what they realize, when Khomeini gained power, was that he was not the person that he claimed to be. He was not this feminist, if anything, all this misogynistic rule came in, and a lot of people realize they, in a sense, got duped and he stole the revolution from them. MANYA: By 1984, the war with Iraq had entered its fourth year. But it was no longer about protecting Iran from Saddam Hussein. Now the Ayatollah wanted to conquer Baghdad, then Jerusalem where he aspired to deliver a sermon from the Temple Mount. Meanwhile, Muslim soldiers wounded in the war chose to bleed rather than receive treatment from Jewish doctors. Boys as young as 12 – regardless of faith – were drafted and sent on suicide missions to open the way for Iranian troops to do battle.  SABA: They were basically used as an army of children that the bombs would detonate, their parents would get a plastic key that was the key to heaven. And the bombs would detonate, and then the army would come in Iranian army would come in. And so that's when a lot of the Persian parents, the Jewish parents freaked out. And that's when they were like: we're getting out of here.  MANYA: By this time, the Hakakian family had moved into a rented apartment building and Roya was attending the neighborhood school. Non-Muslim students were required to take Koran classes and could only use designated water fountains and bathrooms.  As a precaution, Roya's father submitted their passports for renewal. Her mother's application was denied; Roya's passport was held for further consideration; her father's was confiscated.  One night, Roya returned home to find her father burning her books and journals on the balcony of their building. The bonfire of words was for the best, he told her. And at long last, so was leaving. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Roya and her mother, Helen, fled to Geneva, and after wandering in Europe for several months, eventually reunited with her brothers in the United States. Roya did not see her father again for five years. Still unable to acquire a passport, he was smuggled out of Iran into Pakistan, on foot.  ROYA: My eldest brother left to come to America in the mid-70s. There was a crack in the body of the family then. But then came 1979, and my two other brothers followed. And so we were apart for all those very, very formative years. And then, in 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. So, you know, it's interesting that when I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA: While her father's arrival in America was delayed, Roya describes her arrival in stages. She first arrived as a Jewish refugee in 1985 and found her place doing what she had always done – writing in Persian – rebuilding a body of work that had been reduced to ashes.  ROYA: As a teen I had become a writer, people were encouraging me. So, I continued to do it. It was the thing I knew how to do. And it gave me a sense of grounding and identity. So, I kept on doing it, and it kind of worked its magic, as I suppose good writing does for all writers. It connected me to a new community of people who read Persian and who appreciated what I was trying to do. And I found that with each book that I write, I find a new tribe for myself.  MANYA: She arrived again once she learned English. In her first year at Brooklyn College, she tape-recorded her professors to listen again later. She eventually took a course with renowned poet Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry was best known for its condemnation of persecution and imperial politics and whose 1950s poem “Howl” tested the boundaries of America's freedom of speech.  ROYA: When I mastered the language enough to feel comfortable to be a writer once more, then I found a footing and through Allen and a community of literary people that I met here began to kind of foresee a possibility of writing in English. MANYA: There was also her arrival to an American Jewish community that was largely unaware of the role Jews played in shaping Iran long before the advent of Islam. Likewise, they were just as unaware of the role Iran played in shaping ancient Jewish life. They were oblivious to the community's traditions, and the indignities and abuses Iranian Jews had suffered, continue to suffer, with other religious minorities to keep those traditions alive in their homeland.   ROYA: People would say, ‘Oh, you have an accent, where are you from?' I would say, ‘Iran,' and the Jews at the synagogue would say, ‘Are there Jews in Iran?' MANYA: In Roya's most recent book A Beginner's Guide to America, a sequel of sorts to her memoir, she reflects on the lessons learned and the observations made once she arrived in the U.S. She counsels newcomers to take their time answering what might at first seem like an ominous or loaded question. Here's an excerpt: ROYA: “In the early days after your arrival, “Where are you from?” is above all a reminder of your unpreparedness to speak of the past. You have yet to shape your story – what you saw, why you left, how you left, and what it took to get here. This narrative is your personal Book of Genesis: the American Volume, the one you will sooner or later pen, in the mind, if not on the page. You must take your time to do it well and do it justice.” MANYA: No two immigrants' experiences are the same, she writes. The only thing they all have in common is that they have been uprooted and the stories of their displacement have been hijacked by others' assumptions and agendas. ROYA: I witnessed, as so many other Iranian Jews witness, that the story of how we came, why we came, who we had been, was being narrated by those who had a certain partisan perspective about what the history of what Jewish people should be, or how this history needs to be cast, for whatever purposes they had. And I would see that our own recollections of what had happened were being shaded by, or filtered through views other than our own, or facts other than our own. MANYA: As we wrap up this sixth and final episode of the first season of The Forgotten Exodus, it is clear that the same can be said about the stories of the Jewish people. No two tales are the same. Jews have lived everywhere, and there are reasons why they don't anymore. Some fled as refugees. Some embarked as dreamers. Some forged ahead without looking back. Others counted the days until they could return home. What ties them together is their courage, perseverance, and resilience–whether they hailed from Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, or parts beyond. These six episodes offer only a handful of those stories–shaped by memories and experiences. ROYA: That became sort of an additional incentive, if not burden for me to, to be a witness for several communities, to tell the story of what happened in Iran for American audiences, to Jews, to non-Iranian Jews who didn't realize that there were Jews in Iran, but also to record the history, according to how I had witnessed it, for ourselves, to make sure that it goes down, as I knew it. MANYA: Iranian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who in the last century left their homes in the Middle East to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Many thanks to Roya for sharing her family's story and for helping us wrap up this season of The Forgotten Exodus. If you're listening for the first time, check out our previous episodes on Jews from Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Sudan. Go to ajc.org/theforgottenexodus where you'll also find transcripts, show notes, and family photos. There are still so many stories to tell. Stay tuned in coming months. Does your family have roots in North Africa or the Middle East? One of the goals of this series is to make sure we gather these stories before they are lost. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to find more of these stories.  Call The Forgotten Exodus hotline. Tell us where your family is from and something you'd like for our listeners to know such as how you've tried to keep the traditions and memories alive. Call 212.891.1336 and leave a message of 2 minutes or less. Be sure to leave your name and where you live now. You can also send an email to theforgottenexodus@ajc.org and we'll be in touch. Tune in every Friday for AJC's weekly podcast about global affairs through a Jewish lens, People of the Pod, brought to you by the same team behind The Forgotten Exodus.  Atara Lakritz is our producer, CucHuong Do is our production manager. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Sean Savage, Ian Kaplan, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name, for making this series possible. And extra special thanks to David Harris, who has been a constant champion for making sure these stories do not remain untold. You can follow The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can sign up to receive updates at AJC.org/forgottenexodussignup. The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed the episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

