Love Iranian-American Style

By RONNIE SCHEIBA Forties B production. Produced by Tanaz Eshaghian. Executive producer, E. Ike Eshaghian, Alexandra Kerry. Directed by Tanaz Eshaghian.
(http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117929780.html?categoryid=31&cs=1)
02/24/2006


A wryly entertaining first-person account, "Love Iranian-American Style" catalogs filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian's all-over-the-map reactions to her Jewish-Iranian family's obsession with getting her married. The film profits greatly from Eshaghian's disconcerting honesty as she ruefully bares her jumbled thoughts and unavowed prejudices. The relaxed warmth with which extended family members, ex-boyfriends and potential suitors share their views with the ubiquitous camera only adds to the absurdist mayhem. Sure to be welcomed at fests and on cable, the hour-plus docu, if paired with a like-themed, like-spirited short pic, might generate some niche theatrical interest of the "My Big Fat Iranian Wedding" variety.
Bi-coastally split between the strong ethnic heritage of her California "Irangeles" kinfolk and her quasi-bohemian existence as a Gotham filmmaker, Tanaz's cultural schizophrenia crystallizes around the snowballing question of marriage. She has dated (and occasionally cohabited with) exclusively non-Iranian, American guys, with the tacit support of her college-educated mom.

But now that Tanaz has reached the dangerous age of 25, her hitherto understanding mother panics and strives to set her up with potential suitors in the traditional Iranian-Jewish mode of arranged marriages. Tanaz sometimes agrees, treating unsuspecting blind dates to baldly confrontational interviews as they expound shockingly un-hip views on the difference between girls you have fun with and those you marry.

Meanwhile, old boyfriends, searched out and interrogated on-camera about why their relationships ended, reveal that Tanaz's very Iranian fixation on long-term commitment sabotaged any organic emotional development, right from the outset. Too American (read non-virginal) for Iranians and too Iranian (read goal-oriented) for Americans, Tanaz starts to feel too "weird" to ever find a mate.

The slapdash immediacy of Eshaghian's cinematic quest increasingly reflects back on the director herself, as she tapes married cousins, affianced brides, hapless dates, her grandmother and, continually, intimately, her mother.

Her mother's acceptance of her daughter's unwed state has been the only thing that made the not-too-subtle ribbing of the rest of the community even bearable ("Just think -- you could already be divorced by now," quips an uncle). But when her mom begins to push for an arranged marriage, Tanaz vacillates.

Collapsing in helpless laughter when a suitor's $10 million house is held up as an incentive, Tanaz nevertheless cannot entirely resist the lure of a done deal or escape the materialistic mindset of her community.

Pic's ironically colored throughline unites the several disparate parts (some used in helmer's earlier documentaries), filmed over a period of years.

Camera (color, DV), Tanaz Eshaghian, Taima Smith, Kenny Krauss, Michael Hansen; editor, Jonathan Oppenheim; sound, Tony Volan; supervising sound editor, Danny Pagan; associate producers, Taima Smoth, Anahita Riazi. Reviewed at New York Jewish Film Festival, Jan. 25, 2006. Running time: 63 MIN.
(English, Farsi dialogue)

The Golden Lion and The Sun

Yoram Hamizrachi. The Golden Lion and the Sun. 1982
An adventurous tale in which the CIA pairs a tough Persian general with a retired Israeli spy to rescue Iranian hostages in the early 1980s.

The Voice of Israel

Radio Israel Program in Farsi

http://www.radis.org/

Iran, the Inflatable Bogey

Trita Parsi posted on the blog of Tony Karon (http://tonykaron.com/2007/10/09/iran-the-inflatable-bogey/).
Accessed 10/10/07
For additional discussion on this article, please refer to Tony Karon's blog referenced above.

I’m delighted and honored to welcome Dr. Trita Parsi as a guest columnist at Rootless Cosmopolitan. Following the escalating tension between Iran and the West over the past two years, I’ve found Trita to be a singular voice of sanity in the proverbial world gone mad. As both a scholar and as president of the National Iranian-American Council, he has dedicated himself to promoting dialogue and peace, and he had a particularly important role in bringing to light the 2003 proposal sent from the leadership in Tehran to the Bush Administration, offering a grand bargain in which Iran would address all U.S. concerns — a proposal that was sharply rebuffed by the Bush Administration, under the sway of neocons determined to prevent any rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran.

Trita’s new book Treacherous Alliance – the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States, (Yale University Press, 2007) is an absolute must-read, precisely because it cuts so decisively through the rhetoric and obfuscation that fills media coverage of the issue, and makes clear that the relationship is managed on an unsentimental, national-interests basis by all sides.

The tributes alone tell you this is an important book, welcomed by such diverse players as former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami, John Mearshimer (as in Mearsheimer and Walt, whose Israel lobby book quotes extensively from Trita’s work), Francis Fukuyama and Zbigniew Brezinski. In other words, it could just as easily have been subtitled “A grownup guide to the Iran-Israel-U.S. relationship.” Trita interviewed 130 key players in the strategic decision-making echelon in Iran, Israel and the U.S. — a unique achievement in itself — to produce a fascinating account of the sober national-interest considerations that have driven, and continue to drive both the alliances and the tensions between those three.

