Finding A Home Away From Home —

One Family’s Long Journey Leads To Newtown

By Jeff White

The winds of reform that have blown through Iran in recent weeks have been too far away to rustle the trees outside Abraham Farzan’s Huntingtown Road home. Still he stands in his front yard with his wife and son and admires a brooding live oak just across the street. “I think I like this tree more than any building in New York,” he says, smiling.

For the Farzan family, Iranian immigrants who escaped their native land and came to live in Newtown over three months ago, the calm they feel now belies the difficult journey they underwent in coming to America. They arrived in Newtown knowing little English, and took up residence on the top floor of an aging, weathered duplex. In those days of late autumn, as winter hinted its approach, their three-room home, bare with little furniture, seemed a gray, cold place to start a new life. But there they were, Abraham, 58, his wife Azam, 40, and their son Arya, 12, trying to do just that. Mr and Mrs Farzan promptly enrolled Arya at Middle Gate School as a fifth grader, and set out on the long road of adjustment. All Mr Farzan could say on one gloomy day in early December was, “I’m looking forward to resting.”

The Farzans’ journey to America was more than two years in the making. It was 1997 when Mr Farzan determined that his homeland had nothing left to offer him or his family. In a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, and has been ruled over the past two decades more or less by fervent Islamic clerics, the Farzans were members of a minority group: practicing Iranian Jews.

Still, Mr Farzan cannot claim that it was religious persecution that drove him and his family to the United States. In Iran, he made his living as a writer and publisher, in a society that didn’t always honor free speech. As a writer, the regular government crackdown on the written word, especially political works and antigovernment journalism, made it difficult for Mr Farzan to express his views to their fullest.

His more serious writing managed to parade behind the cover of a puzzle magazine that he wrote and edited completely by himself. This magazine provided a valid, and safe, front that allowed him to secretly publish political stories and journalism, as well as two political books. “I made up the names so not to let anyone know that I was anyone,” he recalls.

But cultural ministers charged with controlling the nation’s press finally prohibited Mr Farzan from publishing any magazine. As Mr Farzan explains, two years after the ban was placed on his writing, his inability to express himself through his articles and books led to his decision to obtain passports and leave his homeland. 

The road to America was not direct. The Farzan family had connections to the United States: Mr Farzan’s brother, a Pittsburgh resident whom he had not seen in 20 years, and a cousin, Raffie Aryeh, who lived on Eden Hill Road in Newtown. Although Mr Farzan finally obtained the permission to leave Iran, he did not have permission to enter the United States, and the Iranian government had not cleared the way for his wife and sons to join him.

Sitting in his family room three months ago, Mr Farzan recalled the 10 months he spent in Vienna, Austria, the world center for Jewish immigration. Thanks to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), Mr Farzan was given a place to live and some work, and began to concentrate on his writing, notably his poetry, which he was never allowed to publish in his homeland.

One still reflects on one particular poem that he wrote during this period, called “Where is God in Auschwitz,” written after a trip to the Polish concentration camp.

It would be nearly eight months until Mrs Farzan and Arya would join Mr Farzan; the couple’s eldest son managed to gain entry into Canada, and left Iran for Toronto.

With the help of both HIAS and Newtown resident Lori Kilchevsky of the Danbury Jewish Federation, who had heard of the Farzans’ plight through Mr Farzan’s Newtown cousin, the family obtained official American sponsorship and left Austria for a new life.

 

The American Experience

Much awaited the Farzan family as they touched down onto American soil. Mr Farzan was reunited with a long-absent brother. With the help of the cousin Rafie Aryeh, they acquired a place to live, and the Newtown school system opened its doors to young Arya.

Still, Mr and Mrs Farzan did not know the language, had no prospects for employment, and had an older son stuck in Canada with no way into the United States. Resting was all Abraham Farzan could think of during those first days in Newtown. Resting, and perhaps writing. “I’ll be happy if I can print my books,” he said back then. “I’m not looking for big house, big car. Nothing is [more] important to me than printing my books.”

Almost four months after their arrival in Newtown, things have improved for the Farzan family.

Their home, which once seemed gray with its sparse furnishing and plain walls, now looks lived in. Pictures adorn the walls, colorful comforters cover the beds, the mantel over the fireplace is decorated with pictures and memories from Iran. The spring sun produces late afternoon streaks across the carpet.

Mr and Mrs Farzan’s oldest son is due to join them any day now, after a long wait in Canada.

Young Arya, who entered Middle Gate not understanding English, can now speak about what he thinks of his school. “It is very good,” he says. Mrs Farzan speaks of Arya’s progress in math and science, in which courses he produces high marks.

For Azam Farzan’s part, she has obtained her driver’s license and now commutes to Stop and Shop, where she obtained a job in the meat department. In her spare time she makes frequent trips to Booth Library. “I like to know everything about the news,” she says.

The entire family is enrolled in English classes in Bethel; both Mr and Mrs Farzan are in the advanced-intermediate course, while Arya had to start in the beginners’ section.

Mr Farzan, who has been spending his time at his cousin’s house working on a book of poetry, is anxious for work, however, perhaps some job in publishing or journalism. “I want to work because I want to communicate with the people,” he explains. “I’ll get familiar with the American culture. It will be very useful to me.”

When asked if anything has been new to him in his first few months in America, he responds happily, “What’s new? Everything is new. I’m getting to know the area, always going this way and that.”

But at the end of the day, amid this new life they have begun to make for themselves, the Farzan family thinks of their homeland. Though the government that once prohibited Mr Farzan from publishing his writings has been replaced by a more moderate parliament that has rejected the rule of the Muslim clerical class in favor of more individual freedom, Mr Farzan says he will not return.

The Farzans recently celebrated the traditional Iranian New Year with friends of Mr Farzan’s cousin, who gave them a taste of home. “We shared the food and spent a very nice time with each other,” he recounts. Still, when talk turns to Iran, a slight sadness comes over the Farzans. They think of what they miss.

Mrs Farzan misses her family, and says that it is difficult to talk to them on the phone. She concludes that it is better if she doesn’t.

Arya too misses his family, especially playing with his cousins that were his age.

And Mr Farzan, who can look at a neighboring tree and hold it in higher esteem than a skyscraper, misses the mountains of his homeland, where a short drive from downtown Tehran would lead to rugged, snowcapped peaks. But he sees in the countryside around Newtown a land that he wants to get to know. He looks forward to being able to capture the feeling of his new home in poetry.

“[Newtown’s] a lovely place,” he says. “I like the forests, lakes, rivers. It’s something I like very much. So it’s a very good feeling.”