EXPERTS FRÉDÉRIC ENCEL Docteur en géopolitique Auteur de « Les voies de la puissance » MARIAM PIRZADEH Rédactrice en chef, ancienne correspondante à Téhéran « France 24 » AZADEH KIAN Professeure de sociologie – Spécialiste de l'Iran Auteure de « Femmes et pouvoir en Islam » AGNÈS LEVALLOIS Vice-présidente de l'IREMMO Institut de Recherche et d'Études Méditerranée Moyen-Orient Plus de deux mois après la mort de Mahsa Amani, le mouvement iranien ne cesse de prendre de l'ampleur, malgré la répression féroce du régime et les balles. Un vent de contestation qui loin de s'éteindre commence à provoquer des dissensions au sein du régime alors que les quelques vidéos tournées par des Iraniens qui nous parviennent ces derniers jours sont stupéfiantes. Ainsi samedi une foule immense a participé aux funérailles d'un enfant de neuf ans, Kian Pirfalak, dont la mort indigne le peuple iranien. Le régime a tenté d'accréditer l'idée qu'il avait été tué par des « terroristes armés » et que l'attaque avait été revendiquée par l'organisation Etat islamique – ce que le groupe djihadiste n'a jamais fait. Mais cette version est réfutée par la mère de la victime. Cette dernière a expliqué que Kian revenait de l'école en voiture avec son père, qui tentait de se frayer un chemin à travers une manifestation, quand des membres des forces de sécurité en civil circulant à moto ont tiré. L'enfant est décédé, son père est grièvement blessé. Cette tragédie est devenue l'un des nouveaux symboles de la répression contre le soulèvement en cours en Iran. Une mobilisation notamment dirigée par les femmes, qui refusent l'obligation du port du voile, qu'elles brandissent en l'air ou qu'elles brûlent, mais aussi par les hommes, tous contestant à l'unisson le régime oppressif de la République islamique des mollahs. En octobre dernier, le journal d'information de la chaîne de télévision d'Etat iranienne avait été piraté et des images du guide suprême iranien l'ayatollah Ali Khamenei, entouré de flammes, la tête dans un viseur, avaient été diffusées. Lors des funérailles du petit Kian, on a pu entendre la foule scander : « Mort à Khamenei ». Des vidéos publiées sur les réseaux sociaux ont également montré ces derniers jours l'ancienne maison de l'ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, fondateur de la République islamique d'Iran, en train de brûler, des rues envahies par les contestataires à Khomein, la ville où il est né. Mais trente-trois ans après sa mort, le régime qu'il a mis en place continue de réprimer celles et ceux qui le contestent. Au moins 326 personnes ont été tuées, dont une cinquantaine d'enfants, selon les défenseurs des droits de l'homme, plus de 14.000 autres ont été arrêtées… Mais ces chiffres seraient bien en deçà de la réalité alors que le régime fait tout pour contenir la révolte, sans pour le moment y parvenir. Dans ce contexte, la famille de Cécile Kohler, enseignante française et syndicaliste, détenue en Iran depuis mai dernier, est sortie de son silence pour faire part de son inquiétude. Depuis son arrestation, elle n'a aucun contact avec elle et aucun représentant consulaire français n'a pu la voir. « Est-on sûr qu'elle est en vie alors qu'on ne sait même pas où elle est retenue ? Leur intérêt n'est pas de la tuer et elle est sûrement mieux traitée que les détenus iraniens sur le plan matériel, mais ce traitement est inhumain », a déclaré son père, Pascal Kohler, au quotidien régional DNA. Ses proches ont décidé de s'exprimer publiquement après la diffusion, début octobre, par Téhéran, d'une vidéo présentée comme des « aveux », selon laquelle Cécile Kohler travaillait pour les services secrets français. Paris avait dénoncé une « mise en scène indigne » et évoqué pour la première fois des « otages d'État ». Le Quai d'Orsay avait aussi appelé les Français de passage en Iran à « quitter le pays dans les plus brefs délais compte tenu des risques de détention arbitraire auxquels ils s'exposent ». Plus récemment, Emmanuel Macron a pris la parole lors du sommet du G20 en Indonésie, et a dénoncé les « prises d'otages inadmissibles » de Français par l'Iran. Sept Français sont actuellement détenus en Iran. Parmi eux figurent la chercheuse franco-iranienne Fariba Adelkhah, arrêtée en juin 2019 puis condamnée à cinq ans de prison pour atteinte à la sécurité nationale. Benjamin Brière y est aussi détenu, arrêté en mai 2020 et condamné à huit ans et huit mois d'emprisonnement pour espionnage, ainsi que Cécile Kohler et Jacques Paris, arrêtés en mai dernier. Alors quelle est la situation en Iran ? Quel avenir pour le mouvement de contestation et le régime ? Que sait-on de la situation des Français détenus dans le pays ? Enfin, selon le Washington Post, une nouvelle étape aurait été franchie dans le rapprochement militaire entre Téhéran et Moscou. La Russie va-t-elle bientôt fabriquer elle-même des drones iraniens ? DIFFUSION : du lundi au samedi à 17h45FORMAT : 65 minutes PRÉSENTATION : Caroline Roux - Axel de Tarlé REDIFFUSION : du lundi au vendredi vers 23h40 RÉALISATION : Nicolas Ferraro, Bruno Piney, Franck Broqua, Alexandre Langeard, Corentin Son, Benoît Lemoine PRODUCTION : France Télévisions / Maximal Productions Retrouvez C DANS L'AIR sur internet & les réseaux : INTERNET : francetv.fr FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/Cdanslairf5 TWITTER : https://twitter.com/cdanslair INSTAGRAM : https://www.instagram.com/cdanslair/

Free Speech Union member Daphna Whitmore speaks with Dr. Forough Amin about what's happening in Iran after two months of growing protests across the country.  Forough is a women's rights activist and the founder of the Iranian Women in NZ Charitable Trust.  Forough discusses the dire state of civil rights in Iran, the rigid power of the regime, the important role women and youth are playing in the protests, and reveals the origin of the slogan "Women, Life, Freedom". https://www.facebook.com/IWIN.Charity/Correction: The town where Ruhollah Khomeini's house was set fire to by protesters is referred to as Khomeini Shah in the interview. The correct name of the town is "Khomein".  Support the show