To anyone following the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, it ought to have been very clear that Israel was not unduly worried about Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary Iran being a “new Nazi Germany,” as today’s rhetoric would have it — after all, Israel was actually delivering weapons to Iran on behalf of the Reagan Administration. The fact that today, these two countries that share a strategic rivalry with the Arab world are, rhetorically at least, at one another’s throats is also based on each side’s reading of its strategic interest: Israel began talking up an Iran threat in the early ’90s in order to maintain its privileged position in U.S. national security policy in the wake of the Gulf War; Iran began championing the Palestinian cause, and Palestinian rejectionism, as a way of pressuring Arab governments to counter its potential isolation in the region during the post-Gulf War period.

And as Trita explains here, Benjamin Netanyahu had a most unexpected take on the matter. Read on — it’s the first ever Rootless Cosmopolitan piece with footnotes! — and, more importantly, buy this book!

Iran, the Inflatable Bogey

By Dr. Trita Parsi

Benjamin Netanyahu would like Americans and Israelis to believe that it’s 1938 all over again: Iran, he tells us, is Nazi Germany; President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler. And, of course, that means that anyone who advocates diplomacy and engagement with Tehran is simply reprising the tragic appeasement politics of Neville Chamberlain, even as the clock ticks towards catastrophe.

The 1938 analogy is entirely fallacious, but no less powerful because of it – by at once terrifying people and negating the alternatives to confrontation, it paints war as a necessary evil forced on the West by a foe as deranged and implacable as Hitler was.

If Iran is, as Netanyahu and his allies in the U.S. suggest, irrationally aggressive, prone to a suicidal desire for apocalyptic confrontation, then both diplomacy and deterrence and containment are ruled out as policy options for Washington. The “Mad Mullahs,” as the neocons call them, are not capable of traditional balance of power realism. In the arguments of Netanyahu and such fellow travelers as Norman Podhortez and Newt Gingrich, to imagine that war against the regime in Tehran is avoidable is to be as naïve as Chamberlain was in 1938.

However, as I discovered in the course of researching my book Treacherous Alliance – the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States, not only does Netanyahu’s characterization of Iran have little relationship to reality; Netanyahu himself knows this better than most. Outside of the realm of cynical posturing by politicians, most Israeli strategists recognize that Iran represents a strategic challenge to the favorable balance of power enjoyed by Israel and the U.S. in the Middle East over the past 15 years, but it is no existential threat to the Israel, the U.S. or the Arab regimes.

And that was the view embraced by the Likud leader himself during his last term as prime minister of Israel. In the course of dozens of interviews with key players in the Israeli strategic establishment, a fascinating picture emerged of Netanyahu strongly pushing back against the orthodoxy of his Labor Party predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, which treated Iran as one of Israel’s primary enemies. Not only that, he initiated an extensive discreet program of reaching out to the Islamic Republic.

When he took office in June of 1996, the U.S.-educated Likud leader sought not only to undo the peace process with the PLO and the land-for-peace formula; he also sought a return to Israel’s longstanding strategic doctrine of the periphery – the idea that the Jewish State’s security was best achieved by forming secret or not-so-secret alliances with the non-Arab states in the periphery of the Middle East – primarily Turkey and Iran – in order to balance the Arabs in Israel’s vicinity.

Such a shift required efforts to undo Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin’s rhetoric on Iran – deemed “exaggerated and self-defeating” by many in Israel at the time - as well as attempts to quietly reach out to Tehran. [1] Unlike his Labor predecessors, Netanyahu chose to follow the recommendations of an internal Israeli government report on how to address the Iranian challenge, which had concluded that Labor’s inflammatory rhetoric had only attracted Iran’s attention and strengthened Iran’s perception of an Israeli threat, which in turn had made Israel less rather than more secure. [2] (Even though Israeli intelligence discovered the existence of an Iranian missile program in late 1994, there was widespread recognition in Israel that Iran’s rearming, its missile program and even its potential nuclear program were not aimed at Israel.[3] )

One of Netanyahu’s first orders of business as Prime Minister was to request an intelligence assessment of Israel’s security environment from both the Mossad and the military intelligence. The debate between these agencies was the same as in the 1980s – did Iran or Iraq constitute the greatest threat to Israel? And could Iran be relied upon to balance Iraq?

The assessments were presented at a full cabinet meeting. Major General Amos Gilad represented the military and Uzi Arad, the Director of Intelligence of the Mossad, argued on behalf of the intelligence services. While the debate was heated and passionate – as all cabinet discussions were in the Netanyahu government – the outcome was unprecedented.

Gilad argued that Iran had replaced Iraq as an existential threat to Israel. First, the Iranian regime was hostile to Israel and determined to destroy the Jewish State. Gilad dismissed the notion that moderates would get the upper hand in Iran and argued for the opposite scenario. “I presented a tough line that claimed that Iran would be dominated by the conservatives.… This was at the level of strategic intentions,” the Major General explained to me.

