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For 10 days in November and December this year, 14 Jewish and Christian Americans traveled through the Islamic Republic of Iran visiting cities and towns, driving through mountains and snow-covered desert terrain, meeting and talking with Islamic clerics, rabbis, an Armenian archbishop, students, professors, shopkeepers, government officials, mothers, and activists. Our journey included a meeting in Tehran with a veteran of the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran who has become a filmmaker and peacemaker; several encounters with the Iranian Jewish community in Tehran and Shiraz, the oldest Jewish community in the Middle East; a visit to the Tehran Carpet Museum, the former home of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Shah’s palace; prayer in mosques, synagogues, a Zoroastrian temple, and at the tomb of Hafiz; a small women’s gathering with the courageous Mothers of Peace anti-war group; a foray into the youth subculture nightlife in Isfahan; bearing witness to ancient Persepolis and modern women in hijab; and so much more.

DAY 7 (Dec. 4): Driving to Cyrus, Witnessing Persepolis, Listening in Shiraz

An Armenian bishop wants to be heard in the narrative of the genocide, want to be acknowledged. A Muslim cleric wants to be heard as a leader of a people of faith, not a terrorist or a fundamentalist. A rabbi wants to be heard as he speaks up for Palestine and for peace with Israel. An Iranian Jewish teacher wants to be heard in his identity as first Iranian, then as an observant Jew. A woman in our delegation wants to be heard before the usual men volunteer their questions and insight. Today I am thinking a lot about listening, really listening, and how each of us at our core want so much just to be heard, just to be heard.

Today we arise early and board the bus for the long drive from Isfahan to Shiraz. We pass through snow-covered mountains and then it is snowing all around us as we drive. On the bus ride I sit next to Haydeh who explains to me how Muslims use prayer beads that look very similar to a Buddhist mala. Like a rosary or mala, the person in prayer repeats a line about Allah as her fingers pass over each bead. There are three lines, one for each set of 33 beads, 99 beads in all. Another common form of meditative prayer between the three Abrahamic religions.

During our bus ride we also engage in religious text study led by Rabbi Brant and rabbinical student Sarah. I’m caught up in two incidents of irony: First, while we speak of putting people first, we pass a beggar by the road. Second, while Rabbi Brant is talking about the ethics of ensuring gay marriage and why small literal pieces of biblical text should not be taken to ban gay marriage (a topic that is completely taboo here in Iran), my head scarf falls off my head. Before I can notice it, he points to my bare head with a gasp and calls attention so that I may pull my scarf back up. Of course I comply. A short poem from this moment:

Like snow in the desert

We: separate from the landscape

White faces against a rocky auburn backdrop

In the land of expansive, wide open space

We: contained in our study

Limited in Verse

Put people first, put peace first, then comes study

Outside, a humble man with no arms begging

Inside, the study and slow collection of oranges to give the man

No discussion about the man, just the act

A loud, forbidden conversation about gay marriage

Homosexuality, Leviticus, Reinventing ancient law

My headscarf falls at the moment I gaze out at the beauty of the mountains

The rabbi turns to me – mid-sentence about the taboo thing – and points to my

Naked head so I may become more socially acceptable

We traverse the barren countryside stopping only for lunch at a roadside restaurant. Next to the bathrooms are separate rooms for women and men to pray, as this may be the only place for midday prayers during the drive. During Haydeh’s preparation for prayer I see her without chador for the first time and find that I am a little shocked about her dyed, swank hair cut and how she looks like an entirely different person behind the veil. But this is just reality. Just because a woman wears chador does not mean that she does not listen to pop music, have a favorite chocolate, like to dance in the comfort of her own home. I find that the assumptions about religiosity and prudishness, and even class, with respect to women wearing hijab, and especially also wearing chador, are many, and are higher among the men in our delegation.

After lunch we visit the tomb of Cyrus, which literally lies at the end of the road and snap a photo with the Peace with Iran banner.

We reach the great ruins of Persepolis by mid-afternoon. I am taken by the beauty and magnitude of the ruins; I can’t begin to imagine how breathtaking the original structure must have been! I wonder about what our ruins will be? Here lies the ruins of the great mall… the longest strip mall… the tallest tower… the widest freeway… And who will come to remember them? Will we forever continue to immortalize the structures of the rich and powerful only? Or is it just that common folk’s dwellings just don’t last? The history of domination doesn’t leave space to discover ancient practices of peace.

Our guide for Persepolis and these next two days is Farah. She’s quick, witty, young, gorgeous, and super well-educated on the history of this place. She explains to us how to make the carvings of Persepolis, “The cutting of stone was done by women because their hands are more flexible.” I love this statement: It is not because women are more kind or have more time or have tiny hands; it’s because we are just more flexible!

Amidst the rubble of columns, we meet a group of hip young men who we become friends with and we all make a photo with the Peace with Iran banner too.

After Persepolis we visit the four tombs of the great rulers who were buried inside the rock cliffs until their tombs were raided by invading Muslims (who also smashed the heads off of all the statues thinking they were idols). Carved into the rock wall along with these graves is also a depiction of the goddess Anahita giving over sweets to a king. She is huge and glorious. At sunset we stand before an ancient fire temple and by dusk the bus wheels are turning again and we are nearing Shiraz.

We spend the evening at the giant bazaar in Shiraz where I find a pink satin bed covering set and bags of spices. The air smells sweet and there are people flowing in all directions, spawning bags of trinkets, candies, oranges.

We check into a fabulous hotel, the Pars International, and eat dinner at hotel’s large restaurant, which is quite a Thursday night hang out spot for those who can afford a good meal and want some space to talk. Live music renews my senses, which have become used to living without a beat, a dance. The salad bar boasts all sorts of beets, olives, jellos, and mixed salads. A luxury that just $6 for dinner affords.

At night I spend time blogging and hanging out with Amir, the resident techie who connects me to the internet and tells me why he thinks religious divides are absurd and what he loves about America.

One week in Iran, a reflection piece:

The Space Between

squat houses built on top of one another

skyscrapers bleeding into mosques

concrete sidewalks with no relief for weeds

a black sea of chador-clad women

the high tide of fabric that has engulfed the body

the face, an island jutting out above the veil with pride

makeup cases crammed with eye shadows and lip liners

every inch of permissible hair in view stylized to pomp perfection

cars squeezed through narrow roads,

whirling around traffic circles,

gushing into the avenues

motorcycles and pedestrians jammed between them

each rug in the din mosque has a small space woven for only one to kneel,

packed together in throngs under midday sun

the mosaic tiles in specs of blue and yellow,

covering every inch of wall with flowers,

calligraphy to the divine,

the spiraled geometry of fullness

each stall in the bazaar bears its goods in piles and stacks to the ceiling

anthills of chess boards, bejeweled bags, candies, clocks

Every bus seat is taken already.

The cafes are brimming with undercover couples.

There is always more tea and the pots of sliced sugar are overflowing.

The ever-present floating head of the Ayatollah bobs freely on the few empty walls and billboards as if to say,

When you have found freedom, you will find me there.