Home to one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, the story of Jews in Iran has been one of prosperity and suffering through the millennia. During the mid-20th century, when Jews were being driven from their homes in Arab lands, Iran assisted Jewish refugees in providing safe passage to Israel. Under the Shah, Israel was an important economic and political ally. Yet that all swiftly changed in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ushered in Islamic rule, while chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” rang out from the streets of Tehran.   Author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian shares her personal story of growing up Jewish in Iran during the reign of the Shah and then Ayatollah Khomeini, which she wrote about in her memoir Journey From the Land of No. Joining Hakakian is Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history who wrote From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of AJC Los Angeles, home to America's largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants.  In this sixth and final episode of the season, the Hakakian family's saga captures the common thread that has run throughout this series – when the history of an uprooted community is left untold, it can become vulnerable to others' narratives and assumptions, or become lost forever and forgotten. How do you leave behind a beloved homeland, safeguard its Jewish legacy, and figure out where you belong? ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  Chag Purim · The Jewish Guitar Project Hevenu Shalom · Violin Heart Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Oud Nation”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Haygaz Yossoulkanian (BMI), IPI#1001905418 “Persian”: Publisher: STUDEO88; Composer: Siddhartha Sharma “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: N/; Composer: DANIELYAN ASHOT MAKICHEVICH (IPI NAME #00855552512), UNITED STATES BMI Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Persian Investigative Mystery”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Peter Cole (BMI), IPI#679735384 “Persian Wind”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Sigma (SESAC); Composer: Abbas Premjee (SESAC), IPI#572363837 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Persian Fantasy Tavern”: Publisher: N/A; Composer: John Hoge “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833.   ___ Episode Transcript: ROYA HAKAKIAN: In 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. When I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: Leaving Iran MANYA: Outside Israel, Iran has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East. Yes, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2022. Though there is no official census, experts estimate about 10,000 Jews now live in the region previously known as Persia.  But since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Jews in Iran don't advertise their Jewish identity. They adhere to Iran's morality code: women stay veiled from head to toe and men and women who aren't married or related stay apart in public. They don't express support for Israel, they don't ask questions, and they don't disagree with the regime. One might ask, with all these don'ts, is this a way of living a Jewish life? Or a way to live – period?  For author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian and her family, the answer was ultimately no. Roya has devoted her life to being a fact-finder and truth-teller. A former associate producer at the CBS news show 60 Minutes and a Guggenheim Fellow, Roya has written two volumes of poetry in Persian and three books of nonfiction in English, the first of which was published in 2004 – Journey From the Land of No, a memoir about her charmed childhood and accursed adolescence growing up Jewish in Iran under two different regimes.  ROYA: It was hugely important for me to create an account that could be relied on as a historic document. And I did my best through being very, very careful about gathering, interviewing, talking to, observing facts, evidence, documents from everyone, including my most immediate members of my family, to do what we, both as reporters, but also as Jews, are called to do, which is to bear witness. No seemed to be the backdrop of life for women, especially of religious minorities, and, in my own case, Jewish background, and so I thought, what better way to name the book than to call it as what my experience had been, which was the constant nos that I heard. So, Land of No was Iran. MANYA: As a journalist, as a Jew, as a daughter of Iran, Roya will not accept no for an answer. After publishing her memoir, she went on to write Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, a meticulously reported book about a widely underreported incident. In 1992 at a Berlin restaurant, a terrorist attack by the Iranian proxy Hezbollah targeted and killed four Iranian-Kurdish exiles. The book highlighted Iran's enormous global footprint made possible by its terror proxies who don't let international borders get in the way of silencing Iran's critics.   Roya also co-founded the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, an independent non-profit that reports on Iran's human rights abuses.  Her work has not prompted Ayatollah Khameini to publicly issue a fatwa against her  – like the murder order against Salman Rushdie issued by his predecessor. But in 2019, one of her teenage sons answered a knock at the door. It was the FBI, warning her that she was in the crosshairs of the Iranian regime's operatives in America. Most recently, Roya wrote A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious about the emotional roller coaster of arriving in America while still missing a beloved homeland, especially one where their community has endured for thousands of years. ROYA: I felt very strongly that one stays in one's homeland, that you don't just simply take off when things go wrong, that you stick around and try to figure a way through a bad situation. We came to the point where staying didn't seem like it would lead to any sort of real life and leaving was the only option. MANYA: The story of Jews in Iran, often referred to as Persia until 1935, is a millennia-long tale. A saga of suffering, repression, and persecution, peppered with brief moments of relief or at least relative peace – as long as everyone plays by the rules of the regime. SABA SOOMEKH: The history of Jews in Iran goes back to around 2,700 years ago. And a lot of people assume that Jews came to Iran, well at that time, it was called the Persian Empire, in 586 BCE, with the Babylonian exile. But Jews actually came a lot earlier, we're thinking 721-722 BCE with the Assyrian exile which makes us one of the oldest Jewish communities.  MANYA: That's Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history and the author of From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, home to America's largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants. Saba's parents fled Iran in 1978, shortly before the revolution, when Saba and her sister were toddlers. She has devoted her career to preserving Iranian Jewish history.   Saba said Zoroastrian rulers until the 7th Century Common Era vacillated between tolerance and persecution of Jews. For example, according to the biblical account in the Book of Ezra, Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian rule, granted all of them citizenship, and permitted them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple.  The Book of Esther goes on to tell the story of another Persian king, believed to be Xerxes I, whose closest adviser called Haman conspires to murder all the Jews – a plot that is foiled by his wife Queen Esther who is Jewish herself. Esther heroically pleads for mercy on behalf of her people – a valor that is celebrated on the Jewish holiday of Purim.  But by the time of the Islamic conquest in the middle of the 7th Century Common Era, the persecution had become so intense that Jews were hopeful about the new Arab Muslim regime, even if that meant being tolerated and treated as second-class citizens, or dhimmi status. But that status had a different interpretation for the Safavids. SABA: Really things didn't get bad for the Jews of the Persian Empire until the 16th century with the Safavid dynasty, because within Shia Islam in the Persian Empire, what they brought with them is this understanding of purity and impurity. And Jews were placed in the same category as dogs, pigs, and feces. They were seen as being religiously impure, what's referred to as najes. MANYA: Jews were placed in ghettos called mahaleh, where they wore yellow stars and special shoes to distinguish them from the rest of the population. They could not leave the mahaleh when it rained for fear that if water rolled off their bodies into the water system, it would render a Shia Muslim impure. For the same reason, they could not go to the bazaars for fear they might contaminate the food. They could not look Muslims in the eye. They were relegated to certain artisanal professions such as silversmithing and block printing – crafts that dirtied one's hands.  MANYA: By the 19th century, some European Jews did make their way to Persia to help. The Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Paris-based network of schools founded by French Jewish intellectuals, opened schools for Jewish children throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including within the mahalehs in Persia.  SABA: They saw themselves as being incredibly sophisticated because they were getting this, in a sense, secular European education, they were speaking French. The idea behind the Allianz schools was exactly that. These poor Middle Eastern Jews, one day the world is going to open up to them, their countries are going to become secular, and we need to prepare them for this, not only within the context of hygiene, but education, language.  And the Allianz schools were right when it came to the Persian Empire because who came into power was Reza Pahlavi, who was a Francophile. And he turned around and said, ‘Wow! Look at the population that speaks French, that knows European philosophy, etc. are the Jews.' He brought them out of the mahaleh, the Jewish ghettos, and said ‘I don't care about religion. Assimilate and acculturate. As long as you show, in a sense, devotion, and nationalism to the Pahlavi regime, which the Jews did—not all Jews—but a majority of them did. MANYA: Reza Pahlavi took control in 1925 and 16 years later, abdicated his throne to his son Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1935, Persia adopted a new name: Iran. As king or the Shah, both father and son set Iran on a course of secularization and rapid modernization under which Jewish life and success seemed to flourish. The only condition was that religious observance was kept behind closed doors. SABA: The idea was that in public, you were secular and in private, you were a Jew. You had Shabbat, you only married a Jew, it was considered blasphemous if you married outside of the Jewish community. And it was happening because people were becoming a part of everyday schools, universities.  But that's why the Jewish day schools became so important. They weren't learning Judaism. What it did was ensure that in a secular Muslim society, that the Jewish kids were marrying within each other and within the community. It was, in a sense, the Golden Age. And that will explain to you why, unlike the early 1950s, where you had this exodus of Mizrahi Jews, Arab Jews from the Arab world and North Africa, you didn't really have that in Iran.  MANYA: In fact, Iran provided a safe passage to Israel for Jewish refugees during that exodus, specifically those fleeing Iraq. The Pahlavi regime considered Israel a critical ally in the face of pan-Arab fervor and hostility in the region. Because of the Arab economic boycott, Israel needed energy sources and Iran needed customers for its oil exports.  A number of Israelis even moved to Tehran, including farmers from kibbutzim who had come to teach agriculture, and doctors and nurses from Hadassah Hospital who had come to teach medicine.  El Al flew in and out of Tehran airport, albeit from a separate terminal. Taking advantage of these warm relations between the two countries, Roya recalls visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins in Israel.  ROYA: We arrived, and my mom and dad did what all visiting Jews from elsewhere do. They dropped to their knees, and they started kissing the ground. I did the same, and it was so moving. Israel was the promised land, we thought about Israel, we dreamed about Israel. But, at the same time, we were Iranians and, and we were living in Iran, and things were good.  This seems to non-Iranian Jews an impossibility. But I think for most of us, it was the way things were. We lived in the country where we had lived for, God knows how many years, and there was this other place that we somehow, in the back of our minds thought we would be going to, without knowing exactly when, but that it would be the destination. MANYA: Relations between the Shah and America flourished as well. In 1951, a hugely popular politician by the name of Mohammad Mosaddegh became prime minister and tried to institute reforms. His attempts to nationalize the oil industry and reduce the monarchy's authority didn't go over well. American and British intelligence backed a coup that restored the Shah's power. Many Iranians resented America's meddling, which became a rallying cry for the revolution. U.S. officials have since expressed regret for the CIA's involvement.  In November 1977, President Jimmy Carter welcomed the Shah and his wife to Washington, D.C., to discuss peace between Egypt and Israel, nuclear nonproliferation, and the energy crisis.  As an extension of these warm relations, the Shah sent many young Iranians to America to enhance their university studies, exposing them to Western ideals and values.  Meanwhile, a savvy fundamentalist cleric was biding his time in a Paris basement. It wouldn't be long before relations crumbled between Iran and Israel, Iran and the U.S,. and Iran and its Jews.  Roya recalls the Hakakian house at the corner of Alley of the Distinguished in Tehran as a lush oasis surrounded by fragrant flowers, full of her father's poetry, and brimming with family memories. Located in the heart of a trendy neighborhood, across the street from the Shah's charity organization, the tall juniper trees, fragrant honeysuckle, and gold mezuzah mounted on the door frame set it apart from the rest of the homes.  Roya's father, Haghnazar, was a poet and a respected headmaster at a Hebrew school. Roya, which means dream in Persian, was a budding poet herself with the typical hopes and dreams of a Jewish teenage girl.  ROYA: Prior to the revolution, life in an average Tehran Hebrew Day School looked very much like life in a Hebrew Day School anywhere else. In the afternoons we had all Hebrew and Jewish studies. We used to put on a Purim show every year. I wanted to be Esther. I never got to be Esther. We had emissaries, I think a couple of years, from Israel, who came to teach us how to do Israeli folk dance. MANYA: There were moments when Roya recalls feeling self-conscious about her Jewishness, particularly at Passover. That's when the family spent two weeks cleaning, demonstrating they weren't najes, or dirty Jews. The work was rewarded when the house filled with the fragrance of cumin and saffron and Persian dishes flowed from the kitchen, including apple and plum beef stew, tarragon veal balls stuffed with raisins, and rice garnished with currants and slivers of almonds.  When her oldest brother Alberto left to study in America, a little fact-finding work on Roya's part revealed that his departure wasn't simply the pursuit of a promising opportunity. As a talented cartoonist whose work had been showcased during an exhibition in Tehran, his family feared Alberto's pen might have gone too far, offending the Pahlavi regime and drawing the attention of the Shah's secret police.  Reports of repression, rapid modernization, the wide gap between Tehran's rich and the rest of the country's poor, and a feeling that Iranians weren't in control of their own destiny all became ingredients for a revolution, stoked by an exiled cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini who was recording cassette tapes in a Paris basement and circulating them back home.  SABA: He would just sit there and go on and on for hours, going against the Shah and West toxification. And then the recordings ended up in Iran. He wasn't even in Iran until the Shah left. MANYA: Promises of democracy and equality galvanized Iranians of all ages to overthrow the Shah in February 1979. Even the CIA was surprised.  SABA: I think a lot of people didn't believe it. Because number one, the Shah, the son, was getting the most amount of military equipment from the United States than anyone in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. And the idea was: you protect us in the Gulf, and we will give you whatever you need. So they never thought that a man with a beard down to his knee was able to overthrow this regime that was being propped up and supported by America, and also the Europeans. Khomeini comes in and represents himself as a person for everyone. And he was brilliant in the way he spoke about it. And the reason why this revolution was also successful was that it wasn't just religious people who supported Khomeini, there was this concept you had, the men with the turbans, meaning the religious people, and the you know, the bow ties or the ties, meaning the secular man, a lot of them who were sent by the Shah abroad to Europe and America to get an education, who came back, saw democracy there, and wanted it for their country.  MANYA: Very few of the revolutionaries could predict that Tehran was headed in the opposite direction and was about to revert to 16th Century Shia Islamic rule. For almost a year, Tehran and the rest of the nation were swept up in revolutionary euphoria.  Roya recalls how the flag remained green, white, and red, but an Allah insignia replaced its old sword-bearing lion. New currency was printed, with portraits bearing beards and turbans. An ode to Khomeini became the new national anthem. While the Shah had escaped on an Air France flight, corpses of his henchmen graced the front pages of newspapers alongside smiling executioners. All celebrated, until the day one of the corpses was Habib Elghanian, the Jewish philanthropist who supported all of Iran's Hebrew schools. Charged and convicted as a Zionist spy.  Elders in the community remembered the insurmountable accusations of blood libel during darker times for Iran's Jews. But younger generations like Roya's, who had not lived through the eras of more ruthless antisemitism and persecution, continued to root for the revolution, regardless of its victims. Meanwhile, Roya's Jewish day school was taken over by a new veiled headmistress who replaced Hebrew lessons with other kinds of religious instruction, and required robes and headscarves for all the students.  ROYA: In the afternoons, from then on, we used to have lessons in a series of what she called: ‘Is religion something that you inherit, or is it something that you choose?' And so I think the intention, clearly, was to convince us that we didn't need to inherit our religions from our parents and ancestors, that we ought to consider better choices. MANYA: But when the headmistress cut short the eight-day Passover break, that was the last straw for Roya and her classmates. Their revolt got her expelled from school.  Though Jews did not universally support Khomeini, some saw themselves as members of the Iranian Communist, or Tudeh Party. They opposed the Shah and the human rights abuses of his monarchy and cautiously considered Khomeini the better option, or at least the lesser of two evils. Alarmed by the developments such as Elghanian's execution and changes like the ones at Roya's school, Jewish community leaders traveled to the Shia holy city of Qom to assure the Supreme Leader of their loyalty to Iran.  SABA: They did this because they wanted to make sure that they protected the Jewish community that was left in Iran. Khomeini made that distinction: ‘I am not against Jews, I'm against Zionists. You could be Jewish in this country. You cannot be a Zionist in this country.'  MANYA: But that wasn't the only change. Right away, the Family Protection Law was reversed, lifting a law against polygamy, giving men full rights in divorce and custody, and lowering the marriage age for girls to nine. Women were banned from serving as judges, and beaches and sports events were segregated by gender.  But it took longer to shut down universities, albeit for only two years, segregate public schools by gender, and stone to death women who were found to have committed adultery. Though Khomeini was certainly proving that he was not the man he promised to be, he backed away from those promises gradually – one brutal crackdown at a time. As a result, the trickle of Jews out of Iran was slow.  ROYA: My father thought, let's wait a few years and see what happens. In retrospect, I think the overwhelming reason was probably that nobody believed that things had changed, and so drastically. It seemed so unbelievable. I mean, a country that had been under monarchy for 2,500 years, couldn't simply see it all go and have a whole new system put in place, especially when it was such a radical shift from what had been there before. So I think, in many ways, we were among the unbelievers, or at least my father was, we thought it could never be, it would not happen. My father proved to be wrong, nothing changed for the better, and the conditions continued to deteriorate. So, so much catastrophe happened in those few years that Iran just simply was steeped into a very dark, intense, and period of political radicalism and also, all sorts of economic shortages and pressures. And so the five years that we were left behind, that we stayed back, changed our perspective on so many things. MANYA: In November 1979, a group of radical university students who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized hostages, and held them for 444 days until President Ronald Reagan's inauguration on January 20, 1981. During the hostages' captivity, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The conflict that ensued for eight years created shortages on everything from dairy products to sanitary napkins. Mosques became distribution centers for rations. ROYA: We stood in line for hours and hours for eggs, and just the very basic things of daily life. And then it became also clear that religious minorities, including Jews, would no longer be enjoying the same privileges as everyone else. There were bombings that kept coming closer and closer to Tehran, which is where we lived. It was very clear that half of my family that was in the United States could not and would not return, because they were boys who would have been conscripted to go to war. Everything had just come apart in a way that was inconceivable to think that they would change for the better again. MANYA: By 1983, new laws had been passed instituting Islamic dress for all women – violations of which earned a penalty of 74 lashes. Other laws imposed an Islamic morality code that barred co-ed gatherings. Roya and her friends found refuge in the sterile office building that housed the Jewish Iranian Students Association. But she soon figured out that the regime hadn't allowed it to remain for the benefit of the Jewish community. It functioned more like a ghetto to keep Jews off the streets and out of their way. Even the activities that previously gave her comfort were marred by the regime. Poetry books were redacted. Mountain hiking trails were arbitrarily closed to mourn the deaths of countless clerics.  SABA: Slowly what they realize, when Khomeini gained power, was that he was not the person that he claimed to be. He was not this feminist, if anything, all this misogynistic rule came in, and a lot of people realize they, in a sense, got duped and he stole the revolution from them. MANYA: By 1984, the war with Iraq had entered its fourth year. But it was no longer about protecting Iran from Saddam Hussein. Now the Ayatollah wanted to conquer Baghdad, then Jerusalem where he aspired to deliver a sermon from the Temple Mount. Meanwhile, Muslim soldiers wounded in the war chose to bleed rather than receive treatment from Jewish doctors. Boys as young as 12 – regardless of faith – were drafted and sent on suicide missions to open the way for Iranian troops to do battle.  SABA: They were basically used as an army of children that the bombs would detonate, their parents would get a plastic key that was the key to heaven. And the bombs would detonate, and then the army would come in Iranian army would come in. And so that's when a lot of the Persian parents, the Jewish parents freaked out. And that's when they were like: we're getting out of here.  MANYA: By this time, the Hakakian family had moved into a rented apartment building and Roya was attending the neighborhood school. Non-Muslim students were required to take Koran classes and could only use designated water fountains and bathrooms.  As a precaution, Roya's father submitted their passports for renewal. Her mother's application was denied; Roya's passport was held for further consideration; her father's was confiscated.  One night, Roya returned home to find her father burning her books and journals on the balcony of their building. The bonfire of words was for the best, he told her. And at long last, so was leaving. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Roya and her mother, Helen, fled to Geneva, and after wandering in Europe for several months, eventually reunited with her brothers in the United States. Roya did not see her father again for five years. Still unable to acquire a passport, he was smuggled out of Iran into Pakistan, on foot.  ROYA: My eldest brother left to come to America in the mid-70s. There was a crack in the body of the family then. But then came 1979, and my two other brothers followed. And so we were apart for all those very, very formative years. And then, in 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. So, you know, it's interesting that when I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA: While her father's arrival in America was delayed, Roya describes her arrival in stages. She first arrived as a Jewish refugee in 1985 and found her place doing what she had always done – writing in Persian – rebuilding a body of work that had been reduced to ashes.  ROYA: As a teen I had become a writer, people were encouraging me. So, I continued to do it. It was the thing I knew how to do. And it gave me a sense of grounding and identity. So, I kept on doing it, and it kind of worked its magic, as I suppose good writing does for all writers. It connected me to a new community of people who read Persian and who appreciated what I was trying to do. And I found that with each book that I write, I find a new tribe for myself.  MANYA: She arrived again once she learned English. In her first year at Brooklyn College, she tape-recorded her professors to listen again later. She eventually took a course with renowned poet Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry was best known for its condemnation of persecution and imperial politics and whose 1950s poem “Howl” tested the boundaries of America's freedom of speech.  ROYA: When I mastered the language enough to feel comfortable to be a writer once more, then I found a footing and through Allen and a community of literary people that I met here began to kind of foresee a possibility of writing in English. MANYA: There was also her arrival to an American Jewish community that was largely unaware of the role Jews played in shaping Iran long before the advent of Islam. Likewise, they were just as unaware of the role Iran played in shaping ancient Jewish life. They were oblivious to the community's traditions, and the indignities and abuses Iranian Jews had suffered, continue to suffer, with other religious minorities to keep those traditions alive in their homeland.   ROYA: People would say, ‘Oh, you have an accent, where are you from?' I would say, ‘Iran,' and the Jews at the synagogue would say, ‘Are there Jews in Iran?' MANYA: In Roya's most recent book A Beginner's Guide to America, a sequel of sorts to her memoir, she reflects on the lessons learned and the observations made once she arrived in the U.S. She counsels newcomers to take their time answering what might at first seem like an ominous or loaded question. Here's an excerpt: ROYA: “In the early days after your arrival, “Where are you from?” is above all a reminder of your unpreparedness to speak of the past. You have yet to shape your story – what you saw, why you left, how you left, and what it took to get here. This narrative is your personal Book of Genesis: the American Volume, the one you will sooner or later pen, in the mind, if not on the page. You must take your time to do it well and do it justice.” MANYA: No two immigrants' experiences are the same, she writes. The only thing they all have in common is that they have been uprooted and the stories of their displacement have been hijacked by others' assumptions and agendas. ROYA: I witnessed, as so many other Iranian Jews witness, that the story of how we came, why we came, who we had been, was being narrated by those who had a certain partisan perspective about what the history of what Jewish people should be, or how this history needs to be cast, for whatever purposes they had. And I would see that our own recollections of what had happened were being shaded by, or filtered through views other than our own, or facts other than our own. MANYA: As we wrap up this sixth and final episode of the first season of The Forgotten Exodus, it is clear that the same can be said about the stories of the Jewish people. No two tales are the same. Jews have lived everywhere, and there are reasons why they don't anymore. Some fled as refugees. Some embarked as dreamers. Some forged ahead without looking back. Others counted the days until they could return home. What ties them together is their courage, perseverance, and resilience–whether they hailed from Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, or parts beyond. These six episodes offer only a handful of those stories–shaped by memories and experiences. ROYA: That became sort of an additional incentive, if not burden for me to, to be a witness for several communities, to tell the story of what happened in Iran for American audiences, to Jews, to non-Iranian Jews who didn't realize that there were Jews in Iran, but also to record the history, according to how I had witnessed it, for ourselves, to make sure that it goes down, as I knew it. MANYA: Iranian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who in the last century left their homes in the Middle East to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Many thanks to Roya for sharing her family's story and for helping us wrap up this season of The Forgotten Exodus. If you're listening for the first time, check out our previous episodes on Jews from Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Sudan. Go to ajc.org/theforgottenexodus where you'll also find transcripts, show notes, and family photos. There are still so many stories to tell. Stay tuned in coming months. Does your family have roots in North Africa or the Middle East? One of the goals of this series is to make sure we gather these stories before they are lost. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to find more of these stories.  Call The Forgotten Exodus hotline. Tell us where your family is from and something you'd like for our listeners to know such as how you've tried to keep the traditions and memories alive. Call 212.891.1336 and leave a message of 2 minutes or less. Be sure to leave your name and where you live now. You can also send an email to theforgottenexodus@ajc.org and we'll be in touch. Tune in every Friday for AJC's weekly podcast about global affairs through a Jewish lens, People of the Pod, brought to you by the same team behind The Forgotten Exodus.  Atara Lakritz is our producer, CucHuong Do is our production manager. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Sean Savage, Ian Kaplan, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name, for making this series possible. And extra special thanks to David Harris, who has been a constant champion for making sure these stories do not remain untold. You can follow The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can sign up to receive updates at AJC.org/forgottenexodussignup. The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed the episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