Second, the Iranian capabilities had grown, particularly through Tehran’s missile program. Gilad asserted that the Iranians would have Israel within reach of their missiles by 1999. The third component was Iran’s nuclear development program. “Even one primitive device is enough to destroy Israel,” Gilad maintained. “Altogether, it seemed that ideologically and strategically, Iran [was] determined to destroy Israel,” Gilad concluded. [4]

Arad presented a radically different perspective. He argued that Iran’s rearmament was defensive and primarily aimed at deterring Saddam Hussein. Iran needed to rearm due to the natural continuation of its enmity with the Arab states; after all, Iran and Iraq had yet to sign a conclusive peace treaty.

Furthermore, Iran was in debt, the internal political situation was unstable, and oil prices were low. All of this reduced Iran’s ability to pose a threat, Arad argued, whereas Iraq – with its existing Scud missiles, of which 39 had been fired at Israel during the Persian Gulf War – was a proven danger. [5]
In fact, the Arabs’ perception of Iran as a threat could give life to the periphery doctrine again, leading to an Israeli-Iranian re-alignment to counter the common Arab threat.

The heart of Arad’s argument was that Israel had a choice: it could either make itself Iran’s prime enemy by continuing Peres and Rabin’s belligerent rhetoric, or it could ease off the pressure and allow the Iranians to feel a greater threat from other regional actors. (At the time, Iran had the hated Saddam regime to the West and a mortal enemy in the Taliban to the East, the latter together with Pakistan both being clients of the Saudi regime that had backed Saddam in his war against Iran.)

“There are enough bad guys around them; we don’t have to single out ourselves as the enemy,” went Arad’s argument.[6] Israel should remain cautious and pursue a policy of wait and see whether Iran’s ambitions went beyond its legitimate defense needs. [7]
Most importantly, Israel should avoid continuing the pattern of rhetorical escalation with Iran that had characterized the stance of the previous two Labor governments. “We needed to tone down,” said Shlomo Brom, who was a member of the original Iran committee. [8]

Netanyahu listened carefully as the two sides fought it out. Gilad spoke with great confidence, knowing very well that no Prime Minister had ever dismissed the findings of the military’s National Intelligence Assessment. And with the Israeli tendency to embrace doomsday scenarios and treat nuanced and slightly optimistic assessments with great suspicion, the odds were on his side.

But Netanyahu’s response left Gilad baffled. In an unprecedented move, the Prime Minister rejected the National Intelligence Assessment and instead adopted Arad’s recommendation of reducing tensions with Iran. [9] Much to Gilad’s frustration, Netanyahu focused on Arafat and the Palestinian threat instead of Iran and put a complete end to Israel’s confrontational rhetoric against Tehran. It was a major policy shift that affected all levels of Israel’s planning vis-à-vis Iran. “Until the Netanyahu government, there was a proliferation of Israeli statements trying to deter Iran, warning Iran, the long arm of the Israeli air force etc. That was stopped, to his credit, by Netanyahu,” Ehud Yaari of Israel’s Channel 2 explains. [10]

Israeli media sympathetic to the Likud government’s shift on Iran argued that the previous Labor government was to blame for the escalation with Iran, citing the efforts of Uri Lubrani, Israel’s former head of mission to Iran during the 1970s, to convince the Clinton Administration to finance a coup d’état in Iran in the early 1990s. The publication of the Labor initiative had “caused huge damage to Israel,” unnamed Israeli intelligence officials told Israel’s Channel 2.

The Netanyahu government viewed these statements as counterproductive and sought to avoid such entanglement with the Iranians. “He [Netanyahu] didn’t want to use rhetoric that would just antagonize them [the Iranians] for no reason,” Dore Gold, foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu and Israel’s UN Ambassador explains. [11]

But Netanyahu went beyond just lowering the rhetoric. He tried to reach an understanding with Iran though the help of prominent Iranian Jews[12], he stopped Israeli attacks on Iran within international organizations[13]
, he arranged for meetings between Iranian and Israeli representatives at European think tanks[14]
, and he encouraged Israeli parliamentarians to reach out to their Iranian counterparts at meetings of the Inter-Parliamentarian Union. At one point, he even sought Kazakh and Russian mediation between Iran and Israel. In December 1996, Kazakhstan’soil minister, Nurlen Balgimbaev, who enjoyed excellent ties with Tehran, visited Israel for medical treatment and was approached about arranging a dialogue with Iran to discuss ways to reduce tensions between the two countries. [15]

None of his efforts bore any fruit, though. Iran’s dismissal of Israel’s conciliatory signals convinced the Netanyahu government that just like in the Iran Contra affair, Tehran only wanted to mend fences with the U.S. and had no real interest in rebuilding its ties with Israel.

Therein, of course, lay the real threat from Iran.

The Israelis saw danger in a rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, believing this would inevitably see the U.S. sacrifice some of its support for Israel in order to find a larger accommodation with Iran, in pursuit of U.S. strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Iran would become emboldened and the U.S. would no longer seek to contain its growth. The balance of power would shift from Israel towards Iran and the Jewish State would no longer be able rely on Washington to control Tehran. “The Great Satan will make up with Iran and forget about Israel,” Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University in Israel noted. [16]
Israel’s relative regional importance to the U.S. would decline with a warming of ties between Washington and Tehran.

