All books are available at Amazon and Abe’s Books https://www.abebooks.com and are available at the Bethlehem Public Library.  

Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish-Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America. Esther Amini.

Debra Simon hosts the discussion.

At The Bethlehem Public Library, Bethlehem, NH, and By Zoom. Register at Bethlehemshul@gmail.com

Esther Amini grew up in Queens, New York, during the freewheeling 1960s. She also grew up in a Persian-Jewish household, the American-born daughter of parents who had fled Mashhad, Iran. In Concealed, she tells the story of being caught between these two worlds: the dutiful daughter of traditionbound parents who hungers for more self-determination than tradition allows.

Exploring the roots of her father's deep silences and explosive temper, her mother's flamboyance and flights from home, and her own sense of indebtedness to her Iranian-born brothers, Amini uncovers the story of her parents' early years in Mashhad, Iran's holiest Muslim city; the little-known history of Mashhad's underground Jews; the incident that steeled her mother's resolve to leave; and her parents' arduous journey to the U.S., where they faced a new threat to their traditions: the threat of freedom. (review from Greenpoint Press)

This Year’s Theme:

Mizrahi Jews are also called Oriental Jews, members or descendants of the approximately 1.5 million Jews who lived in North Africa and the Middle East up until the mid-20th century and whose ancestors did not previously reside in Europe.

These immigrants were collectively labeled ʿEdot Ha-Mizraḥ (Hebrew: “Ethnic Groups of the East”) in Israel upon their mass migration into the country after 1948. They were distinguished from the two other major groups of Jews—the Ashkenazim (a tradition rooted in the Rhineland) and the Sephardim (a tradition rooted in Spain). 

The latter two groups are most familiar to us in the US, but Mizrahi or Oriental Jews are more of a mystery.  Three of our four books have as their main characters Mizrahi Jews; while the fourth is set Turkey and whose characters are a German born man and a Turkish woman. 

All four books open us to an unfamiliar culture and rich history, far different than the ones we know best.