Inside I imagine throngs of twenty-something hipsters with hip hop in Farsi and mojitos

conversation flowing illegally between the genders, caresses contained behind curtains

the consumption of emptiness

before the shopping begins,

before the prayer begins,

before the travel begins,

before the day begins.

They say that child’s drawings here are full of color and design leaving no white space between.

Where will the next generation find room to draw a new design?

DAY 8: Shiraz (subject to change)

In Shiraz we have a full day of sight seeing and people meeting. We walk the grounds at Nasredin Shah’s Shiraz palace which is now a national garden. Nasredin had 400 wives! He did this through sire, a law for temporary marriage (as only 4 wives are permitted to each Muslim man) though by temporary he meant 99 years! We learn about how this harem of women is said to have ignited the revolt against the shah and the British: Internationally imported tobacco was harming the Iranian local economy and after an Ayatollah issued a fatwa against smoking tobacco, these wives organized and rebelled. All 400 women lived together in Tehran where they organized themselves to protest the Shah’s importation of British tobacco by smashing all the royal hookahs in the street. The garden is full of roses, Asian plants like a loquat tree, rosemary bushes.

We visit a Zoroastrian temple, which has the eternally burning fire inside it. We learn about the rituals of the Zoroastrian faith that are still practiced in mainstream Iranian society today, like burning candles on the winter solstice while reading poems and staying awake all night, celebrating Norooz, the Persian new year, by jumping over fires, and observing the last Wednesday of the year with great festivity, when it is fabled that souls return to earth to check on the wellbeing of their loved ones and must see that their living relatives are happy so they can return to the afterlife happy themselves. Unfortunately, we don’t get to meet any members of this Zoroastrian community, but I am grateful for the ways that Leila continuously brings Zoroastrian ideas into our delegation’s conversations on faith. For her, gardening is prayer, communing with plants and water. She brings into our discourse the sacred Earth so central to the origins of our faiths.

We attend a meeting with the Jewish community here, who number about 6,000 people, 40 of whom can speak Hebrew fluently, and who are more religious than the Jews in Tehran, but seem to have less funding. This Jewish community is very interested to hear about our roles and responsibilities to our Jewish communities at home, and how we preserve and practice our tradition. While they praise the Ayatollah and talk about joining their Muslim brothers for the day of street protests for Palestine, I again wonder about the many layers of truths we hear. What is being said for the sake of the government officials in the room, and what is authentically true? We make a fun video of all of us shouting Peace with Iran! with the banner in the courtyard.

We lunch at a buffet restaurant and after eating a delicious meal, Ariel, Jacob, and I excuse ourselves to talk a short walk around the block. Just when I am beginning to think we are actually alone in the neighborhood, and Jacob and I negotiate which way to turn to begin to make our way back to the group, Jacob receives a phone call that the bus is leaving, and all of a sudden we hear behind us a man’s voice calling us back. The Shiraz government accompaniment to our delegation has followed us! We are never, never alone in Iran.

In the middle of the day we find out that, though we thought we were flying from Shiraz to Tehran tomorrow morning, we are in fact leaving tonight, which gives us little time to repack and visit more sites. The name for our delegation becomes at this juncture, “Subject to Change.” In Iran, the schedule is evolving constantly, plans are always subject to cancellation, subject to reworking, subject to change.

After loading all our stuff onto the bus, at dusk we go to pray at this amazing mosque, the greatest of all the geodes we’ve entered into so far: Inside from floor to ceiling it is covered in tiny mirrors. I feel like I’ve stepped into a Burning Man camp and am tripping on a thousand little points of reflected light. The wild décor is met with the focus and devotion of the women who have gathered to pray Friday night prayers together. There is a constant bowing and rising and chanting, and also the buzz of side conversations by women who line the walls. I cannot see what goes on across the curtain, on the men’s side. Sallie gives out photos of her family to excited kids, and her interaction with the children becomes a spectacle. I don’t whip out my camera as I stand savoring the religious experience, the cultural exchange, and wade through my feelings about taking pictures of children in other countries—how to share their joy and help inspire people to think of their humanity if ever considering an air raid on this beautiful country, without objectifying them or making them into some exotic entity?

After dinner we visit the tombs of Sa’di and Hafez. Entering the tomb of Hafiz for me is like entering a most sacred shrine. His tomb sits atop a circle of stairs and under a tall dome. All around the square of reflecting pools and trees is buzzing with bright eyed boys and girls who are meeting here to find love. Two guys strike up a conversation with Ariel and I and after a few moments they actually ask us if we want to walk. We don’t know to where we are going, but we say yes, and it is like we are on a “date” walking around these sacred grounds and chatting about America and poetry. Our group makes a photo with all the lovebirds and our Peace with Iran banner. One of the boys tells Sarah she has a “delicious face.” After Farah reads a Hafiz poem, Rabbi Lynn gives Ariel and I a special blessing. We emerge from the shrine drenched with sweet words that splatter on the sidewalk and moisten our journals with some tenderness about Shiraz, about young love, about humanity.

We’re boarding the plane on the runway, walking up the stairs and ducking our heads to fit inside the Russian jet. The flight is an hour but I think I’m sleeping the whole time, sandwiched between Ariel and Jacob. Touch down in Tehran and back to the hotel where our trip started. Some sleep in the wee hours before daybreak.

“Plant the seed of friendship…” ~ Hafiz

DAY 9: Tehran

Today is our last day in Iran, and it begins much like our first day. We awake in the same hotel we began our journey on and Ariel, Jacob, Leila, and I venture out for a morning walk in the city, which becomes a wild errand run. Somehow we pick up last minute gifts, negotiate with KLM on the phone, discuss Iranian politics, and find our way through the city all at the same time.

We spend the morning on the bus on a goose chase to get to the renowned carpet museum. The museum has ancient and modern rugs bearing stories of great leaders and the patterns of birds and tangled flowers. Something about the way the intricate carpets hang on the grey walls seems to suck the life out of them and without a guide to bring their stories to life they are like animal carcasses, the deer heads of saloons, haunting the expansive hall with dull gaze and a drab shrug.

In the afternoon a small delegation of us meet with Dr. Rasoulipoor, Habib, and the staff at the Islamic art and film center. When I ask about the potential of connecting students via internet and teleconference to each other I am reminded about how the Iranian government cannot seek to further independent free thought for its citizens, as my ideas are not received warmly, but politely.

We return to the hotel for a meeting with the Islamic World Peace NGO in a lavishly decorated conference room. In front of a giant poster of the Ayatollah sits eight or so men representing the NGO, which boasts a women’s and a youth council, but features no representatives of these important sectors. We exchange a sweet dialogue about the commonalities of our faiths and peace building and are treated to coffee, sweets, fruit. I have the feeling that we are scratching the surface, like a shiny red onion, revealing a layer below, another layer, another, another. Like the dry skin of my forearm, flaking, exfoliating, revealing new skin underneath, but not penetrating. Like the bark of a redwood, hairy skeins combed off by my fingers, years of truth lie hidden beneath the thick ring of bark, splinters in my fingernails ward me away from scratching.

