It wasn’t always this way. As I watch the war unfold with trepidation and hope for the land where the Purim story takes place, I keep thinking about what kind of country Iran has been and what it could be.  

My grandfather (whom I called Saba) Younes Dardashti, a devout Jew, became one of Iran’s most beloved singers in the 1950s and 60s. He was a national radio star known as “The Nightingale of Iran” in an era when secularism and modernization opened doors for Jews that had been shut for centuries. My Jewish Iranian father became a teen pop star on Iranian TV. Exploring these family’s stories, my sister Danielle Dardashti and I co-created an audio documentary, “The Nightingale of Iran.”

One of the people we met along the way is a man named Habib Partow.

We learned that Habib, a Muslim Iranian man now in his 70s and a former Iranian champion wrestler, had a close friendship with our Saba in Iran. On a Zoom call, he walked us over to his refrigerator. There, among family photos, was a picture of our Saba. He’d kept it there for........

© The Jewish Week