Barry Rosen was sitting in a small, dark room, not knowing where he was, what time it might have been—or if he was ever going to get out of there.
He thought about his family: his infant daughter Ariana, born just months earlier; his son, three-year-old Alexander; and his wife, Barbara. He imagined the moment when he would return home and be with them again.
But for now, he was stuck in this room in Iran, all alone. It was entirely black, except for one bit of light coming up from a vent in the wall. In that space, he saw a reflection of a bird on a tree. That same bird would visit him every day, and it became the high point of Barry’s day, a spark of hope in an otherwise devastating situation.
Barry was a hostage, captured during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini forcibly took over the country.
The young husband and father would end up being held hostage for 444 days. During that time, he’d be violently beaten, tortured and mock executed, enduring long-lasting psychological pain that he contends with to this day.
Now nearly 80 years old and living in New York City, he’s advocating for the Israeli hostages and speaking out about his own story, which he hopes can offer insight to those dealing with the current crisis.
Choosing Public Service
Barry grew up in Flatbush and attended Yeshiva Rabbi David Leibowitz for nine years. After graduating from public high school, he majored in public affairs and history at Brooklyn College and was inspired by the words of President John F. Kennedy, who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Kennedy encouraged young people to go around the world and try to improve it, all the while spreading goodwill and boosting the image of the United States.
“I wanted to help people in other lands,” Barry says. “It was idealistic.”
Taking the president’s words to heart, he enrolled in the Peace Corps and was set to go to Pakistan. However, there was a military coup, and he had to change his plans.
“The Peace Corps said, ‘How about going to Iran?’”
He agreed, knowing that Iran was the only democratic Muslim country in the world. He landed in Tehran in May, 1967.
“Tehran was a conglomerate of so many different parts of Iran,” Barry says. “There were more modern and traditional parts, and I was really interested in learning more and more about Iranian culture.”
He was teaching English to police officers during the day, and at night he was taking classes to strengthen his Farsi. In the summertime, he went to work with kindergarten students and prepared new Peace Corps volunteers for their service in Iran.
During that time, a Jewish family welcomed him in and considered him as part of the family.
“There were the parents, two sisters and a brother,” Barry says. “He was in the military service, and I was adopted as a brother. I had a close relationship with them, and they felt secure with me. It’s very important in Iranian society that whenever young girls go out, their brother goes out with them, just in case anything happens. I would serve in place of their brother.”
Barry would travel all over the country and felt safe among the Iranian people.
“The hospitality in Iran was amazing, and the people were very friendly and welcoming,” he says. “They were always very understanding that my Farsi wasn’t perfect, and we seemed to get along very well.”
While people were kind towards Barry, there were several instances where he experienced anti-Semitism.
“Sometimes, when I sat with Iranians, they made remarks like calling me a ‘Yahud,’ which was derogatory. A lot of these notions and ideas came from the Iranian intelligentsia, who spent time in Germany during the 1930s, picked up European anti-Semitism and brought it back into their literature.”
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