On the final night of our stay in Iran several women from our delegation met with members of Iranian Mothers for Peace, an anti-war NGO founded by courageous women, many of whom have done time in Iranian prisons for speaking out against the injustices of the Islamic Republic. But they have also gone on record against the US war in Iraq and in particular against a potential US attack on Iran. (from Rabbi Rosen’s blog, www.rabbibrant.com) A small group of us women delegates meet with two courageous women who organize Mothers for Peace, this courageous movement of women against war in Iraq and war on Iran that is contentious and in a way illegal. Mothers for Peace is one year old and is comprised of women of different ideologies and ethics who are united together to prevent war. They wrote a letter to Obama and to Congress in protest of the sanctions and any military intervention in Iran. From one of their public letters:

To all peace-loving mothers of America,

We are addressing you from the Middle East. Our motherly instincts compel us to share a common pain with those of you whose children are fighting in the Iraq war. Iranian Mothers for Peace is an independent organization that was established in October 2007 to object the war and warmongers both in Iran and the United States of America. We are diverse in terms of ethnicity, religion, and ideology. Iranian Mothers for Peace opposes war, human rights abuses, injustice, and poverty…

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing each American family $25,000 a year during a time in which the United States is in an economic crisis, with many citizens still lacking health care and economic stability. Once again American Government officials are singing the ominous song of war – this time against Iran. It is unjust for our children to be killed and murdered while the weapons manufacturers and oil monopolies collect blood money.

Therefore, we are asking all of you peace-loving American mothers to oppose the war and those who are inciting the war in order to prevent this mistake from happening again. Please do not let our children draw weapons against each other. Please do not allow the decision makers to force Iranian, American, Iraqi, and Afghani mothers to suffer from pain and heartbreak for their children forced into fighting unjust wars.

On March 19, 2007, the fifth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, they tried to make a demonstration against the Iraq war, but the government didn’t allow it. They were also prevented from organizing against the sieges of Gaza, though that is a stance favored by the government. Five years ago (pre-Ahmadinejad) the women’s rights movement was successful at organizing a demonstration of over 6,000 people outside the University of Tehran; following Ahmadinejad’s election there was another demonstration for women’s rights with 2,000 people. It was dispersed by the cops and some people were arrested; to this day they are still dealing with the charges. At one point in the conversation we realized that one of the Iranian mothers, and Rabbi Lynn both have sons aged 24 years old, and Iris is 24. We felt the generational connections in our heartfelt circle of women as we passed between us photos of our families, the Mothers for Peace letters and buttons, Peace with Iran t-shirts, chocolates, and business cards. These brave women of Mothers for Peace asked us to relay their message to America: No sanctions or war on Iran! (Check out Mothers for Peace at www.mothersforpeace.blogspot.com).

We ate our last supper (and had our last hookah!) in Tehran long after dark, and we departed straight away for the airport. Some sense of formality seemed to vanish in the cool night air and as our bus sped towards the airport that would carry us away, we erupted into a chorus of song, belting out old peacenik tunes, Jewish melodies, Christian hymns, David Bowie. This Little Light of Mine merged with the Beatles and became a dance and a drum beat and within the confines of our little short bus we collectively were free to sing and move, something the women of our delegation had not done in ten days. At the airport we were met by men who moved our baggage onto the check in and we said goodbye to the government officials who had accompanied us. On board the giant KLM flight we kissed Iran goodbye through the thick windows and watched the bright lights turn into tiny twinkles as we lifted off. Airborne, as Indie Arie’s “Video” played on the loudspeaker, we released our headscarves and Ariel and I stared back at each other. I couldn’t remember her neck looking so barren and exposed, so long and slender. My hair puffed out everywhere like a lion’s mane. And I was ready to roar. To protect the children of the States and of Iran from witnessing the ferocious all-consuming terror of war. To defend the idea of liberation I was raised with. To nurture a different way of living in the world.

DAYS 10-12: Amsterdam Redux

In Amsterdam, Ariel, Jacob, and I said goodbye to the rest of the delegation. They boarded the next flight and we stayed in Europe. That first night we took the train out to Assen, a countryside town where my friends from NYC had recently moved to with their beautiful children. It was the perfect way to unwind from the journey and I think we slept for 12 hours (!) that first night. It was ever refreshing to be in a real home, rather than a smoky hotel room, playing with kids, dancing around, toasting over a glass of wine, wandering through the countryside and breathing in crisp, fresh air. Back in Amsterdam the next night Ariel and I took ourselves on a tour of the Red Light district and had a sobering and honest conversation with a prostitute from Spain. I was reminded that when it comes to women’s liberation, it’s not about how much clothes we’re required to wear. It’s the requirement.

It was a relief in Iran not to see advertisements showcasing mostly nude overly thin women objectified to sell more beer/shampoo/stuff. But it was troubling to talk with all the young women who furtively told us they hated wearing the hijab and wished they could go with out it, and challenging to see the little girl in the mirror mosque running around trying to find her mother to no success because all the women were bent over layers of cloth that so enshrouded their bodies that they became almost invisible to many men and even to their own children. It was a relief to be back in a city that welcomed co-ed dancing, spiked coffee, and cute skirts that showed too much thigh. But it was troubling to talk with Isabella who sat behind a glass cage illuminated by red and black lights and told us about how she worked the sex industry for money, to hear her scathing hatred for Amsterdam, to see how young the girls were, to see how legal pot made some kids numb and blitzed out of their minds most of the time.

In Iran, I did not miss the bar scene, the expensive alcohol and cheap come-ons.

I did miss dancing and singing along, to any kind of music, freely, without head covering or baggy clothes or a law prohibiting my body from movement or my voice from song.

I did not miss styling my hair with gel and caring about how my bangs hang on my forehead.

I missed being able to move my neck freely without fear of exposure.

I did not miss coordinating clothing outfits and found my manteau was an easy slip-on coat to put on each morning with little contemplation.

I missed being able to roll up my sleeves to do hard work or when I felt hot.

The Netherlands is the country of my heritage, as I am half Dutch. And it felt right to return to this country after our journey in the Middle East. In the bazaar in Isfahan I spotted a pair of delft style porcelain clompen shoes tied together with a string of blue evil eye beads. The perfect mix of my heritage, hanging from some merchant’s stall nonchalantly.

Concluding Prayers

“Who can say the truth even after dipping the pen into ink a thousand times?” ~ Rumi

The first few conversations I have after leaving Iran are a vivid reminder of the challenges we will face in building peace. The owner of a cheeseshop in Amsterdam tells Jacob and I that after serving in the Israeli Army for a year in Gaza, he understands better than us the grave and disastrous challenges that the violent Palestinian terrorists pose to the state of Israel. Immediately after deplaning in the US, Ariel’s mom wants to know why the 20,000 Jews still in Iran don’t leave, wondering if it is because they are too poor or too rich that they stay. We talk through the many ways that Iranian Jews identify with Iran as home and their national pride, but behind my responses is an admittance of how much I still have to learn from this small, ancient, rich culture.

