“This song, the video was made two years ago but releasing it now feels right. I live in America where I am able to lead the life I want but I am always thinking about my people in Iran, their struggle has always been close to my heart. I will never forget how bad it was for me and my family when we lived in Iran. I hope my music can bolster them, steel resolve at what feels like a critical time for the Iranian people.”
Shab was born to Zoroastrian parents in Tehran a few months before the Islamic Revolution in 1978 and has some memories of growing up during the Iran-Iraq war, the conflict between the two countries that began in September 1980 and ended in August 1988. Her father, a senior figure in the Shah’s petroleum industry, died of a heart attack when she was six months old. “My family had become instant enemies of the fundamentalist order that overthrew the Shah. I blame the regime for his death.”
With her siblings in pre-revolution Iran[Missing Credit]
With her famliy in pre-revolution Iran[Missing Credit]
At eight years old she became one of the two million Iranians who fled the country following religious and political persecution.
She left alone, going to Germany where she spent six years at a boarding school, before being granted political asylum in the United States where she was reunited with her family.
Today the ambassador for Choose Love, a British charity set up to support refugees worldwide, which is also supported by Oprah Winfrey, Benedict Cumberbatch, Julia Roberts and Olivia Colman among others, speaks with passion about the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was deposed during the revolution, stressing his allyship with Israel. After the mullahs seized power they put “hatred in people’s hearts. The morality police would harass my beautiful sisters,” she says referring to the regime’s religious police force and its particular focus on Islamic dress codes. “If a woman ventured outside of her home unescorted by a man, there was a high probability she would be detained and or even beaten. And as a young girl I was forced to wear the hijab even though I am not a Muslim.”
When he spoke to the “proud people of Iran”, Netanyahu criticised the regime that oppresses them, accusing it of enforcing a 12-day war on Israel that it had “lost miserably” and at considerable cost. Highlighting the dire economic situation in Iran, he quoted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi: “We have problems with water, electricity, money and inflation – where do we not have a problem?”
“You don’t even have fresh, clean water for your children,” said Netanyahu, promising that, “the day Iran is free, our experts will flood your cities with technology to get the water flowing again.”
In fact, the singer says that her friends and family in Iran “weren’t upset at the people of Israel” during the 12-day war in June. They understood that “Israel was not trying to invade”.
For her part, she is hoping that the day when “Iran becomes allies with Israel once more” is not far away. And she is far from alone, she says, “Iranians can’t wait to reunite with their Jewish brothers and sisters.”
In the meantime, this Zoroastrian pop singer is leading a rather Jewish-flavoured life. Her son and daughter are patrilineal Jews and attended a Jewish kindergarten in Dallas, where the family lives.
They are now pupils at a non-denominational school founded by a South African Jewish émigré where she has met many “amazing Jewish parents” whose homes she attends for Friday night dinners.
“We are bringing the children of Jerusalem and Iran back together!” says the singer, who says she she “dreams of visiting” Israel in the near future.
“Iranians and Jews are the toughest, most resilient of people. We have both been through so much.
"When terrible things happen our response is OK, let’s put some music on, let’s cook. I remember that during the Iran-Iraq war the bombs were raining down, the music was on and the house smelled of food.”
Her other dream, she says, would be to collaborate with an Israeli singer in Farsi and Hebrew.
“I’d jump at the chance to work with Noa Kirel, Eden Golan, Valerie Hamaty or Asaf Avidan. I don’t speak Hebrew, but my daughter knows a little and my son can play Hatikvah on the piano. It’s a start, right?”
