A publicist asked me to read Love and War in the Jewish Quarter by Dora Levy Mossanen for review. That was back in July. I'm terribly sorry that it has taken so long for me to finish reading it. It's a World War II period novel, but being set in Iran makes it unusual. I would like to thank publicist Emi Battaglia for sending me an advance copy of Mossanen's novel. Love and War in the Jewish Quarter will appear on November 8.
One thing that drew me to this book is that Mossanen was born in Israel when it was in the process of becoming a state. My grandmother was born in what would become Israel, though it was a good deal earlier than Mossanen.
Love and War in the Jewish Quarter opens in Tehran in 1941. The main protagonist is a Jewish dentist who treats the Governor of Iran and his wife. The dentist, Dr. Soleiman Yoran, had introduced novocaine to Iran. He had brought his supply of novocaine from Paris where he went to dental school.
Soleiman's wife, Ruby, had died in childbirth. Ruby had been a rebel. I need to explain that during all Jewish synagogue services there were separate sections for men and women. This is still the case among Orthodox Jews. Among other Jewish sects, families are currently allowed to sit together for prayer. Mossanen reveals a scandalous incident when Ruby went into the men's section during the Sabbath service and sat down next to Soleiman. This caused general consternation, but they stayed together smiling and holding hands. I was smiling myself as I read this because I was brought up Orthodox, and could imagine how shocked everyone was. Ruby continued to sit next to Soleiman at Sabbath services. Over time increasingly fewer men attended.
We learn that Iranian Jews were required to have houses with low doors so they had to bow low as they left their homes. Jews also weren't allowed to leave their homes on rainy days because they could supposedly drip Jewishness and defile Muslims. So Iran was far from an ideal environment for Jews.
On the day when Soleiman was about to marry his second wife, he was summoned to the governor's bedside. The governor had taken an opium overdose because he had been in terrible dental pain. Soleiman knew that he would be blamed for the governor's death. He prevailed on a high official not to announce that the governor had died until the next day, so that Soleiman could get married.
Velvet, the governor's wife, had inherited all his wealth. She brought a sack of gold coins to Soleiman's wedding saying it was a wedding gift from the governor. Soleiman said he couldn't accept it. The father of the bride hauled the sack away saying it could be used by Tehran's Jewish community to build a hospital or other important projects.
I found Soleiman a sympathetic character and I admired him. I also thought that Mossanen wrote very authentically about Jews.
The book ends with Soleiman's wedding to his second wife. We don't find out what happens to Soleiman afterward. I would like to believe that he and his second wife successfully fled Iran, and eventually settled in Palestine.
From the acknowledgements I learned that Mossanen had felt for the first time that writing was lonely when she finished the manuscript of Love and War in the Jewish Quarter during a Covid quarantine.
I hope that Mossanen will write other books dealing with the less known aspects of Jewish history like this one.
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