Análisis Con Alexis Ortiz. Eps #40 Salman Rushdie es un novelista británico-estadounidense nacido en la India. Su obra a menudo combina el realismo mágico con la ficción histórica. Es autor de novelas como: Grimus, Midnight's Children (que recibió el premio Booker en 1981), Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of ​​Stories, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar el Payaso, La Hechicera de Florencia, Luka y el Fuego de la Vida, Dos Años, Ocho Meses y Veintiocho Noches y La Casa Dorada. Así mismo, sus libros han sido traducidos a más de cuarenta idiomas. Recientemente Rushdie sufrió un ataque en el estado de nueva York, fue herido en un apuñalamiento. El hombre de Nueva Jersey que supuestamente apuñaló a Salman Rushdie en el oeste de Nueva York elogió al ayatolá Jomeini de Irán en una entrevista exclusiva en la cárcel con The Post el pasado miércoles y admitió que no creía que el autor sobreviviera al ataque. “Cuando escuché que sobrevivió, me sorprendió, supongo”, dijo Hadi Matar, de Fairview, Nueva Jersey, en una entrevista en video desde la cárcel del condado de Chautauqua. El joven de 24 años no dijo si se inspiró en que el difunto líder supremo iraní, el ayatolá Ruhollah Khomeini, emitiera una fetua, o edicto, pidiendo la muerte de Rushdie en 1989 por el libro del autor "Los versos satánicos", citando una advertencia de su abogado de la defensa. “Respeto al ayatolá. Creo que es una gran persona. Eso es todo lo que diré al respecto”, dijo Matar, y señaló que sólo “leyó como dos páginas” de la controvertida novela de Rushdie. Recording, Mix & Mastering Engineer: Jesús Carreño. Voice Over: Jessika C. #salmanrushdie #novelistasalmanrushdie #atentadosalmanrushdie Podcast recorded at: Nmmiami Studio. nmmiami.com @nmmiamiradio Para más información: anexostudio@gmail.com / nmmiamiradioonline@gmail.com Doral, FL 33166

