From Trousdale Estates in Beverly Hills to Pico Robertson, from Little Holmby to Brentwood and Santa Monica, from Mulholland Drive to Ventura and Burbank and all over downtown they changed the face and culture of LA and began to admit that even when the regime in Iran fell and Prince Reza became Shah they wouldn’t go back permanently, wouldn’t give up the freedoms and opportunities this this had afforded them. Any day now city-countrythey’d be able to go back and see their old homes, walk the streets where they had played as children, visit their old schools, the football stadium, the ice skating rink. They’d see the sun rise over the blue Alborz mountains; they’d lay a flower on their ancestors’ graves.
A thousand Shabbat dinners. Crown prince Reza turned 30, then 40. Despair not.
Two thousand, five hundred Friday nights. For weeks, bombs have been falling on Iranian military infrastructure; regime leaders have been assassinated; but the mullahs aren’t budging. Despair not.
Trump is getting tired of war; Israel has all but given up on regime change. The road back, once seemingly so near, appears as far as ever. And yet. Any day now.
By Gina Nahai
Photo © Alamy
Gina Nahai was born in Tehran and left Iran just before the 1979 revolution. Her most recent book is The Luminous Heart of Jonah S, a story of Iranian Jews in Los Angeles.
This article appears in the Spring 2026 issue of JR.