So, after nine months of courting Tehran, Netanyahu gave up and reverted back to the Peres-Rabin policy of vilifying Iran and seeking its international isolation.

Today, Israel is facing a similar situation, but with one big difference. Iran is far more powerful than it was in 1996, while the power of the U.S. to impose its will in the Middle East has diminished considerably. The difficulties confronting the U.S. in Iraq and technological progress in Iran’s nuclear program may compel Washington to recognize that its best interests lie in a grand bargain with Tehran. But the general view in Israel today is the notion that such negotiations must be prevented, because all potential outcomes of a U.S.-Iran negotiation are perceived to be less optimal for Israel than the status quo of intense U.S.-Iran enmity that threatens to boil over into a military clash.

It’s precisely to prevent such engagement between Washington and Tehran that Netanyahu and company are pressing the 1938 analogy.

(In Treacherous Alliance, I explain how Israel’s fear of a U.S.-Iran dialogue is misplaced and that it actually is through a U.S.-Iran rapprochement that the Jewish state best can secure its interest and change Iran’s aggressive behavior towards Israel.)

[1]
Interview with Ehud Yaari, Jerusalem, October 24, 2004.

[2]
Interview with Ehud Yaari, Jerusalem, October 24, 2004.

[3]
Interview with Shmuel Limone, Ministry of Defense, Secretary of Israel’s Iran committee, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2004.

[4]
Interview with General Amos Gilad, Tel Aviv, October 31, 2004.

[5]
Interview with Dr. Shmuel Bar, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2004.

[6]
Interview with Dr. Efraim Inbar, the Begin-Sadat Center, Jerusalem, October 19, 2004.

[7]
Uzi Arad, “Russia and Iran’s Nuclear Program,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol. 2, No. 26, April 28, 2003.

[7]
Interview with Dr. Shlomo Brom, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv, October 26, 2004.

[9]
Interview with Zeev Schiff, military correspondent, Haaretz, Tel Aviv, October 17, 2004.

[10]
Interview with Ehud Yaari, Jerusalem, October 24, 2004.

[11]
Interview with Dore Gold, Jerusalem, October 28, 2004.

[12]
Likud said to seek understanding with Iran, IRNA, July 24, 1996.

[13]
IDF Radio, November 10, 1996.

[14]
Xinhua, September 13, 1996.

[15]
Jerusalem Post, September 9, 1997.

[16]
Interview with Prof. Gerald Steinberg, Jerusalem, October 28, 2004

Benedictus. An Ambitious Iranian Jewish American Collaboration

Review by Lale' Shahparaki

Accessed 10/04/2007
(http://persianmirror.com/Article_det.cfm?id=1729&getArticleCategory=79&getArticleSubCategory=128)

An Ambitious International Collaboration among Iranian, Israeli and American Artists is worth your support! Created by Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, Motti Lerner, Roberta Levitow, Daniel Michaelson and Torange Yeghiazarian


San Francisco - Golden Thread Productions' 10th Anniversary Season opens with an ambitious international collaboration, Benedictus, bringing together acclaimed artists from Iran, Israel and the United States: Motti Lerner, one of Israel's most provocative contemporary playwrights, Torange Yeghiazarian, Artistic Director of Golden Thread, Iranian-American director Mahmood Karimi-Hakak of Siena College and American designer Daniel Michaelson of Bennington College and designer for the acclaimed 'Spring Awakening' at the Public Theatre, and dramaturg Roberta Levitow, founder of Theatre Without Borders. Propelled by world events and against a backdrop of an imminent US invasion of Iran, two estranged childhood friends, one Jewish and one Muslim, born in the same town in Iran, agree to a secret meeting in a Benedictine monastery in Rome to negotiate a price for safety and freedom. The cast includes renowned Iranian theatre and cinema thespian, Ali Pourtash,* Egyptian born Arab-American actor, Al Faris*, most recently seen in 'The Unit' at the invitation of its creator, David Mamet, as well as veteran Bay Area performer, Earll Kingston*. The play runs September 29th through October 21st at the Thick House in San Francisco. Opening night reception will be hosted by Baraka Restaurant. For more information visit www.goldenthread.org.



'When we began the Iran/Israel/US project two years ago,' says Artistic Director Torange Yeghiazarian, 'we didn't imagine how disturbingly timely the subject of US-Iran relations would be today.' Given the impossibility of meeting in Iran and the complexities of meeting in Israel, these artists are working in the US to create collaborative theatre in the midst of escalating political conflict amongst their home countries. The piece created offers an opportunity to engage non-violently and creatively with the historical, social, religious and aesthetic dimensions of this crucial inter-relationship. Benedictus explores how the relationship among Iran, Israel, and United States is impacting the world. The work began in the summer of 2005 as the Iran/Israel/US Project, with a two-week residency at Siena College in upstate New York and has continued over the past two years.



The central premise of Benedictus was inspired by an actual event. In 2005, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran and President Moshe Katsav of Israel were seated alphabetically at the service for the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Although the two countries had broken off diplomatic relations in 1979 with the fall of the Shah and the installation of the revolutionary government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the two presidents apparently shook hands and exchanged a few words in Farsi, since they both had been born some 50 years earlier in the Iranian province of Yazd.



