 The culture heroes
Dissimulation and the legacy of Esther's
children
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September 16, 2004
iranian.com
Introduction to Esther's
Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews, by Houman Sarshar.
This magnificent volume brings together for the
first time ever a comprehensive representation of the Jews of
Iran from
their earliest documented settlement in that land in 722
B.C.E. (2 Kings 18:9–19) until the end of the twentieth century.
Eloquently illustrated with more than five hundred
photographs collected from international private and public archives,
the
468 full-color pages of this unique book comprise twenty-five
articles from distinguished authors and scholars in the
field of Judeo-Iranian studies.
Sarshar, editor and contributor,
has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Columbia University
and is the director of publications at The
Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History. He is the co-editor
of three volumes of The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews.
He is also a psychotherapist
in private practice in New York City.
Esther did not reveal her
people or her kindred, for Mordecai had told her not to reveal
it. (Esther
2:10)
It
was
the first day
of school. I had just turned six and after what seemed an endless
summer, I was finally starting first grade. My family lived in
a modest three-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a building
near Jordan Boulevard in the northern part of Tehran. On that Fall
morning of Mehr 1 (September 21) the warm narrow kitchen of my
parents' home was filled with excitement.
Sitting at the
kitchen table with my father and older brother, I watched my mother
smile with pride in her hurried frenzy to send us off to school. “You're
a big boy today. It's your first day in school. You're
going to learn so much. You'll learn to read, to write. You'll
make so many friends.” And so she carried on as she ran back
and forth, smiling, laughing, preparing my lunch like I had watched
her do for my brother for the last two years.
Dressed in my new school clothes, I was wearing the gold Star
of David pendant that my grandmother had brought back for me from
Israel earlier that summer. Sitting across from me, calm, somewhat
distant, with a sternness that at that particular moment so sharply
set him apart from my mother, my father was drinking his morning
tea. As my mother went on about my first day in school, my dad
leaned over and gently slipped the gold pendant under my shirt
collar. “That's not something for everyone to see.
And if anyone in school asks you about your religion, lie. Tell
them you're Muslim.”
A strange quite filled the kitchen
as my nervousness about the day ahead turned into confusion. My
father was telling me to lie. “Stop filling the boy's
head with nonsense,” my mother protested. “Nobody cares
about that sort of stuff anymore. Jewish, Muslim--what does
it matter nowadays? We're all Iranian and that's that.
That's all that's important. Just tell them you're
Iranian--Iranian like them--that's all. Muslim!
Stop filling the child's head with nonsense.”
And she
carried on packing my lunch. My father turned back toward me and
with the same seriousness and calm I would hear in his voice again
some five years later the night when he came into my room to tell
me that we were leaving for America the next day, he said: “If
anybody asks you your religion, you're allowed to lie.”
I was too young that day to understand fully all the implications
of what my father was telling me. My world in Iran at that age
had been largely a secular one in which my Jewishness had never
been a matter of contention. My nanny who had raised both my mother
and my brother was Muslim, as were all of our neighbors and virtually
every one of my parents' friends and colleagues. Everyone
knew we were Jewish and no one had ever made an issue of it. To
them, as to us, my family's Jewish heritage was simply a
matter of identity and cultural difference--a matter of benign
otherness.
In that secular world being Jewish meant to me eating
different foods every once in a while, and hearing my father speak
to his parents in the Judeo-Persian dialect of Isfahan, a language
I understood but could not speak. It meant watching my uncle break
a glass before he kissed my aunt the night they got married. It
meant that I was not allowed to sit in my grandmother's lap
and laugh with her for seven days after they called from Israel
to say that her mother had died.
These were the things that made
me Jewish, I thought. And none of them seemed anything worth
lying about. Nevertheless, later that day when in the schoolyard
my pendant
slipped out from under my collar and a classmate asked me what
it was, I tucked it back under my shirt and lied as my father
had said.
It took nearly twenty-seven years and the making of this book
for me to understand what had happened that first day of school
in my mother's kitchen back in Tehran and to recognize that
my father's permission to lie was not a lesson in treachery
or deceit but rather a right of passage, an initiation into a twenty-seven-hundred-year-old
legacy of what it means to be an Iranian Jew, a legacy as old as
the Bible itself, one that started with Esther when her uncle Mordecai
told her to keep her Jewish faith a secret from King Ahasuerus
in hopes of becoming queen.
Esther lied--a lie that with time
would prove vital to the survival of Iranian Jews throughout the
one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the realm of Ahasuerus.
And in that lie, in her dissimulation of her true faith to save
her people, Esther provided her children and their children after
them with a sanction for religious dissimulation to which they
would instinctively revert for centuries to come at times of perceived
threat or heightened religious persecution.
