Chaverim y'karim - dear friends,

 

I know not everyone listens to podcasts. Some might even be unaware of what a podcast is? If you have any questions - reach out, I'll gladly explain. Think radio show on your phone.

 

I'm almost finished binging six episodes of an unbelievable show. Actually, it is entirely believable because a) it happened and b) elements of the story are well-known from other stories, lives, cultures.

 

I recently learned about a singer, Galeet Dardashti, who will be singing at my wife's shul on Shavuot. Galeet is a vocalist, an anthropologist, and producer. She has a reputation as a trail-blazing performer and advocate for Middle Eastern and North African culture. In 2024, Galeet was among “NY Jewish Week’s 36 to Watch.”  

 

Yet another podcast - and this one you MUST listen to

 

The podcast is called The Nightingale of Iran. 

 

For most of their childhood, the Dardashti children (Galeet, Danielle and Michelle) never contemplated why their father and grandfather left Iran many years before the 1979 Islamic revolution. During Covid, the sisters found themselves with more time on their hands and so they dug a little deeper into their family story. The chance discovery of some old recordings became a trove of evidence that there was a rich and deep story to be told. 

 

The Nightingale of Iran offers a master class in storytelling, music and identity as Galeet and Danielle interview family members and experts as they literally unpack and explore old those previously unknown recordings that were on reel-to-reel, cassettes and VHS tapes in the basement of their parents’ New Rochelle home. This very bingable podcast takes listeners through the journey of uncovering the complexities surrounding the Iranian Jewish community itself, and how those complexities affected their grandfather and father and their entire family.

 

The Grandfather (Saba) 

 

Raised as an orphan in Tehran’s Jewish ghetto, Younes Dardashti's remarkable voice led him to enjoy levels of fame and popularity previously unknown to Jews. He was known as “Ostad” (Maestro) by fans far and wide. 

 

Younes witnessed extraordinary changes after 1941, when Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi became Iran’s ruler. The new shah continued his father’s reforms to modernize, centralize and secularize Iran, granting new civil rights to women and religious minorities. Jews were allowed to move out of the ghetto and attend integrated schools. At parties in Tehran, Jews mingled with Muslims while men and women danced to secular music.

 

The reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, which lasted until the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and 1979, is often called a “golden age” for Iranian Jews. New economic opportunities, combined with the shah’s de-emphasis of Islam as a core element of Iranian identity, gave Jews unprecedented upward mobility in commerce, scholarship, medicine and the arts. 

 

But there is more to this story than meets the eye

 

It was only during Covid when the daughters began researching their grandfather that another image emerged — that of a Jewish Iranian artist who never found the same acceptance among Jews as he did with Iran’s Muslim public.  

 

Since the 16th century, Jews were the most prevalent minority to work as “motrebs,” or musicians hired to perform at life-cycle ceremonies and other social events. Both Muslims and Jews looked down on motrebs as morally suspect. But since strict laws restricted Jews from physical contact with Muslims based on their supposed “najāsat” (uncleanness), many Jews had few other options to make a living. For five centuries, these Jewish musicians were outcasts both in the broader society and in their own religious community. On top of the job’s low social status, they were often marginalized by other Jews for socializing with Muslims, eating non-kosher food in the homes of their employers and working at all hours of the night. Only five years ago Younes’ grandchildren finally understood their grandfather’s struggles. Despite winning national adoration as a master of Persian music, he carried a sense of shame in his own Jewish community.

 

Conclusion 

 

There is so much more I could say about this podcast. But I don’t want to spoil it for you. The series describes how Galeet’s father, Farid, came to America to study to become an architect but ... through his incredible voice, like his father, he followed a musical path. He became a cantor. The steps from Iran to Israel to New York City and from architecture school to the Jewish Theological Seminary is just remarkable. Have I said it already? You MUST listen to this story!!

 

I do hope you will have time to listen. Regardless, I'm hoping that maybe there can be some learning we can do together from this exquisite show and you are in for a genuine treat as you go to uncover The Nightingale of Iran. Enjoy!

 

As we enter the month of Sivan today, which is also the 600th day of Israel's brutal and on-going war, I pray this is a chodesh yoter tov, a better month that sees the return of the 58 hostages and a cessation to the fighting,

 

Rabbi Mark Cohn, 28 May 2025