On the train from Long Island into Manhattan the next day, while editing my photos on my laptop, I overhear two Orthodox Jewish girls talking about an assignment to compare SF hippie culture to Judaism. Of course I have to chime in and it turns out one of the girls is a self-identified “Persian Jew” whose father is from Shiraz. I show her photos of the Shiraz Jewish community. A third girl chimes in saying that it is very nice that Americans can travel so far to be so “open” and shares with me that she was the victim of a terrorist bombing in Israel and it caused her body much difficulty during the birth of her son, who is “thanks to God” doing fine. I express my sympathy and share with her some stories of the 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and other survivors of violence who are transforming their suffering into empathy for the “other side” and powerful work for peace. She agrees that survivors work for peace, just in more “rational” ways. In her voice I hear her anger, her judgment of my experience as being wildly idealistic and not grounded in painful experience (which is assuredly not true), but most importantly, I focus on just hearing her and bearing witness to her truth without allowing my own judgment to take over. What I have learned most importantly from our delegation is the great need to cultivate deeper listening and strive for understanding beyond differences.

In summarizing this trip, I want to repost the excellent thoughts of my co-delegate, Rabbi Brant Rosen, who wrote on his blog at www.rabbibrant.com:

“The most essential thing I’ve learned is in some ways the most basic: Iran is a beautiful country with a venerable history and wonderful, gracious people. It is also a powerfully complicated country, marked by a myriad of cultural/political/religious/historical layers. I am now more convinced than ever that we in the West harbor egregiously stereotypical assumptions about this country – and that we harbor them at our mutual peril. We spoke to many Iranian citizens during this trip and probably the most common comment we heard was that they had no problems with Americans – and that the real problem lay with our respective governments. (On more than one occasion, I heard this said in regard to Israel as well). While I realize that these statements like these probably reflect characteristically Iranian t’aarof, (”graciousness”), I don’t underestimate the abiding truth of comments such as these. I do believe that we ultimately have more in common than not. I do believe that our respective governments continually misunderstand and misuse one another. And I do believe that true communication and reconciliation between our two nations is not only possible, but utterly essential.

The challenge of communication was driven home to us over and over during the course of our formal meetings and dialogues. It became fairly clear to us fairly soon that even with direct face to face conversation, even with decent interpreters, miscommunication was virtually inevitable. And though these kinds of miscues might have seemed to us to be fairly benign at the time, we came to appreciate that even subtle misunderstandings had important implications. More often than not, these barriers were due to cultural differences where words/idioms could not be simply translated literally in a single rendering. And I can’t help but believe that many of the more ominous assumptions we hold about Iran and Iranians are due less to substance than to cultural misunderstanding. While I prefer not to weigh in on the rhetorical hairsplitting debate on Ahmadinejad’s notorious 2005 “threat” to “wipe Israel off the map,” I’ll only suggest that our attitudes (not to mention our foreign policy) must be based on real intelligence and understanding, and not fear-based, knee-jerk assumptions.

None of this is to sugar-coat the more disturbing aspects of the Islamic Republic. If our delegation was ever tempted to do so, we received a hard dose of reality when we read in the Tehran Times about a public hanging of two men convicted of bombing a mosque that was scheduled to take place in Shiraz shortly after we were there. Yes, we are justified in recoiling from reports such as these – and we’d be foolish to deny that there are troubling human rights issues that Iran would do well to address. But at the end of the day these are Iran’s issues to address, not ours. And the solutions to these problems are certainly not ours to impose.

As a matter of fact, the Iranian human rights community has been confronting these issues for some time. And it is worth noting that their fight for peace and justice serves as a challenge to us as well.

… I’m reminded of the many remarkable, inspired individuals we met on our journey: Dr. Raffi, committed to serving a Jewish community that makes its home in an Islamic Republic; Habib, who seeks peace by bearing witness through his art; Dr. Rasoulipour, who devotes his life to religious understanding and tolerance, but to name a few.

So in the end I find myself returning to the subject of understanding – a concept that seems to be in such painfully short supply these days. If anything, I believe our trip highlighted for us the critical need for mutual understanding. Such a simple thing, yet somehow still so tragically elusive in our world.”

Iran is a tale of two cities, one in the streets and one behind closed doors. It is an infinitely layered onion. It is a thriving country with a compassionate citizenry. It is not a dangerous place for tourists. It is not a country of terrorists. It is a place that welcomed a delegation of 14 interfaith Americans. It is my great hope that many more Americans will have the opportunity to travel to Iran and come home to share their stories, so there is an alternative narrative to the spin we are hearing in the media. It is also important that we hear from Iranian-Americans speaking out for peace, and that we continue to try to get visas for Iranians to come to the US to speak out for peace, as AFSC is trying to do for this coming January, and as FOR did in arranging a meeting between Ahmadinejad and 80 peace and justice organizations last September.

Also, in closing, I want to promote the release of Phil Wilayto’s new book, In Defense of Iran, which he wrote after being part of a peace delegation to Iran last year, and is currently being released and on book tour in the US.

In all faiths there are prayers for those seeking a more just world. Perhaps the most simple is this: Blessed are the peacemakers.

]]> http://codepink.org/blog/2008/12/week-two-in-iran-raes-diary/feed/ 8 http://codepink.org/blog/2008/12/a-week-in-iran-raes-diary/ http://codepink.org/blog/2008/12/a-week-in-iran-raes-diary/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:38:11 +0000 Rae http://codepink4peace.org/blog/?p=792 I’m CODEPINK’s local groups coordinator, and for the past two weeks, I’ve been part of the eighth Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation to Iran, a group of 14 Americans. The delegation left the evening of Nov. 26 from New York City to Tehran, and will return December 7. (Join the virtual delegation by checking out photos and informative captions at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raeabileah/sets/72157610488783027/ Join the Facebook cause to support peace with Iran at: http://apps.new.facebook.com/causes/137080?fb_page_id=6663655884&m=75537ad2&recruiter_id=17875191). Here’s my diary of the past seven days!

“We’re building a movement of diplomacy with Iran–no preconditions.”
~ Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, leader of the eighth Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation to Iran

My dearest friend Ariel and I are deeply grateful to be members of this amazing delegation, and as colleagues in the peace movement, Jewish activists, and young women, to be making this journey together is really something special. Each person in our group brings a unique perspective; we are activists, spiritual practitioners, change makers, gardeners, artists, writers, nomads, lawyers, founders, students, executive directors, publicists, mediators, Americans, humans. We each belong to a set of organizations, including (in addition to FOR) American Friends Service Committee, CODEPINK, Shomer Shalom, Jewish congregations (Reconstructionist, Renewal, Reform), an order of the Franciscan brotherhood, and many others who, as FOR’s Ethan Vesley Flad said, “are working together to prevent US military intervention in Iran.” We belong to communities that will hear about, and hopefully be touched and activated by, our trip upon our return.

Our individual voices collect themselves in a beautiful array of colorful expression; like a child’s kaleidoscope, we are constantly rearranging our ideas, redesigning our assumptions, creating new images of Iran that replace the ones we came with, forming new friendships, patterns, paradigms. It is the light of peace and hope that shines through our experiences, illuminating these different, but intertwined, prisms of understanding.

