It is 1979, my first night of Seder in America since I fled Iran eight months before. My husband remains back in Iran, hoping to salvage a small part of our valuable properties, our home and business, a chewing gum factory that remains the largest in the Middle East. “Come with us,” I insisted, “It’s too dangerous, especially for Jews.”
He would not hear of it. I was "being an alarmist", as always, he will join us "in a few weeks", a couple of months at most.
Now, in hindsight, I realize that we were blinded by a certain naiveté and senseless hope that is common with having lived in comfort—this could not be the end of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who had, with enormous pomp, crowned himself King of Kings in 1967.
We were wrong of course. Once we landed in LAX, I learned that the Air France Plane that carried me and my daughters, age two and ten, to safety was the last allowed out of Iran before Mehrabad Airport was shut down by the Islamic Revolutionaries. It would take another three years before my husband would be allowed to leave the country.