Tabby Refael

You're a joy, @therealdebramessing Thanks for teaching this Mizrahi Jew from Iran the best Yiddish insult. EVER. #jewish #yiddish #shabbat Substack link in comments.

True story. The tacky, "on hold" music was still playing on my phone when I hung it up to talk to the pharmacist in person. I mostly love you, LA. 💓 #losangeles

Oh, the fruitmanity. p.s. I use humor as a way to live past evil and inhumanity. #iranian #persian #watermelon

Thanks for the great @jewishjournal interview and for this very special book you've written, @cathy.heller 🐦💙💫 #abundanteverafter

Enjoy your eight blessings/slides! #birthday #oralhygiene

Last week, I had a chance to see Sanaz Toosi's magnificent, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "English," at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. She gave voice to so much I have held inside in the years since I escaped Iran and was granted refugee asylum in the USA. The show ended its run tonight, and I wish I could have taken my entire community to see it. Can you keep a secret? In Iran, I was really smart, apparently. I excelled in school. I spoke in Persian "like a mockingbird," my mother would tell the butcher, the Barbari bread maker, and my family. Then came America. Glorious, glorious America. My best-known songs and ditties, which all happened to include political satire because little Iranian girls don't ever just sing about just toys or kittens, weren't funny to my American peers. Nothing about me was funny because nothing translated well. Worst of all was my name. My full name. In the words of so many Ashkenazi friends, oy. "I am not idiot," a plucky character, Elham, says in Toosi's play. "I am not an idiot," her teacher, Marjan, corrects her. Oh, @sanaztss Where were you when I was a kid here in the 90s and needed those words? I needed them for every peer and every instructor who thought I had a cognitive deficiency because I couldn't speak English. Yet. YET. I am not idiot. I am not idiot. WE are not idiot. 🩵 Find where "English" is playing next, friends, and get yourselves there. The writing is remarkable and the acting is unforgettable. I'm also grateful to @thewallisbh for including so much special work by Iranian artists in the foyer. The eyes of the luminous woman in "Crown Series" (see pic) seemed to follow me, like an ancient Persian Mona Lisa. 🎨 #iranian #english

#iranianjews #iranian #jewish #barbari #shabbatshalom From a column I co-wrote for @jewishjournal with @sephardicspicegirls a few years ago. 💙 "In post-revolutionary Iran in the late 1980s, one of the few moments of tranquility and joy I experienced as a child was walking to the local baker and watching in mesmerized wonder as he carefully pulled a long loaf of Barbari bread from a modest clay oven. (I feared the six-foot-reach fire of that oven almost as much as I feared the Ayatollah.) I was tasked with asking the baker to cut the long bread in half and wrapping the ends in newspapers. It always resembled the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments because the ends were curved and the sides were straight. I was like a young Persian Moses carrying the tablets — if Moses had been tempted to bite those holy tablets because they were so fresh and fluffy! Indeed, the smell of that freshly baked, yeast-leavened bread, sprinkled with sesame seeds, was so mouthwatering that I couldn’t help myself from taking small nibbles as I happily walked home carrying the loaves. My six-year-old logic also deduced that the giant bread would provide cover for my head in case of a sudden missile attack in the heart of the city. I should probably mention that I lived in Tehran during the long, miserable Iran-Iraq War waged by the Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein."

This classic song is titled, "My Love " in Persian. And that's what you are. The love of my life. Under that kitchen towel. Inside that pot. Can true love take the form of tender chunks of beef, pungent dry limes, and hundreds of pounds of herbs? Yes. Yes, it can. Nothing can keep us apart. 💚 Unless you come out burnt, tough, or chewy. Then I'm seeking the arms of another, one named "Tomato-Based Khoresht." #ghormehsabzi #iranian #shabbatshalom

آویو אביב 🪻🌷🐦

FOB can have two meanings, you know. 📖♥️🤍💚📖 #freshofftheboat #lovebooks #iranian @latimesfob @uscedu

Front my latest Substack. Link in comments. I see someone is familiar with tonight’s date in the Jewish calendar, which marks the day the ancient Israelites crossed the Sea of Reeds and the Egyptian army was utterly destroyed. In Judaism, holy days/holidays carry their own spiritual energy across time and space. The energy of the seventh day of Passover revisits us each year, including tonight. That energy is one of complete redemption of the good guys and total annihilation of the bad guys. But does that mean a certain president had to threaten that "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if the mullahs didn’t cut a deal with him? Strangely, the president’s social media post ended with, “God Bless the Great People of Iran!” Alright. Clarification No. 1: The mullahs do not represent Iranian and ancient Persian civilization. Clarification No. 2: The mullahs and Iranian/Persian civilization are two distinct entities. The former is wretched; the latter is exceptional, but currently held hostage by fanatic ideologues with hefty weapons. Clarification No. 3: As I have said for years, this regime is a pimple on the otherwise good face of a 3,000+ year-old civilization, one that began in 550 BCE with Cyrus the Great and the Achaemenid Empire/First Persian Empire. So pop the pimple. Save the face. If you’re the American and/or Israeli army/air force/navy, prepare the metaphoric Clearasil or Noxema or calamine lotion (yes, I’m a product of the Nineties and its various acne products). But save the darn face. May all your crossings be auspicious, free, and in plain view of a trail of your defeated enemies behind you. Tabby Refael is an award-winning Iranian American writer, speaker, and eternal fan of Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash.

Latest Substack. Short and extremely poignant. 😂 In no way are the following based on real life events that I have experienced or perpetrated against others late this afternoon. Link in comments. #passover #pesach #family #jewish #chametz