Artists’ Biographies

Mahmood Karimi-Hakak is the Artistic Director of Mahak International Artists Inc. and a Professor of Creative Arts at Siena College, has written, produced, directed, designed and/or acted in over 50 stage and screen plays in the U.S., Europe and his native Iran. His plays and films have received international acclaim and awards at such festivals as Edinburgh, Netherlands, Berlin, Delhi, Montreal, New York, Ft. Lauderdale, Palm Springs, Maryland and Tehran. A recipient of the 2005 Raymond C. Kennedy Award, Dr. Karimi-Hakak’s literary credits include five plays, two books of poetry, several translations from and into Persian and numerous articles and interviews both in English and Persian. Prior to his tenure at Siena, he taught theatre in Belgium, Germany and his native Iran, as well as CUNY, Towson and Southern Methodist Universities here in the U.S. and served as Artistic Director of Community of International Artists (CIA), Forough Ensemble (FE) and Creative Arts Street Theatre (CAST).

Motti Lerner is a widely known and internationally sought after contemporary Israeli playwright, screenwriter and scholar. His critically acclaimed plays have consistently sought to open up public discourse on the complex reality of Israeli life and offer alternatives to consensus views. His film script Spring 1941 is currently in production with Joseph Fiennes in the title role. Motti has received several awards for his writing including the Meskin Award for the best play (1985), and the Israel Motion Picture Academy award for best TV drama in 1995 and in 2004. He frequently lectures at European and American Universities on playwriting, Israeli theatre and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is actively involved in the peace movement in Israel. His American productions include: Pangs of the Messiah at Theatre J in Washington DC, The murder of Isaac at Centerstage Theatre, Baltimore, and also as part of the New York Now festival at Public Theatre in NY, Exile in Jerusalem at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre of Detroit and also at La Mama Theatre in New York, Hard Love at Theatre Or in Durham, NC and also at Victory Gardens in Chicago, Passing The Love of Women at Theatre J in Washington DC, Coming Home at Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco and Autumn at the Georgetown University Program. He has served as writer in residence at The Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies in Oxford and as a visiting professor at Duke University. In 1994, Motti was awarded the Prime Minister of Israel Award for Writers. He has also participated at the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa. He currently teaches Political Playwriting at Tel Aviv University.



Roberta Levitow has directed over 50 productions in NYC, LA and nationally, with a particular expertise in developing original writing and new work. She is co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, an informal group supporting international theatre exchange at www.theatrewithoutborders.com. With TWB, Roberta is working with Dr. Cynthia Cohen and Coexistence International at Brandeis University as part of a 'Theatre & Peace Building Initiative'. She has led several workshops on an international level, and has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the National University of Theatre & Film in Bucharest, Romania, as well as a Fulbright Senior Specialist Artist-in-Residence at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has received several international awards and honors for her work in experimental theatre and theatre workshops, and was the American Honoree at the 15th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre, 2003. Her accomplishments and writings have been featured in The New York Times and American Theatre Magazine and several international publications and collections. Participation in national service organizations includes Peer Panel for the N.E.A., the Executive Board of SSDC (The Society of Stages Directors and Choreographers) and the Executive Board of TCG (Theatre Communications Group). Visiting Professor at Bennington College from 2000-2005, she taught from 1990-2000 as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Theatre Department at U.C.L.A.






Daniel Michaelson he has created costumes and scenery for Opera, Dance, Off-Broadway and regional theatres. He designed scenery and costumes for the American premiere of'L’Etoile' (Chabrier), and costumes for the American premiere of 'The Goose of Cairo,' (Mozart) and, for the highly acclaimed production of 'Spring Awakening' directed by Liviu Culei at the Public Theater. Outside of the United States his designs have been seen in Germany, England and Japan. Danny has been the Resident Costume Designer at the Juilliard School as well as a Muppet maker. He holds an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts and has been on the faculty of Bennington College since 1981 teaching Costume Design. Danny is also a professional mediator, and with Bennington College faculty member, Susan Sgorbati,, co-directs Quantum Leap, a program they created for youth at risk in Bennington. Danny has given presentations and workshops both nationally and internationally about Quantum Leap and the use of performance with students at risk.



Torange Yeghiazarian is an Iranian-born theatre artist of Armenian heritage. She writes, directs and performs for theatre. Among her writing and directing credits are AGABA, Publicly Resting, Call Me Mehdi, Behind Glass Windows, Dawn at Midnight, Operation No Penetration, Lysistrata 97! and Waves. Torange received her Master's degree in Theatre Arts from San Francisco State University where she collaborated with The San Francisco Mime Troupe in creating the melodrama Torch! Her plays reflect the perspective of the culturally displaced in tackling today’s world of contradictory realities and values. Torange is the Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, where she has devoted her professional life to exploring Middle Eastern cultures and identities through theatre arts.



Ali Pourtash*, a renowned Iranian actor, has performed since age fourteen. He has been a part of numerous Iranian and American TV, theatre and film productions since he came to the US in 1978. Ali has written, directed and produced a number of stage and TV productions. He has traveled his work around the world. Ali lives with his American wife, Melinda, and their two sons in San Diego.



