Leaving Iran

In 1976, at the age of twenty-three, Farideh Goldin left Iran in searchof her imagined America. Meanwhile, the political unrest in Iranintensified and in 1979, Faridehs family was forced to flee Iranon the last El-Al flight to Tel Aviv. Farideh's father was awell-respected son of the chief rabbi and dayan of the Jews of Shiraz.During his last visit to the US in 2006, he handed Farideh his memoirchronicalling his life after exile: the confiscation of hispassport when he returned to Iran for his belongings, the years ofloneliness as he struggled against a hostile bureaucracy to return tohis wife and family in Israel, and the eventual loss of the poultryfarm that had supported his family. Leaving Iran knitstogether Farideh's story of dislocation and loss with her ownexperience as an Iranian Jew in a newly adopted home.