Jewish Bubba: Holocaust Memorial Day's Speaker, Son of Former Shah of Iran and Shah's Loves

Nadene Goldfoot

                      Mohammad Reza Shah & Empress Farah, 3rd wife

The Shah escaped Iran to Egypt in 1979, amid violent demonstrations, that encountered a brutal police force, ultimately giving way to the rise of the Islamic Republic. He died of cancer two years later.  His son was studying in the U.S. at the time and remained there since. After his father's death, he assumed the role of head of the royal family and devoted his life to opposing the current regime in Tehran.  

I remember that my mother followed the Shah's life as best she could back in the 40's.  It was a romantic life.  He was deeply in love with his wife, but they had no children, so he was forced to divorce her and marry in order to produce an heir, which he did, through my mother's tears.  

In this March 15, 1939 file photo, Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, (right), 19-year-old Crown Prince of Iran, marries Princess Fawzia, sister of King Farouk of Egypt, in Cairo.   (AP)   Fawzia was his 1st wife.                                   

Fawzia of Egypt (Arabic: فوزية; 5 November 1921 – 2 July 2013), also known as Fawzia Pahlavi or Fawzia Chirine, was an Egyptian princess who became Queen of Iran as the 1st wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran .  The news my mother in the USA received was quite different from other news.  The union between the two royals had proven to be difficult. Princess Fawzia did not speak Persian adequately, and was away from the rest of her family and her friends in Egypt, which led to constant disagreements with her husband and his family members.

Fawzia was the daughter of Fuad I, seventh son of Ismail the Magnificent. Her marriage to the Iranian Crown Prince in 1939 was a political deal: it consolidated Egyptian power and influence in the Middle East, while bringing respectability to the new Iranian regime by association with the much more prestigious Egyptian royal house. It was never a love-match, and Fawzia obtained an Egyptian divorce in 1945 (not recognised in Iran until 1948), under which their one daughter Princess Shahnaz would be brought up in Iran.Shahnaz Pahlavi. 

It was reported that the relationship Princess Fawzia had with Pahlavi’s sisters was that of a cold nature. Fawzia did not feel comfortable in Iran’s uninviting atmosphere, and thus felt no connection to Iranians. As a result, she did not participate in social ceremonies and refused to attend gatherings even when her husband requested her attendance. Thus, her life as the Queen of Iran was difficult and unpleasant. During her marriage to the Shah, Queen Fawzia gave birth to a baby girl named Shahnaz in October 1940. Their love was followed as much as Charles of England's in later years. Royalty and princesses, a hot topic. In 1949, Fawzia married Colonel Ismail Chirine, an Egyptian diplomat, with whom she had a son and a daughter.

 Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi was born in at the Sa'adabad Palace in Tehran on October 27, 1940. She is the eldest daughter of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and his first wife, Princess Fawzia of Egypt. She was married to Ardeshir Zahedi, Iranian Ambassador to the US, from 1957 to 1964.

Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (Persian: ثریا اسفندیاری بختیاری, romanized: Sorayâ Esfandiâri-Baxtiâri; 22 June 1932 – 26 October 2001) was Queen of the Imperial State of Iran as the second wife of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whom she married in 1951. Their marriage suffered many pressures, particularly when it became clear that she was infertile. She rejected the Shah's suggestion that he might take a second wife in order to produce an heir, as he rejected her suggestion that he might abdicate in favor of his half-brother. In March 1958, their divorce was announced. After a brief career as an actress, and a liaison with Italian film director Franco Indovina, Soraya lived alone in Paris until her death.  This must be the marriage my mother mourned.                                                

Farah Pahlavi (Persian: فرح پهلوی, née Farah Diba (فرح دیبا); born 14 October 1938) is the widow of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and was successively Queen and Empress (Shahbanu) of Iran from 1959 to 1979. She was born into a prosperous family whose fortunes were diminished after her father's early death. While studying architecture in Paris, France, she was introduced to the Shah at the Iranian embassy, and they were married in December 1959. She was the Shah's 3rd wife.  
Farah and Shah's family portrait;  2 sons and 2 daughters

