Sima Avraham and her twin sister were smuggled across the Iran-Pakistan border 25 years ago in order to escape the harsh, anti-Semitic Iranian regime. With Purim just behind us, and Pesach, the celebration of freedom, before us, now is the perfect time to tell you Mrs. Avraham’s story of her daring escape from the land of Iran — formerly Persia.
Hi Mrs. Avraham. Can you describe what it was like living in Iran?
There were no Jewish neighborhoods in Teheran and we mingled a lot with the Arabs. We used to play jump rope and ball with our Arab neighbors. I did go to a Jewish school though. Every day I walked two kilometers there and back to save the bus fare. If we were naughty at school we were hit with a ruler. After school my twin sister Simin and I would embroider or help our mother with the cooking. We koshered meat and chicken at home made delicious carrot and eggplant jams and made simple cakes in a special pot that baked on the gas range because we didn’t have an oven. Every school had a shul inside it. On Yom Kippur we would take along our pillows and blankets and sleep in the shul.
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