"People usually speak of three periods of time: the past, the present and the future. For Persians who were born in Iran before the 1979 Revolution, there are only two periods of time: the shah's time and Khomeini's time." Just like that, in a sentence that reveals nothing of her and her husband's heroic exploits, 65-year-old Eti Sionit Goshen begins telling her life story. Even today, 30 years after fleeing Iran with her husband Houshang and two children, and after helping countless Jews escape the iron fist of the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's regime, recalling those years still makes her agitated. Her son, Houman Goshe, who kept the family's original surname, and who was just 11 when his parents made their daring escape from Iran, is a lieutenant colonel with the Israeli Air Force. "When you stand on a mountain and look back, you realize that life has given you the tools to deal with what is in front of you here and now," he says. "You appreciate something when you barely get it or almost lose it. That's the story of our family and the State of Israel." Goshen was born in Touyserkan, a small city in western Iran. "It's the capital city of nuts, there's a large variety of nuts that are grown there," she says, smiling. "It's also the location of the Prophet Habakkuk's grave. It's a historical site that I visited many times. Some say his bones are still there and some say they were brought to Israel and were buried near Tiberias. "I had a beautiful childhood. My father was a wealthy man, a landowner, who farmed nuts and sold them in Tehran, and also dealt in gold, jewels and antiques. There were about 15 Jewish families in the city, most of them big. I have 13 brothers and sisters. I'm the youngest. "My mother only had girls. She gave birth to eight girls, but two of them died. Many babies died back then, as there were no vaccines. My father, who was a very observant Jew, wanted to have boys too, so someone would say kaddish for him, so he took another wife. It was customary then that a man could marry up to four women. "We had a huge yard," she recalls. "We lived in one part, my father's second wife lived in another, and my uncle, my father's brother, lived in the third part. My mother was very upset when the second wife came. One night, she dreamed that she was granted an audience with King Solomon. He asked her, 'Why do you cry so much-' Then he offered her a fruit from his table. She took a pomegranate, and the king said, 'Have another.' So so took four pomegranates, and he gave her a red apple and said, 'Go back to where you came from and don't cry.' She went on to have four boys, one after the other. I was the last child. That's why I named my autobiography 'The Red Apple.'" Q: What was your childhood like? "We were well off and lacked for nothing. There was no high school in the city, and I dreamed of becoming a doctor, so at the age of 14 I went to study in Tehran. My older brothers were attending university there and I joined them. I was the first sister to go off to school. "There was a different dialect spoken in Tehran and I struggled with the language, as well as with religion -- I went to high school with 300 Muslim girls and I was the only Jew. That was my first encounter with anti-Semitism. The beatings I took ... that's why I held on to my original surname, Sionit. "My father fell ill and died and I decided to give up my dream of becoming a doctor, and finished high school in an ORT boarding school, which was a beautiful place funded by Swiss donation. There I met my husband, and when I was 22 we got married. We had a normal life. "I worked at a government office and Houshang was a maintenance man. We had Houman and five years later we had Helena. The shah's regime was good. We have good relations with the Muslims, and Iran and Israel maintained friendly ties. There was an embassy in Tehran [Israel had a permanent diplomatic delegation in Tehran in the early 1970s that served as a de facto embassy] and there were many Israeli workers in Iran. We could walk around without a veil, observe the holidays in the synagogue. We could do everything." 'Khomeini deceived the people' Q: What do you recall from the revolution and Khomeini's rise to power- "You have to understand this didn't happen overnight, but slowly. Khomeini deceived the people, promising things like oil, gas, transport and free education. He said there would be no Shariah [law] decrees and that, for example, we wouldn't have to wear hijabs. He distributed millions of tapes with these false promises to get the people's support. Every house had a tape. But shortly after he came to power the war with Iraq began. There were a million fatalities and countless casualties. There was also a big brain drain in those days. Anyone who could get out did." Q: Why didn't you leave- "There was great poverty then. There was no food, and we had two small children. At the same time, because of the revolution and because I was reading a lot of Jewish history books, I understood why the Jews in Europe didn't flee before the Holocaust. You get tied up with daily life and survival. Life after the revolution was like a Ferris wheel, you go up, down, and around and you never stop. There's no time to think." Despite the hardship, she continued her work at the government office. "One day, by chance, I saw a top secret document with an order