The Shah's first two marriages had not produced a son—necessary for royal succession—resulting in great rejoicing at the birth of Crown Prince Reza in October of the following year.   
The Shah of Iran with his third wife Farah Diba and their children, Prince Reza, Prince Ali Reza and the two younger children, Princess Farahnaz and Princess Leila. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesShah of Iran's youngest son shoots himself.Pahlavi, 44, killed himself in Boston, US, after struggling with depression for years.Iran's Pahlavi dynasty, overthrown by the Islamic revolution in 1979, has suffered another loss with the suicide of Ali Reza, the youngest son of the late shah.Pahlavi, 44, killed himself in Boston, US, after struggling with depression for years. His sister Leila died of a drug overdose in London 10 years ago.Amid talk of recurrent tragedy, the family issued a statement blaming Pahlavi's suicide on "what was unjustly inflicted on his beloved country", adding that "he never forgot the painful memory of his father and beloved sister's deaths".

Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the deposed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi will arrive in Israel on Monday on a historic visit to attend Holocaust Memorial Day events with President Issac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is expected to address the threats from Iran at the national event to be held at Yad Vashem in the evening.  Reza Pahlavi is still seen as the hope of liberal Iranians and he himself believes his family is still revered.   When Pahlavi was 

shah, Israel and Iran were friends.  

     The children of Farah and the Shah

The second wife: (Second photo at the top), Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari. She was a former actress. In 1948, Soraya was introduced to the recently divorced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, by Forough Zafar Bakhtiary, a close relative of Soraya's, via a photograph taken by Goodarz Bakhtiary, in London, per Forough Zafar's request. At the time Soraya had completed high school at a Swiss finishing school and was studying the English language in London. Though the wedding took place during a heavy snow, deemed a good omen, the imperial couple's marriage had disintegrated by early 1958 owing to Soraya's apparent infertility. She had sought treatment in Switzerland and France, and in St. Louis with Dr. William Masters.The Shah suggested that he take a second wife in order to produce an heir, but she rejected that option.The marriage was officially ended on 6 April 1958.  Maybe this was the love my mother mourned about.  

Gila Gamliel  was born in Gedera, Israel. Her father Yosef Gameliel was born to a Yemenite Jewish family, and her mother Aliza was born to a Libyan Jewish family. Both her parents immigrated to Israel. Gamliel studied at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where she was awarded a BA in Middle Eastern history and philosophy, and an MA in philosophy.                       

In the past year, there have been albeit few reports of public expressions of nostalgia for the secular rule, as Iran's economic distress and social unrest grew.  The Iranian crown prince resides in the U.S. and will arrive in Israel as a guest of Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel. In an interview, he gave Ynet in 2019 Pahlavi said "In a future democratic Iran, that I envision, we would be friends again."

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah to rule Iran before the 1979 
Islamic Revolution, said Sunday that he will be delivering “a message
 of friendship from the Iranian people.”
He is set to participate in Israel’s annual Holocaust memorial
 ceremony on Monday night, said Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who will host him. He is also set to visit a desalination plant,
 see the Western Wall and meet representatives of the local Bahai community and Israeli Jews of Iranian descent, she said.
Gamliel praised the “brave decision” by Pahlavi to make what she 
said would be his first visit to Israel. “The crown prince symbolizes a
 leadership different from that of the ayatollah regime, and leads 
values of peace and tolerance, in contrast to the extremists who rule
 Iran,” she said.
Pahlavi left Iran at age 17 for military flight school in the U.S., just 
before his cancer-stricken father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi abandoned
 the throne for exile. The revolution followed, with the creation of the Islamic Republic, the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the sweeping away of the last vestiges of the American-backed monarchy.