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From the Shahs to Los Angeles

Author: Saba Soomekh

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-10-11

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1438443854

Gold Medalist, 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Religion category Saba Soomekh offers a fascinating portrait of three generations of women in an ethnically distinctive and little-known American Jewish community, Jews of Iranian origin living in Los Angeles. Most of Iran's Jewish community immigrated to the United States and settled in Los Angeles in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the government-sponsored discrimination that followed. Based on interviews with women raised during the constitutional monarchy of the earlier part of the twentieth century, those raised during the modernizing Pahlavi regime of mid-century, and those who have grown up in Los Angeles, the book presents an ethnographic portrait of what life was and is like for Iranian Jewish women. Featuring the voices of all generations, the book concentrates on religiosity and ritual observance, the relationship between men and women, and women's self-concept as Iranian Jewish women. Mother-daughter relationships, double standards for sons and daughters, marriage customs, the appeal of American forms of Jewish practices, social customs and pressures, and the alternate attraction to and critique of materialism and attention to outward appearance are discussed by the author and through the voices of her informants.

Between Religion and Culture

Author: Saba Soomekh

Publisher: ProQuest

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 766

ISBN-13: 9780549988113

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This dissertation presents an ethnographic portrait of what life was like for Iranian Jewish women living in Iran and now in America. From 2004 to 2006, I have conducted interviews with three generations of Iranian Jewish women-- grandmothers, mothers, and daughters--who currently reside in Los Angeles. The three major incidents that I will focus on in terms of their affect on Iran and, consequently, the Jewish community, are: the Constitutionalist Revolution in 1906 and the granting of the throne to Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925-1941); Muhammad Reza Shah Pahalavi taking the throne (1941-1979); and finally, the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the immigration to Los Angeles. I explore these different generations to see how history, political change, social change, assimilation, financial mobility, and immigration have affected their religiosity, their concepts of womanhood, inter-generational relationships, and their identity. In particular, I look at the concept of sacrality throughout these three generations and see how it has changed. Although different generations of women have different interpretations of sacrality, one overarching theme is the emphasis placed on women's religious and social rituals and maintaining their najeebness (sexual modesty) -- all of which upholds the community's Jewish beliefs and distinguish them from other Iranians, Americans, and Jews. The emphasis on religious tradition and najeebness among Iranian Jewish women allows them to create meaning in their lives, establish authoritative figures within the community, and, most importantly, reinforce the collective morals and social norms held within the community.

Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic

Author: Lois Beck

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780252029370

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The role of women in Iran has often been downplayed or obscured, particularly in the modern era. This volume demonstrates that women have long played important roles in different facets of Iranian society. Together with its companion, Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800, this volume completes a two-book project on the central importance of Iranian women from pre-Islamic times through the creation and establishment of the Islamic Republic. It includes essays from various disciplines by prominent scholars who examine women's roles in politics, society, and culture and the rise and development of the women's movement before and during the Islamic Republic. Several contributors address the issue of regional, ethnic, linguistic, and tribal diversity in Iran, which has long contained complex, heterogenous societies.

Women, Work and Islamism

Author: Maryam Poya

Publisher: Zed Books

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9781856496827

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Based on original research into women's participation in the workforce, this book is the most up-to-date study of women in Iran available. The Islamisation of state and society which followed the 1979 revolution involved an attempt by the Islamic state to seclude women within the home. However, the power of the state was constrained by many factors - the Iran-Iraq war, economic restructuring - and women's own responses to oppression. In spite of continual attempts by the state to strengthen patriarchal relationships, women's participation in the labour force in 1999 is greater than it was before the revolution. Women's participation in both the economy and in political movements has led to a much greater level of gender consciousness in the 1990s than at the height of westernisation in the 1960s and 70s. Religious and secular women in urban areas have demanded reforms and forced the Islamic state to return to the position of the pre 1979 reforms. Providing a history of Iran, an introduction to Islamism and an analysis of the women and Islam debate, this book will be necessary reading for students and academics of Middle East studies, women's studies and labour studies.

Reconstructed Lives

Author: Haleh Esfandiari

Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press

Published: 1997-07

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780801856198

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Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran

Author: Joanna de Groot

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2000-08-01

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0857716298

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This book offers a new interpretation to the social history of religion in Iran from the 1870s to the 1970s. It aims to situate the 'revolutionary' upheavals of 1977-82 in an extensive narrative context of historical developments over the preceding century, and to relate the 'religious' elements in that history to other social and cultural issues. In the author's analysis, Iran's revolution was complex, and contingent on a range of factors rather than a simple or inevitable outcome of the nature of the Iranian state or the nature of religion in Iran. The focus of the argument is on the human responses of Iranians to their experiences and problems in all their diversity and on the rich variety and complexity of relationships between religion and other aspects of life, thought and culture in the daily life of Iranians.

Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800

Author: Guity Nashat

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780252071218

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Combining scholarship from a range of disciplines, this collection of essays is a comprehensive examination of the role of women in Iranian society and culture, from pre-Islamic times to 1800. The contributors challenge common assumptions about women in Iran and Islam. Sweeping away modern myths, these essays show that women have had significant influence in almost every area of Iranian life. Focusing on a region wider than today's nation-state of Iran, this book explores developments in the spheres that most affect women: gender constructs, family structure, community roles, education, economic participation, Islamic practices and institutions, politics, and artistic representations. The contributors to this volume are prominent international scholars working in this field, and each draws on decades of research to address the history of Iranian women within the context of his or her area of expertise. This broad framework allows for a thorough and nuanced examination of the history of a complex society.