barring Jewish emigration from Iran. I was mortified. I told my husband, and we started thinking about what could be done. Tehran has a rabbi named Baruch Hacham, who would help the young people escape somehow. The smugglers would charge a lot of money and it was a very dangerous road. Many were caught and thrown in jail. "My father-in-law had just died, and they [Houshang's family] decided to try and get two older brothers out [of Iran] through Hacham, but they were caught near the border and thrown in jail. My husband went to get them and was beaten up. But he paid a bribe and got them back. They then decided to try and smuggle the two younger brothers out. They were only 15 and 16, and so many soldiers had died in the war the army was starting to recruit really young boys. "Iranians lend great importance to identity. They would always ask, 'Are you Iranian or Jewish? Jews were sent to the front line immediately. Going into the army as a Jew -- that was a death sentence." Q: Were your husband's younger brothers able to escape- "He sent them through Hacham, but they were also caught near the border. Their mother was left alone, she was elderly and lived in another city. They [the authorities] wouldn't issue her a passport because she was Jewish. We were also waiting for passports, but they gave us the runaround. We didn't know what to do. "At that time, in addition to passports and identity cards, there was also a third registry, a notebook that listed the details of the family. To leave Iran, you had to have all three documents. The solution we came up with was to pay Muslims for the documents. I stole stamps from the office where I worked and forged passports. Jews' passports were red and Muslim passports were blue. That's how we started helping Jews leave Iran." A forged passport 'industry' Placing themselves at considerable risk, the couple launched a forged passport "industry," mostly for young men who were slated to be enlisted. "We never thought of ourselves. We were focused on helping the young people. I would forge passports, replace photos, stamp. I spent hours on end on it. We would by Muslim passports. They could travel far more easily. But these were delicate transactions. We only got them from people we knew, in my workplace, my husband's or friends we knew before the revolutions. We would spend a long time convincing them. After all, it placed them in danger as well." The illegal industry was exposed after a woman they forged a passport for apparently told a government official she had befriended about them.
"One night, we were at home with the kids, and all of a sudden regime officials came into the house. They're not like the police here in Israel -- they were like God. They could do whatever the wanted. They could kill with impunity. It's like having Islamic State operatives show up on your doorstep." Q: Did they find anything illegal- "They tore the house apart, pulled up tiles, and we weren't allowed to say a word. They blindfolded us, and threw the children to the side [of the room]. We had materials in the house that we used to forge passports. At the time my husband was unemployed and he was involved in illegal money-changing, and there were papers saying he transferred dollars out of Iran, which was illegal. There was also a photo of my cousin, who immigrated to Israel and was in the Paratroopers Brigade, in uniform. God help me, I'm still terrified just talking about it." Jihadi-style torture That night ushered in a chapter of horrors for the family. Fortunately, while forging passports, the couple had the sense to pose as Muslims. "We had documents saying we had converted to Islam. We also had Muslim marriage documents that we had poured tea over, to age them. We also had Khomeini's book and a Koran, so the police were confused. They didn't really understand who we were or what we did. The police said they were taking us in for interrogation. The landlord heard the ruckus and came over and I asked her to take the children to my sister. I wasn't supposed to speak, so they [the police] hit me and threw me down the stairs. "They beat the hell out of us during the interrogation. They used electric shocks
the torture was unimaginable. Then they showed us the picture the woman who informed on us, and I thought -- that's it. This is our death sentence. Then they threw me in a room that was pitch black, without food or water. "The next day they took me and my husband to a prison that is known as one of the world's most infamous jails. They say even birds don't fly there. If you go -- you never come back. It's a miracle we got out alive. It's a miracle I'm sitting here." Q: Did your family know how you were doing- "No. We didn't get a phone call, or a lawyer. I had no idea what was going on with the kids. In Israel, an Arab terrorist gets a lawyer and he can go to school while in jail. We got nothing. We were nowhere." Q: What was prison like- "They separated us immediately. They tied me to the bed and stretched me until I was sure my back had broken. I was beaten with a leather whip until I passed out. The men would beat me, even though they were prohibited to do so by their religion. Because they suspected I was Jewish they enjoyed it. They dragged me across the floor by the chador [full-body-length garment worn by women in Iran when in public]. I didn't eat or drink for three days, I was half dead. "I was interrogated every day. The interrogator would hit me repeatedly. 