Personal Stories

Watch JIMENA's video interviews with Jews from Iran, including Angella Nazarian and Abraham Berookhim.

Watch JIMENA's video interviews with Jews from Iran, including Angella Nazarian and Abraham Berookhim.

“When I think of the frightening journey I had to take to illegally flee Iran, chills still run down my spine,” said Fahrokh Askari, a 60-something Iranian Jewish grandmother now living in Tarzana.

If you ask retired Iranian Jewish accountant and author Simon “Sion” Ebrahimi about being held hostage for many months in his office in Tehran during the Iranian revolution, he will tell you the circumstances were a sort of a tragic comedy. Ebrahimi’s office was located across the street from the U.S. Embassy.

Ruben Melamed is an 80-year-old Los Angeles-area businessman and a fifth cousin of mine who escaped near death in Iran. I did not know of his story until recently, when I began searching for stories of Iranian Jews who escaped their homeland during the revolution some 30 years ago.

Nearly 13 years ago, 13 Jews living in the Iranian city of Shiraz were arrested on trumped-up charges of spying for Israel and were facing execution by the clerics who ruled Iran. At the time, many of the leaders of Southern California’s Iranian-Jewish community asked their fellow activists to keep a low profile as they attempted secure the Jews’ release through back-channel communication with the regime.

I would like to share with you my life experience as an Iranian Jew and my perspective in regard to Iran and Hezbollah—A period of my life that no one should experience.

51-year-old Soraya Nazarian lives in Los Angeles like many other Persian Jews. And like the individuals that make up the community her story is both similar and widely different than that of other Persian Jews. But she is making sure that those stories aren’t forgotten.