22/12/24 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie
The Lion Women of Tehran switches perspective from the present day in the United States to 30 years prior in Iran. Homa and Ellie meet in elementary school and instantly bond. Shir Zan a fierce, courageous, and brave woman.
1982 The Ellie is in NY where she has been 4 and a half years and she thinks about the night she betrayed Homa and that affected both their lives. She is 38 and in a Manhattan department Store, she skipped out of a countrie's slide into medieval times. Homa had suddenly flown back into her life.
1950 Ellie's mother tells her that her grandmother had descended from Qajar king (They ruled Iran from 1785 till 1925 they were from a Turkic clan.)Ellies father had died when she was 7 of tuberculosis.
Because her mother wouldn't marry Uncle Mousoud they had to leave the big house and move to a poor neighborhood in Teheran. She went to the local school, where they had a 2 hour lunch break and went home to lunch with her mother.
She met Homa (phoenix a bird from the fables) Homa tells her that her father is a communist against the Shah. Loneliness is the worst of all afflictions. With Homa she learn rope jump skills and cooking Homa's father was headwaiter at the Palace Hotel restaurant. This girl pair got good grades progressed and skipped a class.
Portugal is the word for "orange " in both Arabic and Farsi so were surprised it is a country.
She and Homa bunked school and she was seen in the market by the local gossip. Homa said that she wanted to be a lawyer and then Judge. While Ellie's mother thought a woman working for pay was beneath her. Laws that are stupid, unfair and absurd should be broken.
Her mother did not like her having a friend from the poor neighborhood one that she considered don't mean anything. Her mother claimed to have many uptown friends but they had abandoned her when she was forced to move downtown. "That girl will be the death of you". Mother would not allow Homa into their house.
Saʿdī Shīrāzī; born 1210; died 1291 Ḥāfeẓ, 'the memorizer; the (safe) keeper'; 1325–1390)
These 2 Persian poets the girls had to commit their works to memory.
She peeked at her mother in bed with Uncle Mousod. Mother finally married him as she was worried about Ellie, but Ellie preferred being in the poor area with her friend. Uptown was alien with wealth and glamour.
1960 She went into the Reza Shah Kebir High School for girls a fancy glamourous school with prestigious teachers and the latest fashions from Europe. Here Sousan and Niloo were her good friends she was 17 and popular. They had become secular despite the mothers fear of the evil eye.
August 1953 the democratically elected PM Mossadegh is deposed and the Shahs Pahlavi family took over. The British and American were behind this coup to do with the oil. Her uncle had started working for the oil company.
The met boys from the Alborz High School. She met Mehrdad and her mother liked the idea as he came from a "established" family. Her uncle encouraged her to get an education.
Homa managed to get transferred to the school that Ellie is in as she had good grades. Now Ellies 2 worlds are colliding. Ellie now hears that Homa's father was arrested after the coup of 1953. Ellie was jealous that Homa had a father. Homa's mother started working by sewing dresses for rich women. Homa was working on weekends at the restaurant that her father had worked at.
All inheritance laws skew in the men's favor. At a party Merhdad came in and nothing else mattered. The dance to the music of Neil Sadaka. There were also Christians perhaps Armenians at her school
Niloo was Jewish and excited about a boy she met at synagogue. University was her ticket to a relationship with Merhdad who insisted on marrying a woman with a degree. Homa said I am not getting married and don't need a spouse.
The went for a hike on the Alborz mountains, from where you could get a view of the rooftops of Teheran. Village women in the field wore trousers under their tunics. Here they met at a restaurant and Homa looked into Merhdad eyes and told Ellie he has a good character marry him. They met Abdol who like Homa and also wanted to study law.
Ellie studied languages at Tehran University and became a teacher and translator. The Shah was criticized for taking Iran away from Persian culture and he stifled critics with his SAVAK that imprisoned them. Ellie and Merhdad postponed getting married till they could get a place of their own so as not to have to live with his parents.
Massoud felt that the King was good for them and the country. Abdol had asked Homa to marry him, he asked a second time after his mother died.
1963 White Revolution, under the Shah an aggressive modernization program and continued until 1979. , It took away influence of the land owning classes altered rural economies, and led to rapid urbanization and Westernization. It led to riots supporting Khomeini who was against the reforms.
