As the United States deploys more warships and another 2,500 Marines to the Middle East and Israeli strikes landed in Tehran, Iran launched more attacks on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf Arab states.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was unclear as of Friday how much damage its forces have suffered in the punishing U.S. and Israeli attacks that began Feb. 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country. U.S. and Israeli missiles have struck a range of civilian targets, including hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings.
All told, the East Bay Iranian community is grappling with a high level of stress that one local resident said compares to the pandemic — all during a month when Nowruz, the community’s New Year, is celebrated.
The city’s of Richmond’s Nowruz event, which was to take place March 7, was cancelled at the last minute due to the war, but an Iranian-run performing arts theater on Central Avenue called Central Stage is hosting a Norouz celebration on Sat., March 21.
The theater has been a gathering hub for the Iranian community since the war started, holding weekly listening sessions to mobilize people to be advocates.
If you go
What: Celebrate Norouz (note: holiday spellings vary) and “gather as a community to share feelings, support one another, and celebrate renewal and hope.”
When: Sat., March 21, 5 p.m.-8 p.m.
Where: Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave., Richmond
Tickets: $20, available here
While the Iranian community in this part of the East Bay is smaller, it has a strong presence.
Richmond first Iranian-American city council member, Soheila Bana, who was elected in 2022, told Richmondside the war has been incredibly painful for her and her community.
“It’s been very, very stressful, very worrisome,” Bana said. “It’s a war with no reason, with no justification. It does not make sense why so many people have to go through so much misery.”
She sponsored a resolution that will be considered at the council’s March 24 meeting, calling for the end of the war and asking U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, whose district includes Richmond, to take a similar stand. She also belongs to a nationwide coalition of Iranian-American elected officials who are calling on the federal government to stop the war.
“In these situations it’s not political, it’s a humanitarian issue. It’s about our own humanity. We cannot just stay silent,” Bana said.
Bana, who is in the midst of a reelection campaign, said she understands the nuances among the Iranian community — she, like so many, left Iran in 1985 because of the regime. Bana said despite being top of her class, she wasn’t allowed to attend university because she “wasn’t Muslim enough” when the authorities caught her driving without a headscarf. Her husband Reza Yazdi, a member of the Richmond Human Rights Commission and the Richmond Economic Development Commission, was arrested and almost sentenced to death in Iran because of his political beliefs, she said.
“In these situations it’s not political, it’s a humanitarian issue. It’s about our own humanity. We cannot just stay silent.” — Soheila Bana Credit: Maurice Tierney for Richmondside
Still, the U.S. and Israel’s joint bombardment is not to be celebrated, she said. To her, liberation does not come from things such as bombing an elementary girls school, killing more than 100 children, or by destroying historic cultural spaces such as the 17th-century Chehel Sotoun Palace and the Qajar-era Golestan Palace in Tehran, which is a UNESCO site.
“I’m against the regime 100%. I want democracy, but I want it to happen through civic engagement of Iranian people, not through bombs by Israel and America,” Bana said, emphasizing that Iranians have the right to self determination.
“Democracy cannot be exported, and we came here because of the lack of democracy and freedom in our country,” Bana continued. “And now, guess what? America is becoming something scary, something similar.”
She said as an Iranian, Israel’s lobbying to pressure the United States into the war is destroying Iran and as an American, it is also destroying this country. The federal government spent more than $11 billion in the first week of the war, and lawmakers expect the cost to skyrocket to over $50 billion.
“The money that needs to go to our parks and healthcare system and our children is going to destroy other countries and American soldiers are losing their lives for a war that has nothing to do with them,” Bana said.
Persian language school director offers a healing space
Founder and Executive Director of El Cerrito’s Golestan Education Yalda Modabber has taken a different tone. About half of the staff and students at her school are Iranian, so her focus has been to unify the community and offer healing spaces, rather than take political positions.
“These have been the hardest days for our community, maybe since COVID,” Modabber told Richmondside. “We’ve never experienced anything this extreme.”
She said the fears began during the 12-day war when Israel launched a major air campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities, military sites and regime infrastructure in June 2025. Fears then escalated when deadly anti-government protests erupted in December, resulting in an Internet shutdown that is still in effect, and thousands of arrests and deaths. But the recent days of the war have been especially debilitating for so many teachers in her school.
“A lot of them have very close family members in Iran,” Modabber said. “So our staff has been really having a very hard time, but are being very, very graceful and present with the kids. I think being with the kids is a good way for them to be in the moment and forget they’re really having a hard time.”
She said in addition to giving educators time off when needed, the school director arranged for a grief counselor to come in and hold a grief circle. A community member has offered yoga and meditation for teachers as well.
“We also brought in a friend of mine who does sound baths,” Modabber said. “At the risk of sounding a little ‘woo woo’ we knew that it was something that would be very nurturing and soothing and many teachers showed up for that.”
She said people do have different opinions about the war and the implications, but that divisiveness has not been seen on her campus much. The community is diverse, with even some Israeli staff and students who have come together over the “shared grief,” she said. The school started with a mission to teach not only Farsi, but also Arabic and Hebrew, however it now only teaches Persian, the Iranian dialect of Farsi.