En route to Iran:

First, let’s start with JFK. Our delegation arrived at the airport in New York City so early that we couldn’t check in just yet, so we headed for the chapel to convene. Only, JFK doesn’t just have a single interfaith chapel, the way most airports do. Instead, there are four separate chapels side by side: Jewish, Roman Catholic, Christian, and “Interfaith”, which we later learn has been divided in half and appropriated to the Muslim faith on one side, and the Sikh, Hindu, and Buddhist communities on the other. I met the airport rabbi and he gave us the tour of the mini-synagogue, even allowing us to read from the Torah scroll. After learning that we are Iran-bound, he expresses his concern about the threat of Iran to Israel and says that the bottom-line is that Iran wants to destroy Israel, deny the Holocaust, and that war is an innate part of the human psyche. I have heard these words before. This time, instead of becoming angry, I am grateful. Grateful because I need to hear this strong opinion right before I take off on this journey, on this pilgrimage for truth and reconciliation. It is precisely this perspective that I hope to better be able to respond to when we return home. The rabbi and I exchange email addresses so that I may later share news of our trip with him.

We are on a jihad ~ which means that we are going to a conflict region and seeking to transform our perception of it into a field of compassion, a spiritual journey to deepen our understanding and bearing witness. Jihad has come to be associated with Mid East terrorist attacks, and it is time we in the West really get clear on what these terms mean in their pure, original context and start using them appropriately.

Hafiz wrote something like, “I am a hole in the flute that Christ’s breath moves through, listen to the music.” While I aspire to be such an empty vessel to bear witness and soak up what I hear and see in Iran, I may be more of a saxophone with sticky keys; sometimes my thoughts and feelings around Iran and the U.S. will help me compose harmonious music that furthers peace, and at other times I’ll get stuck on assumption and produce discord. Before I start to play, I make the intention to drop whatever expectations I carry that won’t serve me (having a set schedule, feeling a lack of confidence in my knowledge about the region and Farsi, wanting to create innovative new whole peace campaigns by the end of two weeks, you know, things like that).

Standing outside the airport in Amsterdam on our short layover, Ariel and I physically shake out our bodies, leaving any worry and tension behind. We board the KLM flight for Iran and in the wee hours of the morning we enter Iranian airspace, slip our scarves over our heads, deplane, make our way through the slow, but very easy, customs line, and walk out into the cool fall evening. Fresh air, new faces, and a bright yellow bus that has in big sticker letters on the front of it “ONLY GOD” await us outside the modern Tehran airport. And beyond that, a city with 15 million people, surrounded by snow, enshrouded in hijab, enlivened by motorcycles and mosques, a city that is really two cities: the outdoor reality in the streets, and the one behind closed doors.

DAY 1: Hip Manteaus and Big Shabbat in Tehran

Because we arrived in the darkness, it was not until awaking the next morning, Friday, Nov. 28, that we first got a real look at Tehran. Peering out of the 10th floor hotel window, I watched as the city buildings and distant mountains bloomed in the sunrise glow, peeling away the night and glimmering amidst a dew of polluted haze. Ariel and I embark on a long walk through the city in search of manteaus to cover over our western dress. We find a great store that features a huge variety of long black shirts and jackets from H&M and Zara. We walk by the Iraqi Embassy and pause for a photo, whereupon the guards jump up and insist we delete the photo. Ariel and I are both aware that as we walk through the city we are not a spectacle. It seems that while wearing head covering and long dress, the feeling of being oogled at by boys or stared at as foreigners does not surface.

At our lunchtime meeting, our group discusses what it solidarity means and what it will look like to support each other and to cultivate dialogue with the Iranians we’ll meet. Mark, the executive director of FOR, explains how solidarity is being present to one another and bearing witness, which can lead to advocacy, and may bloom into taking on leadership on an issue, and then, if all other means of change have been exhausted, resistance. We talk about the challenge of being mindful of speaking out of our own personal conviction and representing the communities we are from, namely American and particular religions. For Jay, solidarity is acknowledging that we are brothers, fellow human beings, and understanding that each of us is “a letter in a word of a sentence in the paragraph of the book we are collectively writing.” Many of our responses speak to a commitment to deep listening, to learning, to being mindful of the people around us, all attributes that I find our U.S. peace movement can improve upon immensely.

After lunch, Leila, Jacob, Ariel, and I take a walk around the city. Because Jacob is wearing his kippah, we are stopped by two Jewish men, one who is the head of the Jewish schools. Their hands are full of their high-energy kids who run around gleefully. These two men, Rubin and Robin, invite us to come to services the next morning. You’ve got to check out Jacob’s blog about this encounter–he’s a great writer and describes the whole incident with great emotion and understanding:

Friday evening we visit the largest Jewish synagogue in Tehran — a glowing room of carved wood, gold-painted Jewish texts illuminated on the wall, chandeliers, prayer books so old the pages are yellowed and chaffed at the edges, and seating for men and women on one floor, but in different directions for the separated genders. The service is an orthodox style liturgy and has that dynamic interplay of conversation and deep prayer — the congregation is a flurry of commotion and on the women’s side this looks like everyone chatting about what happened during the week, whose kids are doing what, the local gossip, and then at key moments standing to pray at warp speed through the ancient Hebrew prayers. Ariel and I sit with a young Iranian Jewish woman, Sarah, and we talk about school, life in Tehran and New York, and what it means to be Jewish here. The noisy congregation comes to a silence when the leader of services announces that he will now turn over the bema to the leader of the American delegation present, who is a female rabbi, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb. Women rabbis are not a part of Judaism in this part of the world, and to our surprise, Rabbi Lynn is greeted with a warm welcome, and the congregation even applauds when Lynn introduces Sarah, who is a female rabbinic student from LA. Again, Jacob’s blog really does justice to painting a beautiful picture of this evening service:

Our first dinner in Iran is at a traditional restaurant near our hotel. We feast on kebab and rice. When we return to the hotel, we meet up with Habib Ahmadzadeh, who works on films that deal with the Iran-Iraq war. Habib fought to defend his family and his hometown, near the border of Iraq, during the eight year war, also know here as the “Sacred Defense.” Since then, he has written books and a screenplay about the war, and now works towards peace. His film, Night Bus, about two Iranian soldiers transporting a bus of Iraqi POWs back to base, revealing the soldiers similarities across borders and humanity, has been shown to grade school kids growing up along the border, in hopes of educating the younger generation about the terrible reality of war. When we talked about how violent video games influence our youth, Habib told us that since Iran is a Muslim country, war games are not really allowed and are not played by kids in the home. He additionally noted how one of the most terrorizing institutions is Hollywood, which creates the violent media that kids consume like candy.

Regarding the narratives that the US and Iran hold towards each other, Habib illustrates a parallel: Think about if a husband thinks his wife is cheating on him — everything is interpreted through that lens; if he calls and no one is home he grows suspicious, and each interaction becomes further proof to affirm that his wife is disloyal. In other words, once we have created a story, we can find support to confirm its reality.

