A riveting personal account of growing up in the shadow of religious fundamentalism.

Wedding Song is Farideh Goldin’s passionate and painful account of growing up in a poor Jewish household in an increasingly hostile Islamic state, and her successful immigration to the United States in 1975. Born to her fifteen-year old mother in 1953, into the Jewish community of pre-Revolutionary Iran, Goldin sets the personal traumas of her family life against the tragic human costs of religious fundamentalism—here Jewish fundamentalism supported by an Islamic society antagonistic to Jews, but very much in sync with Iranian Jewish Orthodox views of women. Balancing profound sadness with an arresting ability to capture the scents and textures of Jewish Iran, Goldin offers an unflinching portrayal of a little known corner of Jewish life.

Farideh Goldin studied math and English literature at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran, before transferring to Old Dominion University in Virginia, where she earned her B.A., M.A., a graduate certificate in women’s studies, and M.F.A. in creative writing. For the past ten years, Goldin has been a freelance writer of articles on political, religious, and communal issues. She is currently assembling an anthology of writings by Jewish women of Iranian heritage.

“Goldin’s writing is sometimes spicy and sometimes sad, but always compelling…Her memoir is full of anger and compassion and insight. A stunning and powerful debut.”
–Sheri Reynolds, author of The Rapture of Canaan