On that first day of
school my father gave me permission to tell the same lie. And in
so doing he was handing down to me what by then was a millennially
long tradition of dissimulation in the face of harm or anticipated
injury, a tradition of keeping hidden a heritage carried out by
our foreparents into diaspora so that I might survive and safeguard
this ancient heritage and do my part in passing it on to the next
generation of Esther's children.
Esther's dissimulation was not without precedent in the
history of Iranian Jews. Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher
of the twelfth century, reminds us that when enslaved by Nebuchadnezzar
in Babylon, the Jews were compelled to bow to idols under threat
of persecution. It was not until they were liberated by Cyrus the
Great in 539 B.C.E. that they were finally allowed to return to
Jerusalem, rebuild the Temple, and freely worship the Lord, God
of Heaven.
While some did in fact return to Jerusalem, others--among
them the ancestors of Esther and Mordecai--migrated eastward
and eventually settled in various provinces of ancient Iran. Over
the course of the next twenty-five hundred years descendents of
these freed slaves grew stronger and deeper roots in the land of
Iran, at times enjoying the favor of rulers while at others living
out the darker side of Esther's legacy and reverting to dissimulation
and requisite duplicity to escape persecution or even death.
From what we know of Judeo-Persian history, after their settlement
on the Iranian plateau the Jews faired no differently than other
religious minorities up until the end of the fifteenth century
C.E. Under Achæmenid rule, some like Esther and Nehemiah,
cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes, enjoyed places of privilege in the
courts of kings, while others rose to important positions in government,
law, and the military.
Historians tell us that Jews enjoyed a favorable
status during the Parthian Empire. The Sasanian Empire, a period
in which Jews are reported to have achieved some of the higher-ranking
positions in Iranian society and government, saw what is perhaps
the largest Jewish population in Iran's history. It was in
this same period that the Jews of Iran wrote the Babylonian Talmud,
a text often regarded as the most important document of Jewish
theology, law, and thought from the time of its inception until
now.
Even after the arrival of Islam in the middle of the seventh
century the status of Jews did not change much, as they continued
to be treated like other religious minorities and were free to
attain important positions in government and finance.
In 1501 Shah Esmail (r. 1501-1524) founded the
Safavid Dynasty and declared the Shiite creed as the dominant form
of Islam in Iran. Pursuant to the political, social, and religious
modifications that took effect, the status of all religious minorities--especially
Jews--changed for the worst. This transition marks the beginning
of a nearly four hundred and fifty year period of marginalization,
hardship, and alienation for the Jews of Iran.
With very few--if
any--social privileges and virtually no legal protection from
the ever-looming menace of extremist Shiite clergymen and compatriots,
the history of Iranian Jews during these dark years is a long
litany of pogroms and countless episodes of forced conversions,
all of
which stand as an ominous reminder of the lot cast for them by
Haman in the Book of Esther--a reminder of what could have
been had Esther not lied and Haman gotten his way.
It is at the beginning of this period that the concept of nejasat
(religious impurity) was introduced in Iran. Though in essence
aimed at all non-Shiites, for reasons still debated the notion
of nejasat was most vehemently associated with Jews. Perpetuating
this discriminatory practice, religious authorities issued random
decrees prohibiting Jews especially from coming into contact with
Muslims, touching foods in Muslim shops, or selling edibles to
Muslims. These decrees further prohibited Jews from using Muslim
public baths, drinking from public wells, or walking in the streets
on rainy days lest they transmit their alleged nejasat to Shiite
citizens through water.
With the arrival of the Alliance Israélite Universelle
in 1897 and the Constitutional Revolution in 1906, the tide gradually
started to turn for the better. On a social level, the Jews' Western
education started to influence their status in society among the
Muslim majority, consequently allowing them to begin a gradual
process of reintegration into the community at large.
With respect
to the law, the Constitution officially changed the status of
Jews as second class citizens and abolished the jezieh, the obligatory
poll tax imposed on all non-Muslims. In spite of these significant
changes, however, it would take nearly another four decades for
Jews once again to be able to live as fully integrated members
of society and rise to important positions in government, commerce,
finance, education, and the arts.
In 1941 the Allied armies occupied Iran, dethroned Reza Shah
Pahlavi and brought his son Mohammad Reza to power. Western-educated
by the Alliance schools and no longer restrained by a lack of civil
liberties and overt anti-Semitism , the Jewish community was now
finally able to flourish. (Under the influence of Reza Shah and
in part due to his Nazi sympathies, anti-Semitism had reached new
heights in Iran in the 1930s.)
During the thirty-eight years of
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi's rule (1941-1979)--a
period the historian Habib Levy has referred to as the golden
age of Iranian Jewry--Jews became some of the leading contributors
to the country's full-blown industrialization and Westernization
campaign. Banking, insurance, textiles, plastics, paper, pharmaceuticals,
aluminum production, liquor distillery and distribution, shipping,
imports, industrial machinery, and tile manufacturing were all
segments of Iran's then new and booming national industry
that were either established by Jews or financed and directed under
their leadership.