Sveriges Radio skickar en ung Agneta Ramberg till Teheran när Irans framtid avgörs. Hör hennes egna radioinspelningar och berättelser från Iran i den här helt nya dokumentären. 1979 är ett omvälvande år i Iran. Shahen störtas och flyr, ayatolla Ruhollah Khomeini kommer i triumf tillbaka från exilen i Paris, och så småningom inträffar också ockupationen av den amerikanska ambassaden. Året därpå inleds det långa kriget mot Saddam Husseins Irak.Konsekvenserna av de här händelserna märks i världspolitiken än idag.Agneta Ramberg bevakade den här historiska perioden på plats. I dokumentären berättar hon om sina minnen därifrån och om hur arbetet som korrespondent i krig såg ut för 40 år sen. Du får också höra mer om den blodiga maktkamp som pågick medan Agneta Ramberg var på plats, där tusentals demonstranter avrättades och stora delar av prästerskapets republikanska maktparti IRP utplånades i bombattentat.Agneta Ramberg är en av Sveriges mest namnkunniga utrikeskorrespondenter. Under flera decennier bevakade hon världen för SR. När hon gick i pension 2018 var hon Ekots utrikeskommentator.Ett program från 2022. Reporter: Sara StenholmProducent: Håkan EngströmSlutmix: Elvira Björnfot

