As the conflict with Iran grinds on, Gina Nahai tells the story of a diaspora shaped by decades of exile, adaptation and enduring hope
In the beginning, they gathered at Ships Coffee Shop on Wilshire and Glendon, down the street from the high-rise residential buildings that lined the ‘corridor’. Three generations of Iranian Jews, having fled to Los Angeles for the summer while the 'unrest' at home was being ‘dealt with’, huddled at formica-top tables on Friday nights and plotted the Shah’s quick and decisive quashing of the ‘so-called’ revolution.
That was in the summer of 1978. The adults' fulltime jobs were to follow the news, which was mostly transmitted through word of mouth, and reassure each other that any day now they'd all be back in their own living rooms and around their own dining tables in Iran. Until then, there was Ships Westwood 24 hours a day and Clifton's Century City for lunch on Sundays and an 'exotic dance club' named the Seventh Veil on the Sunset Strip that became a family-friendly kebab and belly dance place on Thursday nights.
Summer became autumn and the news on American TV networks went from bad to worse but the Iranian Jews in LA knew something that Reuters and the BBC didn't: that any day now the Shah would send his army into the streets and quell the so-called revolution, and everyone could go home.
In January 1979 the Shah left Iran; but LA's Iranian Jews knew he wouldn't be gone for long.
In February Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Tehran; but LA's Iranian Jews knew he wouldn't last long.
“They changed the face and culture of LA”
Until then, maybe it was time to think about buying a place to live instead of paying rent, finding work instead of spending from their savings. Maybe the kids should be enrolled in school?
The Shah fled to Egypt and from there to Morocco, the Bahamas and Mexico. He went to Texas, Panama, Egypt again. But despair not. He'd been betrayed by Jimmy Carter because Carter was a Democrat and ignorant of how the world really works. Carter would lose the next election to a Republican and all would be well again.
The Shah died in exile but despair not, his crown prince was already 19 years old and brought up to rule. Any day now.
Instead of overthrowing the mullahs, Ronald Reagan sold arms to them. His successor, another Republican, spent part of his inaugural speech waxing poetic about "goodwill begetting goodwill" in the context of US-Iran relations.
Despair not. Any day now, a Republican president would overcome the Democrats in Congress and fly the crown prince back to Iran.
A hundred Shabbat dinners in Los Angeles became 500.
Geev Lameh at a memorial for protesters believed to have been killed in Iran in January, during a gathering for the Nowruz holiday in Encino, Los Angeles, on 17 March 2026 © Alamy
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.