Formerly progressive cities like Teheran, Beirut, Istanbul, Damascus, and Cairo (Kabul too, from 1964 to 1980) have fallen into Islamist hands. Everywhere women are veiled, men are wearing beards, the press is censored, propaganda rules the airwaves, torture is rampant, Islamist Muslims are killing both infidels and, mainly, other Muslims; the body count remains fearfully high.
What, if anything, do I owe Afghanistan, a country where I once lived and where I nearly died? I was there. It remains a part of me. I am now a tiny part of the country’s history. I remember Kabul, Istalif, Paghman, and the Pamir mountains with love. I remember my Afghan family. I will never forget my time there, the people I met, the natural splendor that I at least glimpsed.
This is an accounting of sorts. A young Jewish American woman once came to this wondrous Asiatic country and fled harem life. She finally uncovered the history of what happened to the Jews of Afghanistan, and she has told their story in order to redeem her soul. A young Jewish American woman once loved a Muslim Afghan man, and although it could never work out, they continued talking to each other down through the decades of their lives.
Each time I see him I vow to never do so again. Then, whenever he calls, we make a plan to meet.
It is more than fifty years since we first met, and Abdul-Kareem and I are sitting in a Jewish delicatessen on the Upper West Side, near one of the many summer or winter break sublets we once lived in so long ago. We are there because Abdul-Kareem said he was “just dying for a good Jewish pastrami on rye” and suggested we go to Fine and Schapiro’s.
Like his father before him, he cuts a rather dapper figure. His hair is still thick, but it is now entirely white, he sports a fashionable moustache, wears an expensive watch, and carries a polished wood-topped cane. He still wears dark glasses that match his black turtleneck sweater, black suit, black cashmere coat.
I ask, “So how are you today?”
He answers, “I’m glad you asked me that question. Do you remember Minister A? You know, the one who flew me to Cumballa Hill in Bombay—the view was fantastic, divine—to consult on that cultural project? Anyway I recently got a call from one of his nephews.”
Abdul-Kareem takes the long road toward every subject because along the way he must tell me about the ambassadors, presidents, film stars, prime ministers, royalty, and film directors he has met in his world travels, all of whom have shown him the greatest courtesy, sent embassy cars, arranged sumptuous dinners, seated him next to the most important people at every banquet.
Oh, the villas, palaces, hotels, fountains, gardens, feasts, and parties he has known! He never speaks without making sure his listener knows that he has moved in circles of power, among celebrities, heads of states, great artists, and beautiful women. He is a man of many peak moments.
What he says may be true. He says he knows all the major filmmakers. Perhaps he does. Perhaps this is how he manages to endure being in exile: by hugging all his former glories close. He has no country, no summer and winter villas, no working farms, no chauffeur, no gardener, no houseboys—no Ministry post left.
To hear Abdul-Kareem tell it, only he has the solution for Afghanistan. If America-which-funded-the-Taliban gets out, stops supporting Karzai-the-damn-drug-lord; if America forces Pakistan-which-also-funded-and-trained-the-Taliban to also get out and forces Pakistan to close the permeable border across which fresh Arab- and Pakistani-trained terrorists enter; if the Chinese are allowed to invest in Afghan gas and minerals (Afghanistan may have as much or even more oil than Saudi Arabia, if it can be mined and transported), then Afghanistan can climb up out of the Middle Ages and take its rightful place among the nations of wealth and so on.
Abdul-Kareem loves America, but he has high standards for us. I think he expected his adopted country to rescue, not abandon, his country of origin and then not just pile on for its own purposes.
I listen. I keep listening. I finally say, as I always do, “If you have a solution, why not write an op-ed piece, write a long article? I will help you in any way I can.”
He resists. He says he is not a writer. He says that he has too much to say. He says that were his views known, he might get in trouble. We have had this same conversation for more than thirty years now. Perhaps he is right. I suggest he publish anonymously. I tell him that Muslim and ex-Muslim friends of mine do just that. He asks me whether we can share a byline. As usual I agree. But nothing ever comes of it.
“Why not at least write up your family and personal memories for your grown children so that they will know their ancestry, their heritage?” I suggest.
“Well,” he softens. “Maybe for them, I might do it for them.”
Abdul-Kareem does not need me to speak. He needs me only to listen, and he allows his much-relished sandwich to just sit there, uneaten, for nearly an hour. I finally break into the monologue.
For the first time I ask him why he thought that someone like me could ever have adjusted to life in Afghanistan. He responds by telling me what a great life Kamile, his second wife had, the ambassadors, prime ministers, royalty, and film stars that she too met—“and she also worked.” He then says something new and astounding.
“I had hoped that you would be as ambitious as I was, that you would see the promise, the hope, the challenge involved in helping this small country progress, become modern, independent.”
“Are you saying that I am not ambitious?”
“Yes. I am. You were young, you did not yet know what you wanted to do, and you turned tail and ran home. So you did end up writing a few books for a small circle of people. But that does not compare to what I had envisioned for us.”