“We started out as a very unique place. It’s a very nurturing, loving community that space has been designed to hold people and to be nurturing,” Modabber said. “Every decision that we’ve made has been around the idea of being kind and compassionate towards each other, and so our community was already in that mindset.”
The school has a Persian language immersion preschool program but its elementary school is taught only in English. There are, however, several elements of Iranian culture that are woven throughout the campus, such as Persian rugs and meals of Iranian dishes prepared for students once a week. Modabber touted that all school meals are locally sourced with a lot of the produce coming from the school’s garden that students help tend.
“One of the things that’s very important to us, again, rooted in our culture, is food. Everybody sits together, family style,” Modabber said. “We have a saying that all the kids stay in Persian, actually, across the school, even in elementary school, that’s showing gratitude for where the food comes from, the hands that brought it, and then the hand that cooked it.”
She said at the end of the day, Iranians on every side of the political spectrum want what’s best for the future of Iran and the people. The division, she believes, is the result of where people consume news.
“We’re living in a very polarized time where people are receiving news that speaks to them that isn’t necessarily giving the full picture. And this hatred that it’s brewing for the other is really frightening to me,” Modabber said. “Personally, I try really hard to recognize that if someone has a different opinion, it’s not that they’re a bad person, that they just have a different perspective and most likely are hearing different news.”
She emphasized that humanity, however, should trump political beliefs. And in times of war, it’s important to remember that under missiles and arms are human beings. She also encouraged non-Iranians to show up for the Iranian community by not shying away from checking in on people and their families.
“When in doubt, it’s OK to reach out,” Modabber said. “To acknowledge that this is a difficult time is important, because by not saying anything, it makes it so that people have to pretend that nothing’s happening, and that’s really difficult.”
Celebrating Nowruz, the new year, at a time of war
On Tuesday night in downtown Berkeley, a large group was amped up and on their feet. The heavy bass and synths from a loud DJ were quickly building tension, and dozens of people, most of them of Iranian descent, knew the beat drop was coming. People were smiling. And then it dropped hard.
“Khameini,” the song blared, “is dead, dead, dead, dead.”
In the middle of Durant Street at the end of a beautiful celebration of Nowruz, the 3,000-year-old new year’s holiday marking the spring equinox and the shift from darkness to light, people jumped up joyfully to the song. Many threw their hands into the air, enveloped in a sense of community.
Then the next line came up.
“Thank you, Trump. Thank you, Bibi.”
Most of the hands came down. A few young people walked away. Some gave wry looks, or showed discomfort. Others kept dancing. The DJ sought to restore the ecstatic feeling by playing “YMCA” by the Village People, President Donald Trump’s theme song.
The celebration arrived 17 days after the U.S. and Israel began a bombing campaign against the Iranian regime that has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei along with other senior leadership.
The mixed reactions at the celebration exemplified the complex, bittersweet feelings many in the East Bay’s Iranian community have had about the war: a sense of relief at the end of an era and a man whose rule was marked with violence, spurring many Iranians to leave their homeland, alongside trepidation and fear about what is to come.
The celebration, known as Chaharshanbeh Suri, or the Festival of Fire, which precedes Nowruz, was hosted by the Persian Center in Berkeley and wove together traditional customs with modern culture. Vendors set up booths along Durant and Shattuck avenues selling Persian cuisine, including Persian ice cream; there was also a taco truck, games for kids, and other activities.
The most exciting part of the night, especially for the kids, was the ritual of jumping over a bonfire as the sun set, welcoming the “warmth and energy of the spring,” as a staffer with the Persian Center described it.
The holiday, which comes from the Zoroastrian religion, includes a traditional song that everyone present seemed to know.
“Zardiyeé man az tō, sorkheyeé tō az man,” they sang, as couples, students, and older folks all laughed, checking their pants and shoes for embers of flame. “May your rosy red glow be mine, and my sickly yellow pallor be yours.”
While most of the American-born or long-time U.S. residents at the event had not been to Iran in years, several in the crowd were recent immigrants. One, Arya Jahan, is a photographer and artist who told us she’d escaped Tehran just three years ago, leaving behind a successful gallery, because she “preferred” to save her life. One day, she bought a one-way ticket to the United States, leaving everything and everyone, including all of her family. Given that Nowruz is often seen as a family holiday, Jahan felt like the night’s celebration didn’t make a ton of sense for her, but she still appreciated being there, sensing that connecting with other Iranians here could lead to a lasting community.
Still, she said, the last three months, starting with the murder of thousands of anti-regime protesters, have been really hard for her, transporting her to her homeland every night as she thinks about the worst.
“I haven’t slept well,” she said. “I wake up every hour sometimes to see what’s going on in Iran.”
But at the Nowruz celebration, with its familiar music and foods, many of those present sought to find flashes of positivity.
A young woman from Concord, who did want to provide her name, said she felt “blessed” to attend a public event in a country that still has many freedoms, including the freedom to wear her hair down without fear of reprisal.
“It’s hard in America, it’s hard everywhere, but I feel like a glimpse of peace in your life is all that matters,” she said. “It’s a very stressful and scary time. If we don’t choose to seek some sort of happiness, then we’re gonna live in that misery right here. So it’s important to make the choice every day.”
The Associated Press and reporter Jose Fermosa contributed to this report.