Al Faris*, most recently guest starred on 'The Unit' at the invitation of the creator of the show Mr. David Mamet. His credits also include a recurring guest role on '24' and guest star roles on 'The Shield,' 'Sleeper Cell,' 'JAG,' 'NYPD Blue,' and 'Malcolm in the Middle.' His feature film credits include David Mamet’s 'Spartan,' Vadim Perelman’s 'House of Sand and Fog,' 'Jarhead' directed by Sam Mendes, and 'Ocean’s Twelve' directed by Steven Soderbergh. An Egyptian born Arab-American actor, Al’s most recent starring role in the indie feature 'AmericanEast' - a timely, poignant drama about Arab-Americans living in post-9/11 Los Angeles – will be in competition at the Cairo International Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival. His most recent stage appearance prior to 'Benedictus' was in the role of Akhmed in the Moscow Arts Theatre production of the 'The Shelter' at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles which was nominated for five Ovation Awards, including Best Ensemble.

Golden Thread Productions is dedicated to exploring Middle Eastern culture and identity as it is expressed around the globe. This growing theatre company is rapidly gaining international recognition for excellence and innovation. Golden Thread Productions aims to create a world where the common human experience supersedes cultural and political differences by defining the Middle East not by geographical boundaries and political separations, but as the shared experience of the people, who throughout history have been touched by its tales, melodies and aromas. Founded in 1996, Golden Thread Productions exemplifies theatre’s ability to transcend cultural and political boundaries and to encourage an active dialogue among Middle Eastern and non-Middle Eastern communities.



Detailed information about Golden Thread Productions and about Benedictus can be found at www.goldenthread.org.



* Member of Actors’ Equity Association and Screen Actors’ Guild



Saturday, September 29 @ 8 pm

Sunday, September 30 @ 8 pm

TICKETED RUN: Opening Night, Monday, October 1st at 8 pm

Fridays at 8pm

Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm

Sundays at 5pm

ALL PERFORMANCES AT: The Thick House

1695 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

TICKETS: Opening Night followed by Gala Reception with the artists: $100

Fridays-Sundays: $25 General Admission,

$12 Students and Seniors

Saturday Matinee: $20 General Admission

$12 for Students and Seniors



BOX OFFICE: (415) 401-8081 or www.goldenthread.org



New audience members can take advantage of our Free Night of Theatre, on Saturday 10/20 for the 2 pm performance.

To do so, please visit www.theatrebayarea.org.

Rita Kleinstein (Yahan Farouz). Remarkable Persian Israeli Singer.

Born in 1962 in Teheran, Iran, Rita emigrated to Israel at the young age of 8. She went on to become one of the most popular singers in Israel. She released her first album in 1986 to instant acclaim combining Middle Eastern vocals with pop rhythms. In 1990, she gained international recognition when she represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest. She has starred in such theatrical productions as Habimah's staging of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . Although her maiden name is Yahan Farouz, she is more commonly known as "Rita" or Rita Kleinstein as a result of her marriage to famous Israeli songwriter Rami Kleinstein.

She performs primarily in Hebrew with some songs in Farsi. Her music can be heard and purchased at http://www.israel-music.com/rita/

Peninsula Writer Pens Tale of Jewish-Muslim Woman

Message from Tiffany Collins: Please note that "The Fortune Catcher" contains both graphic language and sexual references.

SARAH HOROWITZ. Bulletin Correspondent. Jewish SF. Friday July 10, 1998.

(http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/9075/format/html/edition_id/172/displaystory.html)


Layla, the heroine in Susanne Pari's first novel, "The Fortune Catcher," is a half-Jewish, half-Muslim Iranian woman with an American education.

Her cousin, Mariam, tells her, "No one can be two things -- be East and West, be Moslem and Jewish, be Iranian and American -- at the same time. We all have to choose."

Layla refuses to buy that argument.

Pari, an Iranian American who grew up with both Muslim and Jewish traditions, is living proof that one can be all these things.

In "The Fortune Catcher," Layla's Jewish grandmother rejects her daughter for marrying a Muslim. Layla's Muslim grandmother-in-law, Maman Bozorg, despises Layla, in part for being a Jew. When she hears that Layla is pregnant, she is horrified.

"A child! Surely not a child! From the seed of that daughter of a Jew! It cannot be," Maman Bozorg says.

Pari, who was born in New Jersey and raised in this country and in Iran, now lives in Menlo Park. She has Muslim roots on her father's side and Jewish ones on her maternal side. She contends that the two cultures actually have a great deal in common.

"Both traditions come from the same part of the world," she says in an interview. "The women wear similar head coverings. Beyond the physical, there are so many cultural similarities, especially with women. I found myself being just as comfortable in the same kind of way in the Moslem culture as I do or did in the Jewish culture. You have the same kind of superstitions, admonitions, guilt."

Though she's against the veil and the general inequities for women that she perceives in both religions, she sees value in preserving the traditions.

"That's not to say we should carry all of our culture like a sack on our back," she says. "There are parts of both cultures that I don't agree with, but we should open ourselves and our children."

Since the 1979 revolution in Iran, which brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power, her Muslim and Jewish relatives have shared the experience of exile.