Sveriges Radio skickar en ung Agneta Ramberg till Teheran när Irans framtid avgörs. Hör hennes egna radioinspelningar och berättelser från Iran i den här helt nya dokumentären. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. 1979 är ett omvälvande år i Iran. Shahen störtas och flyr, ayatolla Ruhollah Khomeini kommer i triumf tillbaka från exilen i Paris, och så småningom inträffar också ockupationen av den amerikanska ambassaden. Året därpå inleds det långa kriget mot Saddam Husseins Irak.Konsekvenserna av de här händelserna märks i världspolitiken än idag.Agneta Ramberg bevakade den här historiska perioden på plats. I dokumentären berättar hon om sina minnen därifrån och om hur arbetet som korrespondent i krig såg ut för 40 år sen. Du får också höra mer om den blodiga maktkamp som pågick medan Agneta Ramberg var på plats, där tusentals demonstranter avrättades och stora delar av prästerskapets republikanska maktparti IRP utplånades i bombattentat.Agneta Ramberg är en av Sveriges mest namnkunniga utrikeskorrespondenter. Under flera decennier bevakade hon världen för SR. När hon gick i pension 2018 var hon Ekots utrikeskommentator.Ett program från 2022.Reporter: Sara StenholmProducent: Håkan EngströmSlutmix: Elvira Björnfot

1979 skickar Sveriges Radio en ung Agneta Ramberg till Teheran. Hör hennes egna radioinspelningar och berättelser från Iran i den här helt nya dokumentären. 1979 är ett omvälvande år i Iran. Shahen störtas och flyr, ayatolla Ruhollah Khomeini kommer i triumf tillbaka från exilen i Paris, och så småningom inträffar också ockupationen av den amerikanska ambassaden. Året därpå inleds det långa kriget mot Saddam Husseins Irak.Konsekvenserna av de här händelserna märks i världspolitiken än idag.Agneta Ramberg bevakade den här historiska perioden på plats. I dokumentären berättar hon om sina minnen därifrån och om hur arbetet som korrespondent i krig såg ut för 40 år sen. Du får också höra mer om den blodiga maktkamp som pågick medan Agneta Ramberg var på plats, där tusentals demonstranter avrättades och stora delar av prästerskapets republikanska maktparti IRP utplånades i bombattentat.Agneta Ramberg är en av Sveriges mest namnkunniga utrikeskorrespondenter. Under flera decennier bevakade hon världen för SR. När hon gick i pension 2018 var hon Ekots utrikeskommentator.Ett program från 2022. Reporter: Sara StenholmProducent: Håkan EngströmSlutmix: Elvira Björnfot