Ellie's mother kept saying to her "Did it occur to you that Homa wants what you have. Then she though she saw Homa flirting with Merhdad.
Sousan husband the Colonel found her and she told him she was studying English and not French as English is the future. Niloo was studying business administration at Bazagani University. In the talk about women advancing careers she let slip that Homa was the organizer of the demonstration. The Next day Homa was arrested. Sousan told her that her husband the colonel is a SAVAK agent. With the way of divorce laws and child custody laws no women has a chance. She never saw Sousan again but did come to Niloos house to light on the sabbath.
Homa in jail would not tell who helped her translate pamphlets and who else were in the communist party and so she was purposely raped and let out of jail 6 month pregnant. A year after her arrest Ellie visits her she has a baby daughter Behar and she married Abdol who was not able to continue university but became a mechanic. I once fought for human rights I now fight to stay afloat. Homa send Ellie away and does not want to see her again. She said Merdad befriended Abdol as his superiority made Merhdad feel good. A raped women is soiled and spoilt goods but Abdol was prepared to give her shelter, no matter what.
Ellie and Merhdad felt they wanted 5 children but she had very bloody miscarriages and he accepted this.
1977 Merhdad was offered a research position at the Rockefeller University. They knew about America as there were lots of American Companies working in Teheran. They flew to NY on Pan Am. Merhdad works with the brightest scientist some from Germany , China , Brazil. he has a post doctoral position.
Abdol got promoted to manage the garage and Homa could not return to University but studied and got a teaching certificate. As a teacher she was told never to say anything against the Shah.
1977 Jimmy Carter visits Teheran and raises a glass of Champaign with the Shah that Iran is" an island of stability ." However friendships rupture beyond beleif.
Homa tell Behar that a woman should have her own source of income. Abdol goes to a wedding of his relatives in Abadan in the Khuzestan Province. On the phone he tell her he is going with his cousin to the cinema that night. The cinema was set alight by fundamentalists' Shahs opponents, as it was a thing of western values and hundreds are killed.
Ellie meets the spouses of the scientist and has friends and then get a job at the cosmetics counter in Bloomingdales.
1979 Jan they are jubilant that the Shah has left Iran and died in 1980 of cancer in Egypt. February the Ayatollah arrives on an Air France plane. The communists had made an alliance with the fundamentalists to topple the Shah. The Shah's political prisoner are freed. Homa's father is freed. Women can go to work but must wear the veil. Women can no longer be judges. In the street because she has no veil Behar is called a prostitute and Homa beats the man up. Niloo and other Jews are going to Israel, Sousan and her children have landed in LA but the colonel never got out and with many of the Shahs forces is executed. Women have t wear the hijab and morality police are set up. Homa starts an organization for women's rights.
1979 Nov US embassy, in Teheran hostages taken and kept for 444 day. Released the day Reagan was inorgarated as 40th US in president 1981 Jan. As Iranians in the US they were made to feel uncomfortable.
1980 Sadam Hussein invades Iran, First Gulf War ended in 1988. Homa get Ellies address from her mother. Ellies mother visits NY and in conversation tells Ellie that her father was a philanderer and cheated on her and hit his wife. Ellie had believed her father was a paragon of duty.
1982 Behar arrived in NY 13 years after Ellie had visited Homa the last time. "the new regime can't last much longer." There is an irony that more girls go to university now. In NY Behar is enrolled into high school so she can go to collage. Ellie shared stories of her childhood with Homa to Behar.
Behar's best friend was Madison who Ellie knew would be trouble. Behar had studied hard and got into Queen Collage. She has to keep studying to be able to renew her visa.
Homa visited NY with a short term visa and Ellie took her around the city. She wanted to see the NY Public Library which has 2 lions at the entrance that were named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox the founders of the library. Later during the depression the mayor named the Patience and Fortitude. Homa said that after she got out of prison it was books she read and read that saved her from depression. They also went to the Pierpont Morgan Library started by the financier and railway magnet. These places of substance are covered with Persian rugs made by the hands of women.
After the graduation party Behar goes to the party at Madison's house where she get stoned with booze and drugs she was naïve to what she was given. She is saved by them calling a ambulance and treated in hospital for alcoholic poisonings. At the hospital they ask who is the mother and Ellie steps in and says I am the legal guardian.