"`Diaspora' is a word I use it not only for my Jewish relatives but also for my Iranian relatives," she says.

Schooled in New Jersey, New York and Boston, Pari spent all of her vacations in Iran until the revolution. The last time she saw Iran was August 1978.

"I didn't think I was leaving for the last time. I thought I was just coming back to the States for a few months."

Once-prominent industrialists in Iran who produced everything from antibiotics to nail polish, Pari's family can't return to Iran under the present regime. They sued the Iranian government to reclaim their property, confiscated by the theocracy.

Ironically, it was the revolution that allowed Pari to become a writer.

"I might have been neatly placed as a housewife," she said. "The revolution forced me to take a good look at my life."

"The Fortune Catcher" is a gorgeous first effort, full of rich, poetic prose and dramatic intrigue. It is in part a cautionary tale about fanaticism.

Maman Bozorg uses Islam to justify her own agenda. Though a non-religious Israeli Jew, Amir, the friend of Layla's husband, is another kind of fanatic -- obsessive about his own sexual desires.

In "The Fortune Catcher," the fanatical matriarch Maman Bozorg remembers how the Shah's police shamed her mother by ripping off her chador. (The veil worn in Iran was outlawed by the Shah and brought back under Khomeini.) Her mother later dies of pneumonia from obsessive ritual bathing.

"The doctor said it was the pneumonia that killed her, but I will always think of Reza Shah as her murderer and my mother's death as another casualty in his march away from the laws of God," Maman Bozorg says.

The revolution left the author wary of religious orthodoxy, but she still maintains a cultural connection to both faiths. She observes both Pesach and Norooz, the Persian new year.

"After my experience with Iran, my attitude about organized religion is mostly negative," she says. "I've seen so many misinterpretations of religion in a theocracy.

I've seen people who use religion to carry out their own ideas."

Nevertheless, she says, maintaining one's culture in exile is important.

"It's easier to turn your back and become something new, what we call American, which is a generic term that is really used more by people who don't understand what America is made of," she says. "Americans are immigrants. More and more that's the case. It's sort of a cop-out to deny that."

"The Fortune Catcher" by Susanne Pari (436 pages, Warner Books, $22).

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Esther's Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews

Edited by the Director of Publications of The Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, this book contains over 400 pages of extensive historical documentation of the lives of the Jews of Iran. Contains extensive color imagery and comprehensive photographs of monuments, manuscripts, objects, and individual and family portraits as well as exposes by leading scholars in the field of Judeo-Iranian studies. Includes an extensive bibiliography. http://www.cijoh.org/

David and Layla

A political romantic comedy by Jay Jonroy. This film explores the intricaties and ironies of the love story of Layla, a Kurdish refugee and David a Jewish New Yorker. Intertwined with culture and history, a must see! For more information or to see a list of screenings, please visit www.newrozfilms.com

Dan Ahdoot, Jewish Iranian American comic, on holidays and life in America

FINDING MY RELIGION
Dan Ahdoot, Jewish Iranian American comic, on holidays and life in America
David Ian Miller, Special to SF Gate
Monday, December 11, 2006


The latkes will have all been eaten, the menorahs blown out and the dreidels put away. Hanukkah will be over by the time Christmas rolls around this year. So what's a Jew to do on a day when nearly everyone else seems occupied?

On Dec. 25, many Jews adhere to an ancient tradition: going out for Chinese food and a movie. But in San Francicso there is another option: Kung Pao Kosher Comedy. The annual event features four hot-and-sour Jewish comics and a seven-course Chinese banquet, complete with Yiddish proverbs in the fortune cookies. The evening has a distinctly Jewish flair, but anyone who has overloaded on "Jingle Bells" and "It's a Wonderful Life" is welcome.

On the roster this year is comedian Dan Ahdoot, a first-generation Jewish Iranian American who has opened for Lewis Black, Jay Mohr and Patton Oswalt. I spoke with Ahdoot recently about the holiday season, religious heritage, hecklers, and what it's like to be Sephardic -- a Jew of Arabic, Persian or Iberian lineage -- in a country where most Jews are Ashkenazim.



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A lot of Jews -- and other non-Christians as well -- aren't too sure what to do with themselves on Christmas. It can be a strange time. What do you usually do?
It's a day where I like to reconnect with all my Jewish friends -- they're the only ones with free time.

You're a first-generation Iranian Jew. Did your ethnic background make it more interesting to be Jewish even in a city as diverse as New York?

I grew up in Great Neck, N.Y., which is actually a hotbed of Iranian Jewry, so I didn't really know that I was very different until I went to college. That's when I realized, "Weird! People haven't met someone from a group that's, like, .0001 percent of the population in America!"

Was your family religious?

They would go to synagogue on Saturday and keep kosher in the house. Nothing too crazy, but Jewish identity was definitely a big part of my upbringing.

Your family is Sephardic Jews. How does that differ from growing up in an Ashkenazi home?

I guess the biggest thing would be that we have flavor in our food [laughs]. And, of course, we have thicker eyebrows!

It's very tribal. Sephardic Jews tend to be very family-oriented. My family gets together every Friday night for Shabbat [the Sabbath] -- my grandparents and all of my cousins. There are about 60 of us. And we do that on all the Jewish holidays.