'Tell me, you little stinking Jew, how did you fool the Islamic Republic-' he would ask. 'How dare you? Who did you work for-' They thought we were a network. But I never broke. I never told them about anyone. I prayed that my husband wouldn't talk. I didn't want to place the families of the young people we helped in danger." Between interrogations, Goshen was thrown into a cell with Baha'i women, whose religion was also targeted in post-revolution Iran. "One of the women there taught me the Quran, and I also knew a little from my daughter, who went to kindergarten with Muslim children after the revolution," she recalls. "One day they took me in for questioning by an Imam. He told me to recite something out of a prayer, but Muslims have a purification ritual before [prayers] so I said, 'I have no water for purification.' He told me to go ahead anyway. So I sang what I knew. I did it wholeheartedly, I hoped it would save my life. Then he told me to recite another line that I happened to know from my daughter, then another line, which that woman taught me the night before. By some stroke of luck, he stopped me after the last line I knew. I don't know what I would have done had he asked for even two more words. "My mouth was dry and my heart was pounding. It's an indescribable feeling. Every day might be your last. The moment he told me to stop I said 'Shema Yisrael' in my heart. "I guess I confused them. They didn't know what to do with me. They took me to a dungeon, a tiny room. It was freezing cold. I tried to organize my thoughts, what I did, what I'll do next, where my children were. You could hear missiles flying outside. It was terrifying. There was also a bright light that was on all the time. It got into your bones. Outside, in the hall, they would execute people every day, and I could hear everything. "I was in the dungeon for a month. I barely ate. Never showered. As a woman I had nothing, no rights. I was losing my mind. Then, one day, they took me to interrogation, told me to hold out my hand, and gave me my jewelry back. I thought, 'Wow, he's nice to me today -- he's probably going to kill me.' Then they led me through the yard and I could feel the sun on my face. I thought, 'I'm only 36. I don't want to die. Please, God, don't let this be my last day.' They took me to a room, they took the blindfold off, and my husband was there. I didn't recognize him at first -- he lost so much weight and had a thick beard. They handcuffed us and took us to court. That was a good sign because it meant we were probably no longer in mortal danger." Q: What brought on the change- "I only learned about that later. As it turned out, my sister-in-law, across town, noticed one of her neighbors go to work in a government car. She was terrified, but one day she told him about us, said we were Muslims and that they can't find us, so what's going to happen to our children? She asked him to just try and find out whether we were dead or alive. That man? He was the interrogator that beat me up every day. He must have been moved, because he agreed to check up on us for her. We were blessed with a lot of miracles." A Hanukkah miracle The couple arrived in court in dire physical condition, but that day has would soon become their own private revolution. "The judge warned us that everything we had been through until then was child's play. They had an apparatus there, where they would tie you up and rotate you and whip you. They told us, 'You're next.' I looked the judge in the eye and said, 'I haven't seen my children in two months. Nothing you do can get to me. Then, suddenly, an Iraqi bomb hit the court. There was glass everywhere, but we were unscathed. "The judge's desk was full of glass. He took our file, shook off the glass and started cursing at everyone -- the Shah, Saddam [Hussein], Khomeini. You could tell he was scared. Then he looked me in the eye and said, 'You really haven't seen your children in two months? Come with me.' He took me to a room and let me make a very quick phone call. I called one of my sisters in law, and she told me not to worry, that another sister-in-law took them north, where there was no war. "The judge didn't want to continue hearing our case after that, so he told us to come up with a million tomas, which is like a million shekels, for bail. I have no idea how, but my brothers came up with the money. By now, the regime had a new concept -- emotional bail. If I ran, they would arrest my brother and he would have to accept my sentence. We were allowed out on bail for two week, after which the Supreme Court was supposed to render a verdict. It was probably going to be a death sentence." Q: What did it feel like to be out of jail- "It was good, but we had a lot of health problems. We could barely eat or stand the light. We stayed with my brother and the next day we went by our house -- it was sacked. From there we traveled up north to see the children. That part [of the country] was untouched by war. People were just living their lives. There was no smell of war, no death. For us, it was paradise. "We found the house the children were staying in. Houman recognized us but Helena didn't. It took time for her to remember who I was. We took the kids and went back to Tehran, this time to try and escape. My nephew put us in touch with a smuggler. We gave him everything we had. We were supposed to meet him on the side of a main road, but he never showed up. Just took everything we had and ran." Q: What did you do- "At that moment, we had nowhere to go. We were on the street with two small children and two suitcases. We went to my husband's sister and her husband got us an apartment. We raised more money of my brothers -- they gave us everything they had -- and we decided to flee. We were able to make it to the border with Afghanistan. We crossed the border hiding in a sheep delivery truck, with armed smugglers. From Afghanistan we got to another country, and we were put in touch with the U.N. We flew to another country and from there to Israel. "I'll never forget that moment. We landed in Israel on Dec. 25. 