2022 Battle Green is the place where the 1775 revolution started that led to the war and the revolution. Tourist that come to Lexington Massachusetts come to the Persian Restaurant. Here Leily with her mother Behar and father Steven Murphy celebrate her 18th birthday. The Irish also experienced their share of revolutions and fighting oppressions.
Homa wanted to apply for a residence visa for America but when she got back to Teheran was arrested and spent 4 more years in jail and denied exit from Iran. Merhdad got a position in the Northeastern University. Behar got a degree in Public health and started working in hospital administration of Mass General.
Ellie always missed Homa and thought and regretted all the years that they could have been together.
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Concealed : Memoir of a Jewish Iranian daughter by Esther Amin 2020 1/10/20
This is an autobiographical novel on Jews of Iran but in particular about the life that those in Meshed were limited to. The author was born in the States.
If a friend knocked on the door her farther told them she was not home or if they phoned so by third grade she practiced shrinking. Her mother at 14 married her father who was 34. They came from Mashed. It was the mother who uprooted the family with 2 young sons and took them to Manhattan where she out-cleaned and out cooked and outshone other housewives.
Her firecracker mother was to dupe, deceive and majestically triumph, and she realized that her dreams "If she can do it so can I" In Meshed as a hidden Jews in Moslem society she had learned to have multiple identities.
This was a society that believed that female illiteracy was a blessing that shaped girls into good wives. He father said the American notion of finding ones own mate "is a road to self ruin"
The empty doll box story with a 4 year old girl. The mothers "Don't touch me" Her head was shave to make her unattractive to protect her to suppress desires.
Her grandfather was Moshe Aminoff and he believed one had to live quietly and invisible. My father was a great man was all he would tell about his family. Her grandmother Tuti married at the age of 9.
The father was sent to school in England for 2 years.
722 BCE Assyrian King Shalmaneser V conquered Northern Kingdom - 10 Lost tribes into captivity.
586 BCE Babylonians expelled Jews from Judea.
634 to 1255 Dhimmis under the Islamic Empire.
1588 to 1629 Shah Abbas I, Jews forced to wear yellow badge and distinctive headgear.
1502 ShaH Isma'il founded the Safacid dynasty with Shia Islam as the state religion.
1739 Nadar Shah military expedition in India. Also brought 40 Jewish families to Mashad as treasury guards.
1747 Nadar Shah resulting in rampant antisemitism.
1839 Pogrom forcing all Jews to convert to Islam
1850 Israel Joseph Benjamin describes on his travels Jewish poverty and discriminations.
1905 Her father Fatulla Aminoff (Nissim is his Hebrew name) is born in Mashad
1906 Persia Constitutional Reform giving full rights to all minorities
1925 My mother Hana born in Mashad, her mother dies in her birth.
Homosexuality punishable by death in Persia
1935 Troops killed 1500 Moslems protesting against the Shahs modernization program.
1939 Albert her oldest brother is born
1940s Opium still legal in Persia.
1941 June Britain and Soviet Union invade to stop Germany getting oil fields. When Hitler invades Russia.
1946 Riots in Calcutta killing 15000 people They were in Bombay and watched riots at the time.
1946 Aaron already established in the USA advises them to come there.
1942David her younger brother born
1947 Arrive in San Francisco after 40 days at sea,
1949 Esther Amini born in NY
1950s McCarthyism period. Dr. Horowits suggested they should speak to her only in English not a foreign language
The 1960s with Women's lib, flower power etic was compounded by confusion. Her father was convinced that every American wanted to abduct her. .
1971 She marries Saula they move to Jerusalem where he works as an architect.
1973 They return to NY and she divorces Saul
1980 Marries Ira in NY at small wedding.
1982 Aaron a son is born
1987 Marriam sister to Aaron born.
1996 Her father dies aged 90
2000 Her mother dies aged 75
Possible suggested themes
1 Names used show the inner family love and conflict.
2Why and how the mother wanted to become Americanized
3 The fathers pedophilia experiences in the Persian baths and the resulting protection of his daughter.
4 How her brothers influenced her to become educated.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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