In 1839 the Jewish community of Mashhad — three hundred families — was forced to convert to Islam in what came to be known as the Allahdad. For more than a century they lived as Anussim: outwardly Muslim, secretly keeping Shabbat behind closed doors. Much of the work of preserving Jewish identity fell to the women — basement synagogues, matzot baked at night and carried under their cloaks, brides' hair plaited and hennaed, children midwived into the world.
My great-grandmother, Haji Bibi Rivka Haruni (1910–1992), lived through it. Born in Mashhad, married at thirteen, mother of eight, she would later write the story of her life by hand in Jadidi (Sephardic cursive). Her husband's grandmother — known to the community as Rahel Mashade — bought off Pesach pogroms with gifts to the chief of the city and ran a secret synagogue out of her basement for thirty years. Her mother-in-law, Rahel Mashade the Second, midwived three hundred babies into the world and quietly taught the women of Mashhad to wash and dress the dead, so the community would not be left without that mitzvah.
When Bibi's husband died suddenly in Bombay, she crossed continents with her children — ten years in Bombay, then London, then Israel after the War of Independence. She lived to see eight grandchildren born free of disguise. The craft she had grown up around — Zardozi, gold and silver hand-embroidery whose very name is Persian (zar for gold, dozi for sewing) — had travelled east from Persia to India centuries before our family did. It carried the warmth of the same land.
In 1993 my mother Liora came to Jerusalem on Erev Yom Kippur. She knew, that evening, that she was home. I was born here — the first of our family born in Israel.
When my military service ended, Liora asked me to join her in giving this embroidery new life: challah covers for Shabbat tables around the world. What began as a conversation between mother and son became, quietly, something we hadn't expected.
In 2024, a Malqeta challah cover was presented to President Isaac Herzog and the First Lady at the President's Residence.
“There is a thread — not only in the fabric — that connects all of this. Zardozi and Bibi share the same journey: both rooted in Persia, both carried through India, both arrived in Israel.”
“These past years have taught us what it takes to stand for our country, and for who we are. For me, Malqeta is that same work in a quieter language — carrying our heritage, our tradition, and our culture forward, proudly and unapologetically.”