1988, the fourth night of Hanukkah. It was our own private Hanukkah miracle." Take nothing for granted Houman must have heard this story hundreds of times, but it still moves him. He was 11 when the family made it to Israel, and has his own memories of growing up in Iran. "I have flashbacks that are hard to describe," he says. "I remember the police coming and searching our house, and my sister and me huddled in a corner. I remember when we fled to northern Iran, and pretended to be Muslims and I studied the Koran. I remember the trip when we crossed the border in the truck with the sheep. It was freezing and they were driving at 150 kilometers (93 mph) an hour. At the end of that trip, I couldn't straighten my legs, I thought I was crippled." Q: How did absorption in Israel go? "Not very well. We didn't speak a word of Hebrew. All we had was the two suitcases we came with. My parents when to Hebrew school, but my sister and I were sent straight to school. We were sent to live in [the Petach Tikva neighborhood of] Amishav, which is a difficult place, to say the least. It has high crime rates, drugs and gunfire on the street. Sixth grade was anything but simple. The only thing that kept us going was the education we got at home. "In 10th grade I transferred to a better school, but they still looked down on me. I adapted slowly. When my first draft order came, I told myself, 'what kind of sucker joins the IDF-' No one from the neighborhood enlisted. "Everyone else is school got summons for tryouts to elite units and flight school, and I got nothing. I decided to study engineering and go to 13th and 14th grade [in trade school], and I was eventually able to learn that my initial grade was very low, only 48," he says, referring to the military's aptitude test scores by which potential recruits are classified for service. "My mother was working for the Central Organization of Iranian Immigrants in Israel at the time, and we were eventually able to get to people who helped me retake the tests." Those tests proved the gateway to a long military career and Houman, 39, a father of four, now heads the unit handling all aspects of IAF communications. "I enlisted in 1997 as an engineer. When I said I wanted to be an officer my commander wasn't thrilled -- I was part of his professional team -- but I insisted. I later became a teleprocessing officer. That's how I started my military career. In the military you understand the real sense of giving back. I never shied away from any role." Speaking of the unit he now commands, Houman says, "We are responsible for all the IAF's classified communication infrastructure nationwide, and provide solutions for all the corps' needs. "We have bases in the north, south and central Israel. The unit comprises soldiers from all social sectors. Our training course is considered very prestigious and we handpick participants. They have high tech headhunters waiting for them outside the base gate with job offers that pay three times as much as being a career officer. One of my biggest challenges is to keep them in service." Q: How do you achieve that? "You explain to them that their work is essential. If we don't get the job done then, for example, there's no Iron Dome [defense system]. Communications are like oxygen, you don't notice it when it's there, but without it, you suffocate. "By the way, my mother didn't tell you, but my father didn't get into a university in Tehran despite his high psychometric score, because he was a Jew. In Iran, you couldn't just decide to be a doctor. Nothing was taken for granted, certainly not Israel's existence. I have to give the soldiers' service meaning so they don't leave the military. I try to make them understand the importance of accepting others, the importance of Zionism. These are the values I try to convey to them." Q: Do you plan to advance your military career further? "I decided on a military career out of a sense of calling, and I'm not thinking about civilian life at the moment. It is important for me to continue with public service, maybe in education. I truly believe in mutual responsibility. If we don't do what's necessary when it's our generation's turn, no one else will." Looking at Houman, Goshen's eyes beam with pride. She only has one small request. "A few years after we came to Israel, we were granted Prisoners of Zion status in recognition of our work," she says. "That was an important milestone and now I hope someone will use our story to make a documentary. I also dream of one day being asked to light a torch on Independence Day. That would be our true victory."