Habib was a captain of the Iranian Navy and as such wrote a letter to the U.S. Navy Captain who gave the orders to fire on the Iranian civilian airbus that was shot down killing hundreds of passengers in the mid ’90s. He sent copies of the letter to 900 US military personnel and received 27 responses, but never heard from the captain himself, William Rogers. Habib aspires to make a film highlighting the voices of those who wrote letters, and military personnel in both the U.S. and Iran. The fact that the U.S. never formally apologized, and that they awarded medals to the Captain for this act of violence, is a deep thorn in the recent Iranian narrative of the US.

Habib told us, “If you don’t want to see 16 year old boys on the front lines, tell your government not to support Saddam, the Taliban, Al Qaeda.”

DAY 2: Ayatollah, Archbishop, and the Art of Flatbread

On Saturday morning, Rabbi Lynn, Jacob, Ariel, Ann, Medea, Leila, Sarah, and I went to services at another Jewish synagogue. This one was smaller and less ornate, but had the same orthodox tone and intensity of prayer, interspersed with light conversations. Rabbi Lynn had the opportunity to present a spice box to the congregation during the service.

In the morning, we met with Ayatollah Bojnoordi. Bojnoordi was wrapped in grey and black robes and wears a black turban atop his graying hair. He wore the characteristic long gray beard and his eyes showed his keen awareness and perceptive calm. The Ayatollah shared with us Islam’s views on peace, saying that war is the ultimate evil. He was hopeful that Obama will be less war-thirsty than Bush, and he pointed out that in the last 200 years, Iran has not invaded any other countries, and it has 14 neighbors. Ariel and I asked the Ayatollah this question: “Much of the support for war in the Middle East and thinking around the nuclear threat of Iran, is based on fear induced into the public by the president and the media. What does Islam teach us about facing fear and transforming fear?” Our question was lost in translation as our initial comment prompted a response; the Ayatollah explained that Al-Qaeda is not only not Muslim, but is actually anti-Islam, as in Iraq terrorists are killing kids, in Afghanistan there are murders, and in Pakistan mosques are bombed. He told us about how he cried on 9/11 and how all of Iran mourned that violent attack. He also reassured us that Iran wants nuclear technology for peaceful use for energy, as does Syria, and referenced how making nuclear bombs has been condemned by Islamic clerics. The Ayatollah touched on Palestine and the violence of the Israeli occupation, and made a distinct separation between the Jewish people and Israel. This prompted an interesting dialogue between the Ayatollah and Rabbi Brandt. At one point the Ayatollah made reference to all genders being equal, a comment that will stick with me throughout the week as I get to know the women under chador. As we engaged in this back and forth Q & A session we were all served with platters of fruit and pistachios, instant coffee.

“I like the people in your country. We didn’t have problems until George Bush. Bush destroyed the US and made it into an evil in the eyes of the Middle East.” – Ayatollah Bojnoordi.

In the afternoon, we met with the Archbishop of Armenian Church, Bishop Sakisiyan at the Armenian Church, a beautiful house of prayer with long chandeliers dripping from the tall spire ceiling. We were led into a courtyard and up a staircase into the meeting room, whereupon we noticed something that has become totally foreign to us — this woman is blond, that woman has short brown hair, that woman is getting gray hairs… these women are not wearing hijab! The Armenian sacred land is free from Muslim religious law, apparently. The six other women in our delegation push their scarves off their heads with smiles of momentary liberation. I keep mine on — for some reason it just seems easier that way, like locking the car doors every time you get out without thinking about whether the neighborhood is a rural safe place or in the middle of Manhattan; habit can sometimes lead to comfort. The bishop told us that when asked by his colleagues and friends abroad about what life is like in Iran, he tells them, “I cannot tell you because your mind has been tainted by western media, especially in the U.S. and Israel. It is better to come and see first hand for yourself.” We discussed the painful history of the Armenian genocide and the lack of recognition by the U.S. government, the migration of young people to cities and out of the country, matters of faith and politics, all while we were served puffy pastries and creamy coffee.

In the evening we visited the Center for Intereligious Dialogue, the government-affiliated agency that is hosting our delegation. There we met Dr. Rasoolipool, a generous, kind man who suffers from chemical effects of the Iran-Iraq War. The Center facilitates dialogues between many faiths throughout the region and in Rome, bringing together religious leaders and experts. We spoke about how this dialogue helps to enrich our cooperation, communication, removes misunderstanding and allows us to really meet each other. The first imam said that “people are the enemy of what they don’t know.” Ariel asked about whether these dialogues include creative interaction, like poetry or music exchange, and we learned that they are more straightforward, but that there is a desire to expand to that kind of work, and to reach more people. We heard about the delegation of 10 American teachers who visited Iran last month and I brainstormed with Dr. Rasoolipool about the possibility of linking universities in our countries by teleconferencing technology. During the introductions and discussion, I was keenly aware that the women working at the Center are totally silent. I invited them to introduce themselves and we found out that (of course) they are accomplished authors, researchers, and staff. Sallie proposed that we have a meeting with just the women. All of us ladies looked excited while the men agree politely but with little interest or seeming understanding of why this would be so spectacular.

We dined on our second night in Iran at a great hookah restaurant, and amidst the apple smoke buzzing through my head and the flatbread flying in and out of a giant brick oven and the plates and plates of kabob, I see our delegation recline into cushions, stretch our feet, smile, and relax into being in Iran for perhaps the first time collectively.

DAY 3: Eyes of Discern, Bags of Books

Sunday morning, we met with Jewish community at their community center on the third floor of a concrete building in the middle of the city. We’re walking up the stairs and all of a sudden there’s a Hebrew awning and we’re in the middle of the center. Mr. Rafimiyan, the leader of the community, addressed us in a sharp blue suit with a yellow tie and kerchief. He talked about the exodus of Jews to America, England, France, and Israel after the revolution; his comments were obviously moderated by the presence of the two government officials in the room. These officials, one from the Center for Interreligious Dialogue and one from the tourism dept., are always with us. Every 500,000 people in Iran merits one representative in the parliament, but in addition religious minorities are guaranteed a representative, so that the Jewish community, which has a population of about 20,000, gets 1 seat in parliament. Tehran has 12 to 15 active synagogues, and 25 total. It also boasts a Jewish hospital which the community is extremely proud of — though many of the doctors are Jewish, the hospital serves about 5% Jewish people and the majority of the patients are Muslim. This Jewish community also creates a magazine that circulates throughout the Middle East and the States in English, Farsi, and Arabic, which you can see at www.iranjewish.com. Mr. Rafimiyan strongly affirmed that the Jewish community first identifies as Iranian. The conversation was engaging, formal, and serious, with the exception of cracked smiles that appear after Rabbi Lynn asks what dating and marriage is like in such a small community. The golden moment of connection for Ariel and I with Mr. Rafimiyan came when we interviewed him in a separate room. We’ll post this interview in video form once we return to the States. Upon our departure, the Jewish community gave us goodie bags with a copy of Pirkei Avot, other spiritual books and magazines, and a keychain with their logo.

