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 My Father’s Seders

JL;DR SUMMARY Roya Hakakian reflects on her father's role in leading family seders amidst the cultural chaos of their Iranian Jewish home during the years leading up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

PassoverFamily DynamicsJewish EducatorSederCultural AdaptationNowruzIranian Jews1979 Islamic RevolutionHakakianOzar Hatorah

Places mentioned

Khansar, Fars, Iran
"Unlike my uncles who had always only known the big capital, my father had been born and raised in a small city called Khansar, a place that, centuries earlier, had been home to some four hundred Jewish households."
Tehran, Iran
"To them, he was always Mr. Hakakian, since, at one point or another, they had all attended the Ozar Hatorah school, one of the leading Hebrew day schools in Tehran, which my father had headed for nearly forty years."
Qom, Iran
"Khansar is near Qom, the Vatican of the Shiite world, and it was particularly hard being a Jew in a sea of Islamic seminarians."
Pakistan
"Like his enslaved ancestors, Mr. Hakakian had to cross the desert on foot, but into Pakistan; his Moses, sadly, was a human trafficker."
Iran
"After all, Passover usually occurred around Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, which marks the beginning of spring."
Markazi, Iran
"Having grown up in a country hostile to Jews, he had developed an uncanny ability to disarm people with his easy charm and erudition."
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Cairo Item ID 78504
Cairo Source ID 11
Retrieved 2026-03-26 05:31:12 UTC
Curated 2026-03-26 08:31:01 UTC