Every year, my extended Persian-Jewish family gathers around beautiful, intricate Passover seder tables. Let’s be real: we can’t all fit at one table.  

Piles of Saran-wrapped scallions sit in the center, waiting to be snatched up for Dayenu, our Persian tradition of playfully whipping one another to mimic the lashes of Egyptian slavery. It is chaotic, slightly aggressive, and completely expected. 

The smell of my Maman Nayer’s haleg, our Persian charoset, fills the room. Thick, dark, and rich, it is a delicious mixture of dates, nuts, fruit, spices, wine, pomegranate molasses, and vinegar. Hard-boiled eggs sit on the table to hold us over, because our seder unfolds slowly, flowing between Hebrew, English, and Farsi, and stretching late into the night. 

It is loud. It is layered. It is deeply ours. 

And every year, we say the same words: “In every generation, each of us must see ourselves as though we personally came out of Egypt.” 

But this year, sitting at that table, surrounded by the traditions my family carried out of Iran, I could not ignore how literal those words felt. 

Egypt was not the last time. 

On my left are my grandparents. They made the choice to pick up their lives, take their children out of Iran, a modern Mitzrayim, and flee to Israel on a direct El Al flight before eventually settling in Tehrangeles. There, my family planted roots between two worlds, building a life where they could live freely without letting go of the language, traditions, and culture they carried with them. Their choice made my life possible. 

On my right sit my parents, both younger than I am now when they left the only homes they had ever known, carrying dreams, uncertainty, and the grit required to begin again. 

Sometimes I think about what my life would look like if they had stayed. 

I imagine a life in which being openly Jewish would require caution. A life in which speaking about Israel is dangerous, and opportunities are quietly closed off, not because of anything you had done, but because of who you are. A life shaped by limitation, not possibility. 

As the daughter of Iranian Jewish refugees, I feel the weight of that contrast every day. It lives in the freedom to speak openly, to build a career as a Jewish nonprofit professional, and to practice my Judaism without fear. The things that feel ordinary to me were never guaranteed for them. 

Here I am at this table, benefiting from their courage. I feel it in the way we gather freely, in the traditions we continue out loud, in the life I am able to build without looking over my shoulder. It is a gift my family fought to give me, and one I try to honor every day. 

My family did not leave because they wanted to. 

They left because history had taught them what happens when Jews wait too long. 

For 2,500 years, Jews lived in Iran, long before the rise of Islam. There were periods of relative stability, even prosperity, but they were never truly equal. At best, they were second-class citizens. At worst, they were targets. There were times when Jews were forced to mark themselves as Jews, when false accusations spread easily, and when they were reminded that no matter how long they had lived there, they did not fully belong. 

Then came the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and everything changed. 

Almost overnight, fear became part of daily life. Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, including Habib Elghanian, a prominent community figure whose death sent a clear message to Iranian Jews about how vulnerable they had become. Property was seized. Anti-Israel rhetoric bled into open antisemitism. Jobs became uncertain. Neighbors grew distant. The question was no longer if life would change, but how much worse it would get. 

Families faced impossible choices. Some fled, leaving behind homes, businesses, and entire lives. Others stayed, hoping conditions would stabilize. Many escaped quietly, knowing that if they were caught, the consequences could be severe. 

The home Persian Jews had built over thousands of years was no longer safe. 

What they carried with them was not only tradition, but memory, the kind that still lives at our table. It lives in what is said and in what is left unsaid, in the stories told openly at the table, and in the ones still too painful to fully share. 

Freedom is hard-won, precious, and always worth fighting for. 

In Iran, the remaining Jewish community, now roughly 8,000 people, continues to live with quiet caution. Their lives are shaped by what cannot be said, by what must be hidden, and by the constant awareness of who may be watching. At the same time, across the country, Iranians continue to risk everything in pursuit of freedom. Women have led protests demanding basic rights. Young people speak out despite censorship, internet restrictions, mass arrests, and violent crackdowns. Thousands have been imprisoned, and many have been murdered in protests and in the regime’s ongoing repression. The cost of demanding freedom remains painfully high and very real. 

In Israel, daily life is also shaped by the reality of ongoing war. Families live with sirens, security alerts, and frequent trips in and out of bomb shelters, as ordinary routines are interrupted without warning. There is a particular kind of resilience in the way people continue to go to work, gather for Shabbat, send their children to school, and build daily life while carrying the knowledge that safety is never fully guaranteed. That resilience is powerful, but it does not erase the exhaustion, grief, and uncertainty that come with living under constant threat.  

And still, I hold onto hope. I hope that what is unfolding today, including the 2026 war between the United States, Israel, and the Iranian regime, will lead to a future that is safer and more open for both the Iranian and Israeli people. I hope for a future in which my identity can fully belong to all three parts of who I am: Iranian, American, and Jewish. I hope for a future where my family’s story can be one of return, not only departure, where I can go to Iran with my parents not simply as a witness to what was lost, but as part of a real possibility for reconnection and healing. 

Their courage inspires and reminds me that the Exodus story is not just something we remember. It is something we are still living. 

“In every generation, they rise up against us.” 

The movement from slavery to freedom is never a one-time story. It is a pattern, a cycle, a struggle that returns in new forms. And memory is not passive. Memory carries responsibility. 

Passover is not just about what happened. It is about what keeps happening. 

For me, being Persian and Jewish means living inside that tension. It means celebrating a culture that stretches back thousands of years, while carrying the knowledge of how quickly safety can disappear. It means knowing that the life I live today exists because my family refused to wait until it was too late. 

That responsibility shapes how I live. It lives in speaking openly, in telling this story, in refusing to let silence erase what my family endured, and in building a life that honors the risks they took to give me freedom.