He still views his dream of modernizing one small country as more noble than my dream of freedom for women. I am stunned that he still views me as the wife who failed him—not as the feminist who got away. I was meant to help him realize his dreams. Poor man: He cannot acknowledge that I would have sacrificed myself in vain for a dream not my own—one that even he was unable to accomplish.
Perhaps another kind of woman might have flourished as the wife of an Afghan deputy minister and theater director. I am not that kind of woman. He is blind to—perhaps he despises—who I am and what I have accomplished.
I have not been able to achieve my dream of freedom for all women; but that vision is fully underway in the world. It is a work in process. Also, it was not my destiny to remain in Kabul, to set down roots only to see them destroyed by the Soviets and by the Taliban.
Yes, he is both larger and smaller than I imagined him to be. He is stubborn, selfish, and given to monologues, but he is also courtly, gracious, and strong. Through him I gained an unsentimental education, the kind that cannot be acquired through books.
As I’ve said, my fiery American feminism was really forged in Afghanistan.
Abdul-Kareem turned out to be one of my muses, as did Afghanistan itself. I have turned my brief sojourn—and my subsequent lifelong interest in the Islamic world—into a writer’s treasure.
I experienced what it was like to live with people who were permanently afraid of what other people might think—even more so than in Small Mind Town, USA. I knew there were political prisoners and torture chambers in Afghanistan. I knew that Afghans who wanted any progress were arrested and punished in medieval ways.
Therefore I became an intellectual who views conformity and censorship as dangerous; one who deeply appreciates the importance of dissent, a free press, the First Amendment, and the separation of religion and state as crucial to any democracy and to woman’s freedom.
Did I ever love him? How would I know? I was a virgin in this matter as well. But writing this book has put me in touch with the long-buried tenderness that I still feel for him—especially now that he has become a character in these pages.
I could not live with him. But what’s that got to do with love?
It is a
privilege to know someone this long, a man who comes from a far-distant country and culture, someone who still regularly calls me to see how I am and to tell me his family news.
I am still the first wife. As he said, he does not believe in divorce. We remain connected in our own unspoken ways.
Acknowledgments and Dedication
I thank Karen Wolny, my editor at Palgrave, who has been impressively enthusiastic, editorially deft, and tremendously responsive. I am privileged to have found such an editor. The entire Palgrave team has been an incredible asset to this book: Christine Catarino, Donna Cherry, Lauren Dwyer, Polly Kummel, Lauren LoPinto, and David Rotstein. I also wish to acknowledge Mark Lerner and his wise counsel.
I believe I was guided to my literary agent “from above”—Jane Dystel, of Dystel and Goderich, has been fiercely devoted to bringing this, and many of my other books, to life. I am grateful for her invaluable support and guidance. I thank Miriam Goderich, who believed in this book immediately and passionately. I have likewise benefited enormously from the encouragement and expertise of my publicity team at Goldberg-McDuffie: Lynn Goldberg, Angela Baggetta, Jeff Umbro, and Kathleen C. Zrelack.
My research assistant, Adriann Agle, first came to me as an intern from Barnard. Her work was spectacular, I inevitably hired her; without her intellectual skills, “can-do” disposition, discipline, devotion, and maturity, this book could not have been written. I owe her a great debt of gratitude.
I am deeply indebted to those who funded my work both for this book and my work on honor-related violence, including honor killings: Susan L. Bender, Esq., Abigail L. Rosenthal, Bruce Stevens, Cornelia Foster Wood, the Middle East Forum Education Fund, and those funders who prefer to remain anonymous. I thank “JB” for her political friendship.
Many travelers and authors, some long dead, others very much alive, have helped me gain precious knowledge about Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Islamic world. They are credited in the bibliography. Those who have become friends, whose words, views, and life stories have become intertwined with mine, are especially dear to me. They know who they are.
I also thank the Columbia Universities Libraries for their excellent collections; Rosanne Klass for her generosity and her knowledge of and love for Afghanistan; and Roy Abraham and Sara Y. Aharon for introducing me to the history of the Jews and Hindus of Afghanistan.
I must acknowledge my internist, Dr. Tina Dobsevage, for her tender, professional care; when necessary, she even makes house calls. On that same note, I would like to thank all my physicians, surgeons, dentists, and alternative health care practitioners, especially Cherlyn Smith, who have taken me out of agony and kept my mortal frame in good-enough working order.
I am grateful to those friends and colleagues who were “there for me” in good times and when the going got rough, especially Joan Casamo, Linda Clarke, Rivka Haut, Merle Hoffman, Barbara Joans, Meryle Kates, William Myers, Daniel Pipes, Jennifer Roskies, Na’ama Sandrow, Fern Sidman, and Ibn Warraq.
I am moored to earth by my immediate, extended, and intergenerational family: Susan, my son Ariel, my daughter-in-law Shannon, my son’s in-laws, Pearl and Harvey, and our two precious, darling granddaughters, Lily Diana and Kate Leah. And that’s Diana for Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman and Leah for Princess Leia of Star Wars. I wish to thank my parents of blessed memory, Lillian and Leon, for having given me life and for having stood by me. I thank my long-time housekeeper and friend, Joanna Wilczynska, who surrounds me with beauty and coffee and keeps me going.
