Young Iranian Jews Now Pushing Beyond Old Boundaries

New Persian blood: New York board members of the group 30 Years After, including Shannon and Lauren Hedvat, third and fourth from left, at their launch event in September 2008.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Arranged meticulously across a wooden dining table was a Shabbat meal that could have served 30 — fluffy gondhi, “Persian Meatballs,” still steaming from their broth, Middle Eastern salads and ghormeh sabzi, a green vegetable stew. A Shabbat candle hovered between a spread of tahdig, a crispy rice dish, and shirini polo, a sweet rice blended with almond slivers, orange peels and pistachios.

For the Hedvat siblings — Lauren, Shannon and Brandon — this was just another routine Shabbat meal in Lauren’s Manhattan apartment. It was winter break from Penn Law School for Shannon and Penn Engineering for Brandon, and they decided to cook up a traditional Persian Shabbat dinner for their friends, both Persian and not, many of whom have become frequent guests at the trio’s events.

“Growing up we became accustomed to our parents’ way of entertaining even though they have assimilated too much into the American culture. The warm hospitality of the culture is ingrained in us,” said Shannon Hedvat, 24, the middle of the three. “No matter who was coming over for whatever reason, my parents always had a huge bowl of fresh fruit, nuts and sweets on the table along with tea and coffee.”

Even as they hew to their Iranian heritage and their parents’ culture of hospitality, the Hedvats and other 20- and 30-something Persians, the first to be born in America, are transforming the famously insular Iranian community here in unexpected ways. Thirty years after the Iranian Revolution brought tens of thousands of Persian Jews to Great Neck, the gilded ghetto on Long Island’s Gold Coast, and to Los Angeles, a new generation is pushing beyond its parents’ tight-knit world.

Influenced by the cultural pluralism and openness of America, its  members are entering into mixed marriages with Ashkenazim, something that would have been unheard of a generation ago. They have taken up leadership positions in large Ashkenazi shuls in Great Neck. And they are thrusting themselves into philanthropic and political causes in America, in Israel and worldwide.

“In general, Persians have an attitude of doing their own thing and feeling like other outside factors don’t affect them,” said Bobby Shamsian, 28, a vice president at renewable energy hedge fund TerraVerde Capital Management.  Continue reading…