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My life of hell in an Afghan harem (Misadventures of Jewish feminist in burkaland)
NY Post ^ | September 21, 2013 | 10:55pm | Phyllis Chesler

Posted on 09/22/2013 2:52:22 PM PDT by Zhang Fei

I once lived in a harem in Afghanistan.

I did not enter the kingdom as a diplomat, soldier, teacher, journalist or foreign aid worker. I came as a young Jewish bride of the son of one of the country’s wealthiest men. I was held in a type of captivity — but it’s not as if I had been kidnapped.

I walked into it of my own free will.

It is 1959. I am only 18 when my prince — a dark, older, handsome, westernized foreigner who had traveled abroad from his native home in Afghanistan — bedazzles me.

We meet at Bard College, where he is studying economics and politics and I am studying literature on scholarship.

Abdul-Kareem is the son of one of the founders of the modern banking system in Afghanistan. He wears designers sunglasses and bespoke suits and when he visits New York City, he stays at the Plaza.

He is also Muslim.

I am Jewish, raised in an Orthodox home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the daughter of Polish immigrants. My dad worked door-to-door selling soda and seltzer.

But none of this matters. We don’t talk about religion. Instead, we stay up all night discussing film, opera and theater. We are bohemians.

We date for two years. Then, when I express my desire to travel, he asks me to marry him.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; islam; midnightattheoasis; muslimwomen; muslimworld; wot
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To: Pollster1
That is so surprising. An exotic romance worked out so well between Barbara Streisand and Omar Sharif.

He was born a Copt. He converted later, but probably only as a matter of convenience.

61 posted on 09/22/2013 6:15:17 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Pollster1
Makes me want to hand out paddle balls in lieu of pay


62 posted on 09/22/2013 6:17:27 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: Zhang Fei

You could be right, from what I understand he was no ball of fire in the earning department, which could be one of the things she b****ed about. Ha Ha!!


63 posted on 09/22/2013 6:19:17 PM PDT by buckeye49
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To: Zhang Fei

If you have never seen this film, it is worth watching starring Sally Field,

Not Without My Daughter

‘You are here for the rest of your life. Do you understand? You are not leaving Iran. You are here until you die.’

Betty Mahmoody and her husband, Dr. Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody (’Moody’), came to Iran from the USA to meet Moody’s family. With them was their four-year-old daughter, Mahtob. Appalled by the squalor of their living conditions, horrified by what she saw of a country where women are merely chattels and Westerners are despised, Betty soon became desperate to return to the States. But Moody, and his often vicious family, had other plans. Mother and daughter became prisoners of an alien culture, hostages of an increasingly tyrannical and violent man.

Betty began to try to arrange an escape. Evading Moody’s sinister spy network, she secretly met sympathisers opposed to Khomeini’s savage regime. But every scheme that was suggested to her meant leaving Mahtob behind for ever


64 posted on 09/22/2013 6:33:50 PM PDT by EBH ( Freeman: A person not in slavery or serfdom.)
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To: Zhang Fei

The love of money... She was attracted to him because of his money and banking business.


65 posted on 09/22/2013 6:35:22 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Maceman

Yep, not really seeing any significant contribution by Muslims throughout the world, at least on behalf of non-Muslims.


66 posted on 09/22/2013 7:22:39 PM PDT by gotribe (Vladimir Putin is MY President)
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To: riri

All of our stories seem so similar. The older sister of a different HS classmate (married an Egyptian Muslim in the medical field, who came to Pitt to study) once posted a really heartbreaking post on our private members only) FB page last year. She said she looks for “Irish looking” young men in the Cairo group photos (her now teenaged nephews). Her sister went there w/husband & kids post 9/11 a d she hasn’t heard from her since. The boys looked like “her side” of family when younger. NO CONTACT w/US family members seems to be with norm.


