A DIVERSITY OF THANKS : Area Iranians Give Thanks Their Way

At a Ventura Boulevard restaurant and nightspot, a singer serenades in Farsi patrons whose mouths are filled with turkey and potatoes. A belly dancer and her low-slung sequins jiggle and jingle through a mostly American Thanksgiving meal.

At another San Fernando Valley dinner table, turkey is served beside lamb shanks and Aash , a traditional soup of vegetables and noodles.

A little saffron is being thrown into the American melting pot as Iranians mold a holiday of pilgrims and pumpkin pie into something they too can celebrate.

“We don’t have Thanksgiving,” said Yassie Faghani, 32, of Northridge. But Iranians won’t pass up an excuse to celebrate, she explained.

“It’s a good time to be with each other,” said Faghani, who works for the Sherman Oaks-based Iran News weekly magazine. “Iranians are famous to be with friends and guests. It’s a good excuse to be around each other.”

Faghani, who has been in Los Angeles for 2 1/2 years, is spending the holiday at the home of her sister, who has lived in the United States for 16 years.

“We are living in America so we are thankful for living in this country,” she said.

Faghani says her two daughters have been “Americanized” and so the family celebrates Thanksgiving, Christmas, Rosh Hashanah and the Muslim New Year in March and April.

“We have them all,” she said with a laugh. Sometimes she has to remind her daughters that the holidays, except for the Muslim holidays, are not really theirs.

On this occasion, in addition to some Persian foods such as rice and lamb, the Thanksgiving dinner takes on a traditional American flavor. “We cook most of the things, turkey and potatoes, pumpkin pie, whatever it is,” she said.

For many Iranians, the holiday is a chance to dabble in the customs of their new country, while keeping close those of their own. It’s also a chance to throw a ringer of a party.

“They celebrate it but not the concept of Thanksgiving,” Faghani said. Ira Bahrami, editor of Iran News Magazine, is trying to give his countrymen a better idea of the concept.

“We are trying to explain it to our Iranian people what is the basic reason,” he said.

Bahrami writes an article each year giving the history and explaining why Americans celebrate the holiday.

He celebrates the American holiday as well as what he calls the Muslim equivalent of Thanksgiving-- Eide Ghoraban .

Eide means festivity in Farsi, he said. Ghoraban means sacrifice.

“Each year every Muslim gives thanks to God, asks their wishes to come true and to help poor people.

“We have two kinds of festivities. One Iranian, one American,” he said. “We are respectful of both of them.”