The Nightingale Of Iran: A Podcast About Identity, Belonging, And Music

What if I told you that a Jewish singer was a national celebrity in the nation of Iran? You'd probably scoff and head to a fact-checking service to confirm my inaccuracy. With the socio-political and religious events in the 40 years, you'd be right in answering, "impossible"

However, politics is like the weather in its capriciousness and shifting winds. Back in the 1950s, Tehran under the Shah was a cultural center of the world and called the Paris of the Middle East.

It was a golden age for Jews in Iran. In the 1950s, a religious Jew – Younes Dardashti – became a national celebrity, singing at the Shah’s palace and on the radio. In the 1960s, his son Farid became a teen idol on TV. They were beloved by Iranian Muslims. 

 Younes Dardashti was so famous that he was known as The Nightingale Of Iran. The nightingale is the official national bird of Iran.

In medieval Persian literature, the nightingale's enjoyable song has made it a symbol of the lover who is eloquent, passionate, and doomed to love in vain. In Persian poetry, the object of the nightingale's affections is the rose, which embodies both the perfection of earthly beauty and the arrogance of that perfection.

But at the height of their fame, Younes Dardashti and his Farid left the country. Why? Why would a revered entertainer and his teen idol son leave a nation? Would Taylor Swift bolt from the U.S. for Sweden or France? Not without Travis Kelce!

It has always been a mystery to host Danielle Dardashti and her sister Galeet. Danielle and Galeet are the granddaughters of The Nightingale Of Iran.

Why did their family leave Iran at the height of their fame? Now, in an enthralling documentary podcast series, the sisters reveal painful secrets unspoken for generations.

I've listened to a pre-release of the first episode, and I can promise this. The Nightingale of Iran is a story that will resonate with listeners because every family has secrets that are buried.

As Danielle Dardashti says in the first episode, "It's a story about identity, belonging, and music." Their investigation promises to reveal painful secrets unspoken for generations.

Danielle Dardashti is an Emmy Award winner and Moth StorySLAM champion. She runs dash. - a consultancy that helps companies tell stories. She's a former on-air TV reporter, a documentary producer, and is co-author of the Jewish Family Fun Book series. Danielle was a fellow in the 2023 Digital Storytellers Lab. 

Galeet is the leader and vocalist of the edgy all-female Mizrahi band Divahn, Dardashti’s “sultry delivery spans international styles and clings to listeners long after the last round of applause,” according to The Jerusalem Report.

Galeet's acoustic/electronic solo project The Naming, supported by a Six Points Fellowship and a Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Fellowship, draws inspiration from the musical and cultural landscapes of the Middle East and some of the provocative yet unsung Biblical women who lived there. The Huffington Post called the album "a heart-stopping effort." The Naming album launched in September 2010.

Galeet also holds a Ph.D. in anthropology, specializing in cultural politics and contemporary Middle Eastern/Arab music in Israel. She is currently Assistant Professor of Jewish Music and Musician-in-Residence at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and she has published widely on her work. She offers residencies, lectures, and workshops on her artistic and academic work.

Danielle is clearly an excellent narrator, and, in the first episode, she tells her family's story with patience, a slowly building crescendo of mystery, family secrets, and political and religious upheaval.

At one point in the first episode, Danielle says to listeners, "I feel as if we are interrogating our parents." As the daughters question their parents about the family's past, their parents become increasingly uncomfortable with the questions and the topic.

Check out The Nightingale Of Iran. It's a superbly crafted podcast documentary that focuses on a family and its long held secrets, while balancing a tale of geopolitical forces that flow like a hidden current through the crevasses of culture and art. 

It's an exploration by two women, Danielle Dardashti and her sister Galeet, of their family roots, mysteries, and events left unspoken for decades.