For over a year during the Covid Lockdown, Zari was the only person outside of Dawn's house that she spoke to in person. Chats in doorway turned to coffee on the patio - turned to tea at her kitchen table - which eventually became whiskey on the couch. More than once she found myself at 1o'clock in the morning awash - not just in the Makers Mark Zari pours so generously - but in her captivating tales of her life in Iran. Dawn recorded with Zari for a few sessions over two days and what is compiled here focuses primarily on the history of the Iranian Revolution and how it wove through the events of Zari's life to this point. ---EPISODE BREAKDOWN---00:10:00 - After Dawn and Zari bring the listeners up to speed on how they met and grew so close - Dawn begins to give the very early broad strokes of the seeds of the Iranian Revolution, and where Zari was at the time. In 1961, for example, in an unlikely turn of events, Zari finds herself at 15 entering a Catholic School in London - she is Muslim, speaks no English and has never seen a nun. 00:16:30 - At the same time that Zari is in London, the Shah Pahlavi - the divisive and socially progressive King of Iran - is advancing what is known as the White Revolution. This is generally an investment in a modernizing - and particularly Westernizing and secularizing - of Iranian culture. Its most vocal critic is the Ruhollah Khomeini (later the Ayatollah Khomeini) who is eventually sent into exile in Iraq, but continues to remain very present in Iranian dissent. 00:25:24 - When Zari graduates and returns to Iran in 1968, she gets married and has a son - later divorces, amicably- and is beginning her career in education. Not long after, the real build of the revolution begins: The Cinema Rex Fire as well as other violent and deadly events are happening with more regularity and the tide of revolution is beginning to become clearer. 00:44:37 - By November, 1978, the Revolution is building and increasing numbers of people are taking to the streets every week. The Shah makes a series of televised concessions and capitulations which only seem embolden his critics and weaken his position. As allies also begin to falter in their support of the Shah, many begin to see how the return of Khomeini would mean violence and chose to flee. Zari, her parents, and her 7 year-old son got on a crowded flight on Dec. 7th, 1978 and go to London. It is from London that they witness the Revolution take a dark turn. --BREAK-- 00:52:51 - Dawn and Zari begin Part 2 with a clink of whiskey glasses and jumping into some of the ugliest days of the return of the Ayatollah to Iran. Dawn references the story of author, Shirin Ebadi in her book Iran Awakening - in which she relays how it felt on the ground. Ebadi has a very different perspective than Zari because she was a Leftist Revolutionary who was among those in the streets protesting the Shah. She believed the government could be made more representative, and didn't believe a bigger monster lay beyond the cause. 01:01:41 - Zari watched events like the Iran Hostage Crisis (1979-1981) from her new life in New York. Again, the critical timeline aligns with hers and Zari and her son find they are fortunate enough to have secured their passports on the same day that Jimmy Carter revokes all Iranian Visas. 01:14:20 - In 1997, with her son happy and established, Zari is determined to return to Iran to see if she might be able to reclaim any portion of her family's previous estate. She finds it to be a country both totally unfamiliar, and exactly the same as she left it. The manner of dress and the fear are new - but under it all the same kindness and love her countrymen always displayed. 01:28:27 - Zari gives a dose of some of her gracious optimism. She sees no comparison to what happened in Iran happening here, in the US in the present day. According to Zari, the USA is insulated from such a religious coup because the number of people devoted to the same religion is not comparable. The two sign off with mutual declarations of hope and love. ---NEXT EPISODE: July 6th, 2022 - LESBIANS with Rachel Scanlon [AKA: THE LIVE SHOW!]  

Today we discuss the aftermath of the 1979 revolution: the ascent of Ruhollah Khomeini, the capture of the US embassy, the First Gulf War, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and much else. All events with major repercussions today. And not just in Iran.

Em 1º de fevereiro de 1979, depois de 15 anos de exílio, o aiatolá Ruhollah Khomeini, líder espiritual da comunidade xiita iraniana, retorna a Teerã, onde é recebido como herói nacional.Perguntado, ainda no avião, sobre a sensação ao retornar do exílio, respondeu tranquilamente que não tinha nenhuma. Apenas dois meses depois, instauraria uma república islâmica no Irã e liquidaria todos os principais atores do regime do xá Reza Pahlevi.----Quer contribuir com Opera Mundi via PIX? Nossa chave é apoie@operamundi.com.br (Razão Social: Última Instancia Editorial Ltda.). Desde já agradecemos!Assinatura solidária: www.operamundi.com.br/apoio★ Support this podcast ★

Après avoir survolé le ciel de Téhéran pendant un quart d'heure, le Boeing 747 d'Air France se pose sur le tarmac de l'aéroport de Téhéran. A son bord, l'Ayatollah Khomeiny, 78 ans, de retour en Iran après 14 ans d'exil en Irak, en Turquie puis en France. Pour des raisons de sécurité, il a laissé sa femme et ses petits-enfants à Paris. L'hystérie s'empare de la foule quand l'imam sort de l'avion. Affaibli par le poids des années, l'homme n'a rien perdu de son charisme avec sa longue barbe blanche de patriarche et son regard ténébreux sous son turban noir. Retour ce soir dans "Jour J" de 20h à 21h sur la proclamation de la République Islamique d'Iran. Notre invité sera Vincent Hugeux, spécialiste de l'Afrique et du Moyen-Orient, journaliste et auteur de "Iran, l'état d'alerte".

It was bound to happen sooner or later, sports fans: we finally cracked two hours. Naturally, this episode is packed to the gills with tangents about crawdads and Twitter Jail and Derek's dubious acting career. Not that there isn't any movie talk at all: Isabelle has a galaxy-brain take to end all galaxy-brain takes regarding one of our competitors, and Derek, well, he mostly just puts on his Film Bro(tm) hat on for this one. But any way you slice it, once these two matches are through, we will officially 25% of the way to figuring out what exactly is the #1 movie of all time!* This week's matchups: Incendies v. The Third Man The Godfather v. Close-Up Derek's Planes: Fire and Rescue review, via PopOptiq NOTE: While discussing Incendies, Isabelle makes a few statements that are unclear and appear to directly conflate the Iranian revolution with the work of Sayyid Qutb. While Qutb was very influential both during and after the Iranian revolution, conflating his work with the revolution (and specifically Ruhollah Khomeini) is imprecise and simpler than she meant to imply. See the bracket [SPOILERS AHEAD] Drop us a line: middlebrowmadness@gmail.com Follow the show on Twitter: @middlebrowpod Follow Isabelle on Twitter: @spacejamfan Follow Derek on Twitter: @derek_g Join the Middlebrow Madness Discord

Folks, this one might get ya' bois in some trouble. The "complex" minds behind JTM picked one heck of a heavy topic to unleash upon you, the innocent and unsuspecting listener. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did some straight up grisly shit. Get some nog in your gob asap as possible because this aforementioned chestnut gets thoroughly roasted. Happy holidays from all of us at Justice Time Machine! justicetimemachine@gmail.com | @justicetimemachine | johnnyrk.com | @johnnyrk | @elis_trashcan wikipedia.org | britannica.com | sourcemeter.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/justice-time-machine/support

"Kreikkalainen tragedia intialaisin juurin ja newyorkilaisin koordinaatein", kuvaili San Francisco Chronicle -lehti Salman Rushdien uutta romaania Kultainen talo. Se maalaa lukijansa eteen vaihtoehtoisen kuvan amerikkalaisesta unelmasta ja esittelee sekä sukupuolipronomineista riitelevät milleniaalit että menneisyytensä salaavan, häikäilemättömän ja vaarallisen, trumpmaisen miljardöörin hoveineen. Rushdie on ollut länsimaiden seuratuimpia kirjailijoita sen jälkeen, kun ajatollah Ruhollah Khomeini vuoden ystävänpäivänä 1989 langetti kirjailijan ylle fatwan: syy oli edellissyksynä julkaistu Rushdien romaani Saatanalliset säkeet, jonka uskonnollinen johtaja näki olevan "kirjoitetun, editoidun ja julkaistun islamia, islamin profeettaa ja Koraania vastaan". Sananvapaus ja vastuu on läsnä myös Rushdien viidennessätoista romaanissa Kultainen talo. Studiossa on sananvapauden puolustamisesta palkittu Iltalehden pilapiirtäjä ja sarjakuvataiteilija Ville Ranta ja Kultainen talo -romaanin kääntäjä Maria Lyytinen. Lähetyksen juontaa Pauliina Grym.