Our next stop was Ayatollah Khomeini’s house, which sits atop a winding narrow road in North Tehran. It’s a humble, modest home meant to signify that the Ayatollah was with the people (in stark contrast to the Shah). Adjacent to the house is a large room with a stage and camera platform for press conferences and national addresses. There was a large yellow banner and simple, straw mats on the floor. The room smelled dank and was lit with an eerie aqua glow that seemed to cast shadows on memories that I don’t fully know but could feel under my skin. We descended into a basement museum of photographs documenting the Ayatollah’s life. Seeing him as a young man, a boy, was somehow humanizing, amidst the sea of floating heads of his serious, sideways gazing, strong browed face. We are served candy and tea and given bags with books and a DVD about the Ayatollah.

We lunched in the mountains at an outdoor restaurant where we sat on raised tables with bright carpets. A small stove at the table kept us warm while we ate kabob, yogurt, saffron rice, tea with rock sugar, and nan. Outside the restaurant merchants sold platters of bright red beets and sweetened hot nuts. Snow dusted the mountains in front of us and consumed the far horizon.

We arrived at the Shah’s palace in the rain at dusk. Touring the Victorian rooms and the grand halls reminds me of European museum exhibitions and other colonial fancy preservations. I was unimpressed by the wildly rich decor, but excited that the expansive mansion afforded us some time to meet and get to talk with the young Iranian women docents.

Ariel got to weave a thread onto the national Friendship Carpet at the adjacent carpet gallery.

At night we watched Habib’s movie, Night Bus. (Ironically, on the way to see the film tonight our bus had a problem and we had to transfer to another bus-taxi in the rain.) (Two interesting facts about the movie business in Iran: Iranian films are subsidized by the government. There are more women film directors in Iran than in the US.)

Night Bus is a movie about a two Iranian soldiers who are transporting a bus full of Iraqi POWs back to their base. The film showed the humanity of the soldiers, in one case an Iranian discovers that one of the Iraqi prisoners is actually his friend from before the war. The black and white movie is a moving account of the people fighting war that just makes war all the more distasteful. Habib gave us each a copy of a glossy photo book — the women get a book about women in the war! — and a DVD of the film. Back at the hotel, Ariel and I pour over the book and discover photos of women in chador with machine guns, women caring for gravely wounded bloody soldiers in the hospital, women kissing their men goodbye and sewing their uniforms, all for the sake of serving the fighter men, many of whom became part of the half-million martyrs.

Habib spoke with us about how a gesture of solidarity the US could make with Iran would be to commemorate and mourn the U.S. attack on the Iranian airbus, acknowledging the irreparable loss and understanding that murder victims are murder victims, we are all equal. Rostam Perzal was at this meeting and helped translate for Habib. Rostam shared his experiences working with the international group, Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (www.campaigniran.org/) with us.

Day 4: Women in Black

To Quom! On Monday, we schlepped out of the hotel early and began our bus journey south to Quom, Iran’s religious center. We reached it by midday and arrived at Mofid University for a meeting with the cleric-faculty and students. Well, it would have been just a meeting with the faculty, until Ariel made an excellent proposal that we meet with the students who lined the rows of chairs behind our dialogue circle in a large, new room with individual microphones and shiny chairs. Each of us on the delegation introduced ourselves to the professors and heard their introductions and statements about understandings between religions. Abdul Rasmin, professor of theology and philosophy of religion said that “the clash between faiths is just due to misunderstanding.” Professor Talmuchi held up copies of the books he has written about Judaism. Rabbi Lynn and Brother Clark were also given an opportunity to make an address. Clark shared an excellent story with us that I will try to relate here:

St. Francis wanted to create a friendship between the Sultan of Damieta by trying to convert the Sultan to Christianity. (“St. Francis was crazy,” Clark said here.) The sultan prepared a test of faith for St. Francis upon his arrival. There are two versions of this test, one in which he is asked to walk through fire and another that involves a Persian rug. Clark chooses the carpet version, which goes like this: The sultan lays out a beautiful Persian carpet with crosses in the pattern and asks his visitor what he thinks of the carpet. St. Francis immediately knows that it is a trap to make him defile Christianity, so he smiles and says that those crosses are used to crucify people, while the true holy cross resides in the heart. The two begin to laugh and dance around the room, and acknowledge that neither will convert. They begin to tell stories to each other, and a great friendship is born. The two join in prayer. St. Francis went back to Italy enthusiastic about his experience with Islam and, inspired by the prayer call of Muslims, started ringing church bells. To this day, the church bells ring three times a day! The moral of the story? The way to be in dialogue is with each other, to share stories, to be in relationship, to be creative when facing obstacles, and to always see the best and most lovely in each other when we are together.

Later when speaking of our peace work, one of the professors said that our work is like that of the nightingale in the story of Abraham, in which the small bird tries to extinguish a great fire by filling its beak with droplets of water. Making peace is, clearly, a big duty. And all the talk led to a hearty lunch at the school. After lunch we met with the students, who are excited, have a thousand questions, as do we have a thousand questions, and we swapped short answers for a half hour while making giddy snapshots of our mingling groups. The young women mostly said they don’t like wearing the hijab and they have boyfriends.

From Quom we traveled on the yellow bus to Isfahan. It’s a long ride and we sleep in shifts, stopping only once at a roadside gas station where we get pistachio candy and tea.

We reached Isfahan at night, checked into our hotel, ate dinner at a hookah restaurant, and headed home to rest. At midnight I jumped onto our CODEPINK weekly staff conference call by Skype, via my laptop sitting outside my hotel door so my roommates can sleep peacefully. I am draped in my manteau over my pajamas as I help plan our demonstrations at Obama’s inauguration with women who are an ocean away, and yet so present.

Day 5: City of Bridges

Isfahan: snap, snap, learn, pause, snap, buy, snap, pray, snap, snap, snap! Today, Tuesday, was our first day as full-on tourists in a new place. While many of us struggled with how to be a tourist when we were more interested in social change work, it seemed like a clear necessity. How can we talk about the Iranian people, the culture, the politics, without having a historic and geographic context for the region? Everywhere we went, people want to know (not only “whoooo we aaaare” but also…) if we find Iran beautiful and if we like the country and the people. In Isfahan we delved into the ancient history rich with stories, architectural feats, the geometry of understanding.

In the morning we met up with our tour guide, Jafar. I asked him if there are a lot of tourists visiting Isfahan and he said, no, there aren’t, and asks me why this is the case. I started to talk about the visa situation, and then he stopped the whole group in the middle of the sidewalk and addressed my question by answering that because the U.S. — “your country” — says Iran is not safe, tourists don’t come. After all, who would want to go to a dangerous country when you could be sunning yourself at a Club Med somewhere? Sometimes in Iran it is hard to remember that we are still in a “code red” style country because we feel so safe.

We visited the second shah’s palace, which is called 40-column palace, and stood at the end of a long reflecting pool surrounded by roses. Inside the palace the walls are covered with frescos of historic and fantastic scenes with rich color and expression. On the steps outside I unfurl the Peace with Iran pink banner from Leslie and Martha in SF CODEPINK for the first time and Ariel and I make a photograph with university women.

