On April 12, SHUSHANA had the honour of holding its first soirée at Le Club des Poètes in Paris — a place founded in 1961 by the poet and Résistant Jean-Pierre Rosnay, where poetry has long been carried as a form of resistance, presence and human connection.
For almost seven decades, this intimate “Territory of Poetry” has gathered poets, thinkers, artists and listeners around the belief that poetry can resist silence, reopen language, and protect what is most human in us.
It was in this spirit that SHUSHANA opened a first space of correspondence between Jewish and Persian cultures. Born from the desire to create a living archive of letters, voices, images and encounters, SHUSHANA invites words to travel across borders, to shift from one hand to another, and to carry traces of each voice they touch.
We were deeply honoured to listen to Chahla Chafiq, François Bechieau and Rabbi Josh Weiner.
Chahla Chafiq spoke of exile, language, ideology and hope — of histories that continue to mark our bodies, and of the need to build friendship without denying the wounds that surround us.
François Bechieau spoke of fraternity, courage and the hope for a freer, more just and more human world, recalling his own Sephardic Jewish background and his engagement with Iranian, Afghan, Kurdish, Israeli and Palestinian struggles.
Rabbi Josh Weiner reminded us that silence can become part of the discourse of war. To resist hatred, he said, we must begin with words, letters and poetry. He also evoked the deep entanglement of Jewish and Persian histories, from the Talmud to Judeo-Persian texts written in Hebrew letters.
This evening was a beginning — a first act of listening, friendship and poetic resistance.
Thank you to Le Club des Poètes for this space, to our speakers for their generosity, and to everyone who joined us.