Confrontado com uma rebelião no exército e demonstrações violentas contra o seu governo, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, o xá do Irã desde 1941, é forçado a fugir do país em 15 de janeiro de 1979. Catorze dias depois, o aiatolá Ruhollah Khomeini, líder espiritual da revolução islâmica, regressa de um exílio de 15 anos e assume o comando do Irã. Quer continuar acessando o conteúdo do Opera Mundi? Acesse: www.operamundi.com.br/apoio★ Support this podcast ★

40 éve, 1979 februárjában ért véget az iráni iszlám forradalom, amely alapvetően megváltoztatta Irán alkotmányos berendezkedését. A Ruhollah Khomeini ajatollah vezette felkelők célja az iráni sah rezsimjének megdöntése volt, és ez sikerrel is járt: a forradalom véget vetett Reza Pahlavi sah uralmának. A sah családjával együtt elmenekült, és emigrációban élte le élete hátralevő részét. Iránt teokratikus államként szervezték újjá, és 1979 április 1-jén kikiáltották az Iráni Iszlám Köztársaságot. Miért tört ki a forradalom, és milyen hatásai voltak Iránban és az Iránon kívüli iszlám világban? Hogyan működik a gyakorlatban Khomeini ajatollah elképzelése, és mit jelent a vallástudós vezetése? Mai vendégünk N. Rózsa Erzsébet iranista, egyetemi tanár, az MTA Világgazdasági Intézetének kutatója. N. Rózsa Erzsébet évtizedek óta figyeli és kutatja az iráni politikai rendszer változásait, Irán külkapcsolatait és hatalmi törekvéseit, valamint Irán nukleáris ambícióit. Elhangzott a Civil Rádió FM98.00-on 2019. április 30-án. A riporterek Günsberger Dóra és Szakáli Máté. A műsorban elhangzó zeneszámok: - Wan Xiaoli万晓利: Huli 狐狸 - www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uO-0BTkWyg - Chekad: Meshkatian - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5DaTTCcR2k - Amir Azimi: Bi to - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Z-LapzwWA - Ali Reza Qerbani: Man osheq-e chesmet shudam (من عاشق چشمت شدم - علیرضا قربانی) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85rdlOil0Ro&feature=youtu.be - Iranian folk song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQqEhrlQWXg&t=83s

Iranin uskonnollinen johtaja ajatollah Ruhollah Khomeini langetti Salman Rushdielle fatwan tämän kirjan Saatanalliset säkeet jumalanpilkasta 30 vuotta sitten ystävänpäivänä 1989. Miten voi kirjallisuuden sananvapaus vuonna 2019? Aiheesta ovat keskustelemassa kirjailijoiden kansainvälisen sananvapausjärjestön PEN:in Suomen puheenjohtaja Veera Tyhtilä, kirjastolaitoksen hiljaista sensuuria kritisoiva kirjastonhoitaja Heikki Poroila ja Helsingin yliopiston viestintäoikeuden dosentti, Suomen sananvapauden historian tuntija Riku Neuvonen. Juontajana on Pauliina Grym.

Il 12 febbraio del 1979 trionfava la rivoluzione iraniana e con lei la sua figura più simbolica, Ruhollah Khomeini.In quei giorni nelle strade di Teheran si erano riversate speranze di cambiamento, desideri e sogni. Cosa ne rimane a distanza di 40 anni?Insieme ad Alberto Zanconato, negli scorsi anni corrispondente prima da Teheran e poi da Beirut, autore del libro "Khomeini. Il rivoluzionario di Dio" ripercorriamo questi quattro decenni tra promesse mantenute e sogni infranti.

“The Great Satan”. This was the term the Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini used in his speech on 5 November 1979 to describe the United States of America. The term was a response to continued US American policy, since the mid Twentieth Century, to interfere in Iranian politics and undermine its sovereignty. Also, it turns out […] The post The Great Satan – Propaganda s03e06 CIA appeared first on The Moral Economy.

  The years leading up to the autumn of 1979 in Iran proved to be turbulent, resulting in a radical transformation of the nation. The U.S had backed the semi-absolutist monarchy of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, even when the increasing popularity of Islamic fundamentalism, Iranian Nationalism, and opposition to western influence exploded, culminating in protests against the Shah in 1977. The Shah used increasingly brutal tactics to suppress rebellion; his actions only further inflamed the revolutionary fervor of the populace. Organized armed resistance began in 1977. The Shah fled the country on January 16, 1979, leaving a provisional government in power. Meanwhile, the fundamentalist leader Ruhollah Khomeini, who had lead opposition movements before his exile, returned and resumed leadership over the revolution. Khomeini rallied his forces and disposed of both residual royalist troops and the provisional government that ruled in the Shah's name, thus formally establishing himself as Supreme Leader of the new Islamic Republic. Rival factions were subverted, and Revolutionary Guards roamed the country to ensure the preservation of the new order. After the Shah left Iran, he became ill with cancer and was granted medical asylum in the United States in the October of 1979 with the reluctant approval of President Jimmy Carter. Many Iranians viewed the Shah as a war criminal and demanded that the U.S hand him over for trial. When the U.S government refused, a group of revolutionary student protestors rallied outside the U.S embassy in Tehran to demand justice. On November 4, 1979, students scaled the walls of the embassy and broke into the compound. Fifty two U.S diplomatic personal were captured and held hostage for what would become 444 days. The Khomeini regime welcomed the new-found leverage against the U.S. and Khomeini deployed the Revolutionary Guards to round up any American personnel that may have escaped into the city. Kathleen Stafford served as a visa clerk in the U.S consulate center within the U.S embassy in Tehran during the revolution. She, along with her husband Joseph Stafford, Robert Anders, Cora Amburn-Lijek, Mark Lijek and Lee Schatz, escaped the initial breech of the embassy. The escapees divided into two groups to avoid attention. Stafford and her group evaded capture by moving from vacant house to vacant house before finding a more lasting refuge at the homes of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor and Consul General John Sheardown, who welcomed them despite great personal risk.  The group would remain guests of the Canadian diplomats for almost three months until a CIA extraction operation lead by Tony Mendez, made famous by the movie Argo, allowed them to escape Iran on January 28, 1980 by posing as a film production team. The movie was criticized by Ambassador Taylor, who died in October 2015, and others as discounting the role the Canadians played. Kathleen Stafford was interviewed by Marilyn Greene in 2012.