67 posted on 09/22/2013 7:42:47 PM PDT by PennsylvaniaMom (Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you...)
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To: Spirochete

Most young people are stupid at 18. This is especially so if they are young girls adoringly in love with a handsome husband who is giving them their first real sexual pleasure. In 1959, before the subsequent political problems, it was somewhat understandable. Kabul back then had some real elements of sophistication, and a highly Westernized husband who had treated Chesler like a queen could have been highly believable. Remember that back then most people just could not imagine what Islam was like.


68 posted on 09/22/2013 7:56:31 PM PDT by ottbmare (the OTTB mare, now a proud Marine Mom)
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To: Therapsid
"Bacon is Good,Dogs are nice,Women are people." Amen to that. Sounds like a slogan that should be on a t-shirt or embroidered on a pillow. Perhaps also the words islam with one those NO symbols ⃠ covering it should be printed right after it.
69 posted on 09/22/2013 8:17:44 PM PDT by This I Wonder32460
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To: Spirochete
The article should be titled "Misadventures of Jewish dumbass in burkaland"

Do you read the cartoon 'Pearls before Swine'? Rat's your favorite character, right?

70 posted on 09/22/2013 8:35:45 PM PDT by GOPJ ( Politicians who fear the people seek to disarm them. - - Bill St. Clair)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

Yeah, high risk stuff there. Get caught and you go on a one way trip to the desert.


71 posted on 09/22/2013 8:53:58 PM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Zhang Fei

This may sound racist, but I can’t help feeling like these kind of people have the gene for evil.

While every society has its psychopaths, there doesn’t seem to be a culture of it as there is in the Middle East/Asia Minor.


72 posted on 09/22/2013 8:54:11 PM PDT by MoochPooch (I'm a compassionate cynic.)
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To: Hildy
"almost unrecognizable to me.

Yup

73 posted on 09/22/2013 9:07:24 PM PDT by jpsb (Believe nothing until it has been officially denied)
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To: BwanaNdege

This kind of thing is precisely why young women were guarded more in years gone by. But we can’t have that in the Age of Total Equality, nope, just let your daughter toddle off and pray she makes it back.


74 posted on 09/22/2013 9:18:48 PM PDT by Me1onCollie
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To: fivecatsandadog

I read the whole story. It led to a stronger feeling about it than just the excerpt, knowing that her parents were vehemently against it rather than hippy-dippy types. They knew.


75 posted on 09/23/2013 2:45:55 AM PDT by OldNewYork (Biden '13. Impeach now.)
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To: SaraJohnson

I saw exactly that in college. The foreign students, including the ones from South America and Central America, wined and dined the American college girls. They had fabulous adult type cocktail parties, for which they bought the girls expensive gowns and jewels. The American girls were totally bedazzled and all of them said they were treated like princesses.

Then came the boys’ graduations. Everyone of them broke up with their American girlfriends, told them they had been engaged since childhood to girls from back home and went so far as to tell the American girls that they had just spent 3-4 years being mistresses. Other names were added to that.

Lots of tears and misery in the dorms every June.


76 posted on 09/23/2013 7:16:37 AM PDT by reformedliberal
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To: fivecatsandadog

that is ridiculous

American women in 1959 were not stupid

they knew as much about the world as men ...except vets from WWII

the generational arrogance you just exhibited is foolhardy with all due respect

i think 1950s women were cool as grits

I was born to one


77 posted on 09/23/2013 9:25:17 AM PDT by wardaddy (the next Dark Ages are coming as Western Civilization crumbles with nary a whimper)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

78 posted on 09/24/2013 7:18:38 AM PDT by SJackson ( The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. BF)
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To: Zhang Fei

Chesler has written this story before - I have her book which is at least 10 years old. Thank God she survived. She’s a good writer and very committed to the cause of anti-jihadism.


79 posted on 09/24/2013 7:42:40 AM PDT by miss marmelstein ( Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: rrrod

I have sympathy for them. The women are wined and dined by seemingly Westernized Muslim men but as soon as they get to a Muslim country, they are treated like slaves.


80 posted on 09/24/2013 7:43:32 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.)
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