I humbly acknowledge both the suffering and the strength of the people of Afghanistan and my extended Afghan-Turkish family, especially my Afghan husband, whose friendship I value deeply. I hope my attempt to recreate a place and a time long gone will meet with their love and approval.
This book is dedicated to K., my sister, my friend. She was a very good person. May God bless her and have mercy upon her soul.
Bibliography
Abdullah, Morag Murray. My Khyber Marriage: The Best-Selling 1920 Account of Life among the Pathan Tribesmen. London: Longriders Guild Press, 1920.
———. Valley of the Giant Buddhas: Memoirs and Travels. London: Octagon Press, 1988. (This volume has been updated to the Soviet era and as such, cannot have been entirely written by Abdullah [Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah] who died in 1960).
Aciman, Andre. Out of Egypt: A Memoir. New York: Picador, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1994.
Afkhami, Mahnaz, ed. Faith & Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994.
Aharon, Sara Y. From Kabul to Queens: The Jews of Afghanistan and Their Move to the United States. New York: American Sephardi Federation, Decalogue Books, 2011.
Ahmed, Qanta A. The Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2008.
Ali, Ayaan Hirsi. Infidel. New York: Free Press, 2007.
———. Nomad. New York: Free Press, 2010.
Ali, Latifa, with Richard Shears. Betrayed: Escape from Iraq. Sydney: New Holland, 2009.
Alireza, Marianne. At the Drop of a Veil: The True Story of an American Woman’s Years in a Saudi Arabian Harem. 1971. Reprint, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Alrabaa, Sami. Veiled Atrocities: True Stories of Oppression in Saudi Arabia. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2010.
Alvi, Hayat. “Women in Afghanistan: A Human Rights Tragedy a Decade after September 11.”RAWA News, November 12, 2012. http://features.rr.com/ar
ticle/03rC0ilfv3buK?q=Afghanistan.
Amin, Qasim. The Liberation of Women: A Document in the History of Egyptian Feminism. Cairo: The American University of Cairo Press, 1993.
Angel, Marc D. Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2006.
Ansary, Tamim. West of Kabul, East of New York. New York: Picador, 2002.
———. Games without Rules: The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan. New York: Public Affairs, Perseus Book Group, 2012.
Anwar, M.H, ed., with an afterword by Keith Anwar. Memories of Afghanistan. Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2004.
Armstrong, Sally. Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002.
Ates, Seyran. Der Islam braucht eine sexuelle Revolution. Berlin: Ullstein, 2009.
Badran, Margot, and Miriam Cooke, eds. Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.
Baker, Deborah. The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2011.
Baran, Zeyno, ed. The Other Muslims: Moderate and Secular. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Bergreen, Laurence. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. New York: Vintage, 2008.
Bin Ladin, Carmen. Inside the Kingdom. New York: Warner, 2004.
Bin Laden, Najwa, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson. Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009.
Bin Laden, Osama. “Bin Laden’s Fatwa.” PBS News Hour, August 26, 1996. www.pbs.org.
Blanch, Lesley. The Wilder Shores of Love. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954.
Blatchford, Christie. “Father in Honour Killing Trial Makes his Case for World’s Greatest Dad.” National Post, November 12, 2009. http://fullcomment
.nationalpost.com/2011/12/08/christie-blatchford-father-in-honour-killing
-trial-makes-his-pitch-for-worlds-greatest-dad/
———. “Shafia Trial Testimony Ends with an Abrupt Whimper.” National Post, January 18, 2012. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/18
/christie-blatchford-sha
fia-trial-testimony-ends-with-an-abrupt-whimper/
———. “No Honour in ‘Cold-Blooded, Shameless’ Murder of Shafia Girls.” National Post, January 29, 2012. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com
/2012/01/29/jury-reaches-verdict-in-shafia-trial/
———. “Shafia Defence So Quick to Strike Righteous Pose.” National Post, February 4, 2012. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/04/shafia
-trial/
Bostom, Andrew G., ed. The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2008.
Bowen, John. Plain Tales of the Afghan Border. London: Springwood, 1982.
Brauer, Erich. “The Jews of Afghanistan: An Anthropological Report.” Jewish Social Studies 4, no. 2. Indiana University Press (1942): 121–38.
Brooks, Geraldine. Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.
Burton, Sir Richard. Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (3 Volumes). London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1857.
———. The Jew, the Gypsy and el-Islam. London: Hutchinson and Co., 1898.
Byron, Robert. The Road to Oxiana. New Preface by Rory Stewart. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Cassandra. Escape! From an Arab Marriage. Philadelphia, Xlibris, 2006.
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.
Chayes, Sarah. The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
Chesler, Phyllis, Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman. Original Publication. New York, Thunder’s Mouth Press, Nation Books, 2001. Re-published. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books, 2009.
———. The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, a Wiley imprint, 2003.
An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir Page 27