This was the Iran into which I had been born a world where the
issue of nejasat and overt discrimination and marginalization
were no longer prominent features of Jewish life. By this point,
Jews had in effect been integrated into almost every segment of
society, from the media and popular culture to university professorships
and high-ranking government positions. Yet, as my father's
reaction on my first day of school had shown, the practice of dissimulation
and the looming fear of persecution had become too integral a part
of the Judeo-Persian psyche to be erased from the collective instinct
by less than four decades of enfranchisement.
This was all the
more the case as the tradition of dissimulation, equivocation,
and false conformity had infiltrated virtually every aspect of
Jewish Iranian life over the years. Of all the religious minorities
in Iran, for instance, Jews were the ones whose outward appearance
and clothing conformed the most to that of the Muslim majority.
In fact, this conformity was to such an extent that at various
times since the arrival of Islam, Jews were forced by decree to
sew patches (yahudaneh/yahudianeh) on their clothes or to
dress overtly against the norm so as to be clearly distinguishable
from their Muslim compatriots.
Nevertheless, Jews consistently
continued to conform to dominant dress codes over the years. The
doctrine of dissimulation had infiltrated aspects of religious
ritual as well. One of the most revealing examples of this can
be seen in the Jewish Iranian practice of hanging the mezuzah on
the inside frame of the home's front door, rather than the
outside frame where it traditionally belongs, thus insuring that
passers-by not be able to distinguish a Jewish home from a Gentile
one.
The practice of equivocation by these two means of maintaining
an outward appearance of conformity were not the only devices of
dissimulation among the Jews of Iran, however. Giving children
Islamic names (Nejatollah [savior from Allah]), Arabic names
(Mansur [sovereign]), or neutral Persian ones (Parvaneh [butterfly])
was an equally characteristic practice. Hiding a child's
Jewish identity in this manner as a preemptive measure against
prejudice, injury, or persecution had additional economic motivations
in the case of male children especially, given that the child's
Jewish identity could prove a disadvantage or even a hindrence
with respect to finding employment or starting any kind of trade
later on in life.
The practice of giving children non-Jewish names was not only
licit, but in the case of Muslim names in particular it had even
taken on superstitious value with respect to matters of childbirth
and infant mortality. Given that the role of women was so closely
tied to motherhood in traditional Iranian society, not having a
child had a potentially drastic impact on women, both emotionally
and socially in terms of their position in the family structure.
Under such pressure, up until the early part of the twentieth century
many young women who were having difficulty conceiving or carrying
a pregnancy to term--or those who had lost newborns to disease--would
convince themselves that they were being persecuted by God as Jews
and that they were not able to have a baby because God did not
want another Jewish child brought into the world. As a result,
some women would vow to give their child to Allah and upon birth
give the child a Muslim name in hopes that, thus disavowed and
dissassociate from the people of Israel, the unborn soul or newborn
baby would be spared from his or her otherwise fated death as a
Jew.
Recent scholarship on Iran's cultural history is gradually
revealing, however, that the legacy of Esther's children
is not limited to dissimulation and the various doctrines that
furnished this ancient community with a rationale and justification
for conformity, duplicity, and equivocation at times of persecution
or anticipated threat. It is now becoming increasingly apparent
that many of the same circumstances that compelled Iranian Jews
to dissimulate in order to safeguard their cultural heritage from
the assault of religious enemies has inadvertently played a central
part in further making them the safe-keepers of some of the important
elements of Iranian culture in general, particularly with respect
to its music and its centuries-old tradition of wine-making.
As previously mentioned, the increasing dominance of Shiism under
Safavid rule instigated many political, social, and legal changes
that impacted virtually
every aspect of day-to-day life. The state of music was one of the areas most
effected by these changes. While Islam generally discouraged music-making by
Muslims because it was often accompanied by wine drinking and moral laxities,
under the influence of Shiite clergymen all non-liturgical music came to be
deemed haram (religiously prohibited) and was thus strictly
forbidden.
Under these conditions, the only music tolerated was the music
approved by the clergy and intended for religious events alone.
This religious prohibition and moral condemnation of recreational
music had potentially far reaching effects on the heritage of Persian
music, the development and very survival of which was now under
threat. Yet traditional, recreational, and folk music neither died
nor ceased to develop, as non-Muslims were not bound by Shiite
prohibitions. For the next three to four centuries, therefore,
much of the music in Iran was performed, preserved, and developed
by dhimmis--Armenians, Zoroastrians and, most of all, Jews.  The predominance of Jews in music-making can in part be explained
by the fact that they were one of the largest and most widely dispersed
minority populations in Iran. Moreover, the issue of nejasat and
existing restrictions on contact between Jews and Muslims invariably
imposed many debilitating limitations on the Jewish population
with respect to employment and income-making opportunities. Music-making
in particular--and professional entertainment in general--thus
provided an advantageous and potentially lucrative means of income,
as neither involved direct contact or the trade of eatable goods.