What do you do when you're together?

We hang out, talk, eat. There's a lot of debate and a lot of loud conversations about politics and stuff. It's kind of a crazy scene, but it's all very loving -- men kissing one another on the cheek and stuff like that.

When and why did your family leave Iran?

My family left in the early '70s because they saw that things were not looking too great for them. Religious persecution has been sort of status quo there for thousands of years, at least since the Islamic invasion. It was normal that Jews weren't allowed to go outside while it was raining, because people said they were going to dirty up the streets and stuff like that. At the time they left, it was starting to get a little crazy, with religious extremists getting more power. It was time to get out.

Did all your family get out?

Some relatives weren't as lucky as we were and left in '78 or '79. They had to escape through the mountains. There are still family members there, but most of them are here now.

You were born here. Have you ever visited Iran?

No.

Does that bother you?

Yeah, very much so.

I guess you could go, right?

Well, sure. I could get in easily, but leaving might be tough. My last name is kind of a prominent Jewish last name in Iran. They can create a lot of problems for you if they find out you're Jewish.

You hear a lot of grim stories about life in Iran, and sometimes it's difficult to imagine how people there live their everyday lives. Is there Iranian comedy? A specific sort of Iranian humor?

I'm not sure, but I have a feeling the censors would try to make it very unfunny.

Does the classic borscht belt kind of kitschy Jewish humor appeal to you?

Not really. I don't really consider myself a Jewish comedian. I consider myself a comedian who happens to be Jewish. You know what I mean?

So your ethnic background isn't front and center in your act?

It's definitely a big part of it, but it's not the whole thing. I have things that happen to me every day that don't even relate to me being Iranian or whatever. But pretty much every show I have some material about being Jewish and Iranian.

I think people have a lot of misconceptions about both groups. I've done shows in the middle of the country where people think Jews are just people with black hats and curlicue sideburns. And they assume most people from the Middle East are terrorists. I'm not kidding. I like to think I show them that's not the case.

You once said that "I was an Iranian up until Sept. 11, and now I'm Puerto Rican. It makes life a lot easier." Is it difficult to be part of a cultural heritage that isn't universally beloved?

I was joking, of course. But it's true that sometimes people misjudge you based on appearance. I'm actually very pro-American, and I'm pro-Israel, but physically I look like I'd be pro-Taliban.

You were accepted into medical school when you decided to become a comedian. And I know you make jokes about your parents not being able to say, "My son the doctor." How did your parents react when you took up comedy as a profession?

They were pretty devastated. You know, they went from having everything in Iran to basically starting over in America. They wanted us to all have very secure lives, which is normal, I guess. And what's more secure and Jewish than being a doctor? So they sent me to Johns Hopkins and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then I decided to go on my own.

Have they since forgiven you?

I don't know if it's a matter of forgiving. They have accepted what I do now, and they are actually big fans of my act.

Do you consider yourself a pretty religious person?

No, not really. I consider myself Jewish by identity, but I'm not much into the religion.

But you do consider yourself culturally Jewish? That's important to you?

Very much so. I just feel a bond whenever I meet a Jewish person. It's like having the same heritage or similar upbringing. And I can feel it as much with an Ashkenazi as I can with an Iranian. There is just something there that can't be denied.

Do you believe in God?

Not really. I'm more of an agnostic. I don't know what's up there, and I'm fine without having an answer.

Does it bother your parents that you're not very religious?

It does. I think they are somewhat in denial. My mom still thinks that I keep kosher in the house, which is not true. She doesn't want to admit to it.

Don't they want you to settle down with a nice Jewish girl?

They've been wanting that since I was 12. They keep talking bout grandkids. They keep saying it's time.

And what do you tell them?

Anything that will get them off my back.

You've done comedy shows since you were in college. Has your shtick changed over the years?

Well, my shtick is more real to me and I'm a lot more confident onstage. I'm performing five or six days a week, so I'm definitely honing my skills.

Do you ever get heckled?

Oh yeah. Of course.

How do you handle that?

I put the heckler back in his place. I mean, I don't pull a Michael Richards, but I've done probably 10,000 comedy shows, and I've been hit with everything. So I know how to handle it.

Do you have any advice for Jews during the Christmas season?

Stay away from Mel Gibson.

Were you always a funny guy? Did people laugh at your jokes when you were a kid?

I was always the class clown -- less so now, actually, since I do it for a living. I feel like I'm working when I'm offstage and trying to be funny. But yeah, I was always the smallest kid in school, so I kind of had to -- people made fun of me and stuff -- so I had to get back at them, you know? And make fun of them.


Kung Pao Kosher Comedy takes place in San Francisco, Friday, Dec. 22, through Monday, Dec. 25. For more information, visit www.koshercomedy.com.


Finding My Religion wants to hear from you. Send comments on stories and suggestions for interview subjects to miller@sfgate.com.



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During his far-flung career in journalism, Bay Area writer and editor David Ian Miller has worked as a city hall reporter, personal finance writer, cable television executive and managing editor of a technology news site. His writing credits include Salon.com, Wired News and The New York Observer.