Next we went to Imam Square, which is an absolutely breathtaking, huge mosque at the end of a rectangle of tan two story building which house a U-shaped bazaar, interrupted twice (on both of the long sides of the rectangular square), by the shah’s palace and the shah’s personal mosque. The entire structure is circa 1598 and used to contain a polo field in the middle of it. The government prohibits skyscrapers being built so that there is a wide-open expanse of sky all around us all the time (except in the crowded halls of the bazaar). This was really the first time we’ve been able to stand under the wide Middle East sky since we’d been here, and it starkly contrasted with the ornate, intricate designs of the mosaic work and the crowded bustle of the cities. Under this great big sky we met a lot of young folks in the square. One group of 20-something guys take a photo with our “Peace with Iran” banner and told us about how all humans are created equally, noting that wherever you have clear water, you also have mud. “It’s only the governments that want us to be enemies,” one young man says. Guess which is the water and which is the mud, the people or the government?

Jafar took us into the mosque and points out each minute detail, down to the colors of the tile, the angle of the spire, the resonant sound of the water basin, the asymmetry in the marble carvings, which denotes the “only one god” concept. I’m grateful to have a guide who can bring so much life and meaning into this remarkable place. Honestly, standing in this mosque, being in Iran becomes all the more real. It’s like bringing a photo I’ve seen as a child to life, stepping into a scene from my early understandings of “far away.” And here in the mosque under the bright winter sunlight, I felt an incredible nearness, a tender closeness to the divine, to the people around me. We were meeting students at every turn and corner and hurriedly exchanging email addresses before we were ushered along. We attended midday prayers in the winter indoor mosque, and once on the women’s side, Ariel and I adorn ourselves in a white chador for prayer. I meditated for a few minutes and then turn around to see a circle of girls primping their hair and swapping palettes of eye shadow with the same speed and voracity as the women up front are bowing, rising, and repeating “Allah Aquba!” I’ve never seen women getting dolled up while in a masjid. They eagerly invited us over, and one girl braided Rabbi Lynn’s hair (which is out of hijab!). Just when they were about to do Ariel’s eye makeup, an elder woman came over and chastised them, and then it was time for us to go. Iran is a tale of two cities, indoor and outdoor, and now, before my eyes, I have seen both of those worlds collide under one roof.

We had lunch upstairs from the bazaar and sat on carpets eating olives and yogurt. We wandered the bazaar, becoming familiar with the metal work, the bejeweled boxes, the carpet shops where tea and hospitality is served brimming full, the tablecloth printing tradition, the Jewish shopkeeper, the scarves. On our way out, Ariel and I met Abed, a 26-year-old Iranian guy who was quick to speak English, disapproved of the government and religion, and excited to connect with foreigners. He had stylish jeans, a phone that played music into the headphones he at first didn’t remove from his ears when he meets us, and a wry grin. He walked with us and told us the way he sees it, “Iran is a cage of pigeons and the United States is a pen of hens.” The fox, the government. Our people are the same. We part with Abed at our hotel and hope to meet up later.

At night we visited the majestic Haju Bridge, and while walking under its archways, we met a group of young men who are singing love ballads. I am reminded of Italian singers in Venice. When their sorrowful and beautiful song ended, we women responded by singing a traditional Jewish melody about peace. Of course, it is illegal in Iran for women to sing in public. Our brief exchange of music was for me the first real, heartfelt vision of peace that I have been a part of. There is no façade here. We were in our hearts and sharing with each other. Near the bridge we visited the tomb of Prof. Arthur Pope, an American who lived in Iran for 30 years and wrote some key books about Iran’s history, and his wife. He was well-respected by the Iranian people, and thus during the revolution, when the revolutionaries were violently desecrating many buildings and graves, their tomb was left alone, and stands perfectly today.

Next we walked across the longest bridge in Isfahan, where there were throngs of young people crossing and hanging out. After our bridge walk, we had tea and soup at the regal hotel. At night, Ariel, Jacob, and I met up with Abed and go out on the town. We walked along the river to the Armenian quarter where there are coffee shops full of young people, fast food places, and a hole in the wall ice cream shop where we got delicious coffee and chocolate ice cream and hot creamed corn. Abed talked with us about the feeling young people have here, that there is constant pressure and uncertainty about what tomorrow will bring. He compared the situation to a cylinder in which if the pressure gets too much, it will explode. He said the government lets out just enough steam to keep people from really rising up. What is letting out steam? Being able to have these coffee shops, being able to meet one another in this way? But just a few weeks ago the main coffee shop was shut down. Prohibiting men and women from dancing together or even sharing a coffee too closely might sound ridiculous to you, and if it is, you can check your own judgment, and then learn this great Farsi word: maskharast! (that’s ridiculous!) The fantastic four of us took tons of photographs, wandered around, and stopped to have coffee at a shop that had Starbucks bags on its walls for decoration.

Back at the hotel we meet a few more new friends who share Iranian hip-hop with us and good conversation. I had been wondering how we could connect Iranian and American youth across the borders without actually traveling halfway around the world. I discovered through my conversations with our new friends that Facebook is often used (except in Tehran where it is blocked), as is Google chat and all things Yahoo.

In the wee hours of the morning, I was blogging and while attempting to plug in my computer, I sparked a short that knocked out all the electricity in our room. A series of running up and down the stairs and playing with the switchboard brough light back to the room, just in time for me to catch a few hours of sleep before dawn.

Day 6: Isfahan, take two!

On our second day in Isfahan, Wednesday, we visited another incredible mosque. This one is divided into four sections, for the Sufis (who are wrongly equated with the poor), the students, the learned scholars, and the main mosque area, all divided by the wide open square in the middle. We have lunch at fancy restaurant which serves chicken fesenjan, the most incredible dish of walnut sauce. After lunch we go to the Armenian church, a plain adobe colored building with a mosque-like dome in the middle. Upon entering, we crack a geode and the jewels of this church are revealed: bright frescos adorn the walls from floor to ceiling, depicting violent stories from the bible and sweet faced women and men in adoration. These paintings have lasted so many years, as if to be immortalized. Now there’s something sustained, sustainable! Outside there is a monument to the Armenian genocide.

As dusk began to settle, a group of us women jumped out of the bus at the bazaar for one last round of shopping. We visited a music shop where the shopkeeper played sitar for us. Lynn fell in love with a drum and was invited to play it. Then the two, the shopkeeper and Lynn, played music together. The shopkeeper could drum a fast and enchanting beat that was hard for us to understand and really hard for Lynn to play. Without a common spoken language, somehow Lynn and this sweet man found the language of the drum beat and reached a harmony. I created a short film of their music that I hope to post when home. Here, like the back and forth singing with the young men under the bridge, was a living, breathing model of peace. Lynn purchased this beautiful, antique drum painted in bright colors resting in a big hard case lined with pink faux fur. We drank tea with our new friend, scrambled through our Farsi phrasebooks for the words to exchange, and shared family and performance photos. We left smiling and lugging the new drum through the busy bazaar back to the hotel. Lynn shared the drum beat with the group at our nighttime circle, like a little tease of a longer rhythm, an extended journey, a melody that will span the sea and bridge our two countries.

Other trip blogs to keep an eye on:

www.rabbibrant.com

http://www.brclarkberge.blogspot.com/

http://www.jewishblogging.com/blog.php?bid=169508