As a result of their marginalization from Muslim society and the
multitude of oppressive restrictions that were imposed upon them,
many Jews thus became professional musicians and inadvertently
emerged as the guardians of traditional Persian music.
The artistic achievements of Morteza Khan Neydavud in the course
of the twentieth century stand as the most telling testimony in
recent history to the crucial
role of Iranian Jews in the preservation and development of traditional Persian
music. In addition to his various contributions to classical Persian music
as a master tar player, Morteza Khan, son of Bala Khan (himself a master zarb
player
in the court of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar), is credited with discovering and
schooling two of twentieth-century Iran's greatest vocalists.
The first, Gholamhoseyn Banan, became one of the most renowned
master vocalists of his time. The second, Qamar al-Moluk Vaziri,
was the first female vocalist in Iran's recorded history
to perform unveiled on stage for a public audience at a concert
organized by Morteza Khan himself. More importantly still, in the
early 1970s Morteza Khan recorded the first and only existing complete
repertoire of classical Persian music's extensive radif (order,
chain) system. This monumental and unprecedented undertaking yielded
nearly three hundred hours of recorded music, one full copy of
which is stored at the Ministry of Education in Teheran and another
in Jerusalem University's music library. The involvement of Jews in safeguarding the ancient tradition
of wine-making follows a similar paradigm. Starting with the Safavid
Dynasty, strict enforcement
of Shiite laws made the consumption and production of wine or any other alcoholic
beverage unconditionally prohibited to all Muslim citizens. But once again,
Jews and other religious minorities were exempt from this prohibition and were
thus free to produce and consume wine in the privacy of their home. More importantly,
wine-making--like all other professions and trades at the time--was subject
to its own particular tax. Since the ban on wine production thus had tangible
fiscal ramifications for the court, allowing religious minorities to take over
the industry secured a sizable portion of that tax for the state.
It should be added that the ritual function of wine in religious
ceremonies for Jews, Christians, and Armenians was an additional
factor in their official exemption from the ban on wine production
and consumption. Jews and other marginalized religious minorities
were thus able to keep alive the centuries old tradition of wine-making
in Iran throughout the ebbs and flows of orthodox Shiism over the
course of the past five centuries. Today, the impact of this effect
can be felt in the international wine industry as a whole. The
famous Shiraz wine produced in Australia is made from the grapes
of vines transplanted to Australian vineyards from Shiraz. It is
reasonable to expect that a notable portion of those transplanted
vines were taken from vineyards cared for over the centuries by
Jewish Iranian wine makers. Though far from comprehensive, this introductory examination
of dissimulation with respect to the legacy of Esther's children
provides a valuable window from which to continue contemporary
scholarship's still nascent demystification of the place
of Jews in Iranian history and culture. It would seem from what
we have seen thus far, that the doctrine of dissimulation, the
very practice of keeping hidden an ancestral heritage in order
to live and ultimately to pass the inherited tradition on to following
generations engendered in the Judeo-Persian psyche a basic binary
principle of survival and guardianship. The fact that this ancient
Jewish community today still remains by far the largest and one
of the only Jewish communities in the Middle East reveals much
about the shear efficacy and power of this principle.
The crucial role of Jews in the safeguarding of wine-making and
traditional Persian music in Iran further demonstrates that the
said binary principle was ultimately applied not only to the ancient
heritage of Iranian Jewry itself but also to the valued traditions
of the land of their liberator Cyrus the Great. It is thus no less
than a testimony to the inseverable bond between this ancient community
and the land of Cyrus that, in the face of increasing persecution
by orthodox Shiite clergymen under Safavid rule, the Jews became
the guardians of the two most threatened elements of ancient Persian
culture ultimately to emerge today as one of the heilbringers,
one of the culture heroes of Iran. What follows is the story of these culture heroes whose legacy
goes back almost twenty-six hundred years to that day “in
the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year
of [Ahasuerus's] reign” (Esther 2:16) to become queen.
I told the same lie on the first day of school back in Tehran.
 Yet in retrospect it seems that the lie I told served not so
much as a preemptive measure against rejection or even a protective
device against harm, but rather as an emblem of my partaking
in the ancient legacy of the Jews of Iran. Telling it was tantemount
to breaking a glass under the huppah. It was an act of remembrance,
a reminder of what had happened, of whence I came, and of what
it means to be an Iranian Jew, a descendent of Esther's
children.
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