The clerics were disdained by the participation of Iran’s Jewish minority, which included my grandfather, in the country’s economic progress. Shortly after Plasco was finished, a Shiite cleric named Mahmoud Taleghani protested over the idea that a Jewish family was the owner of Iran’s tallest building. But my grandfather, who grew up poor in Jewish ghetto, remained very proud of the building, and continued to contribute to the economy by building an aluminum factory that made refrigerators and expanding his plastic factory, which made consumer products that had not been readily available.
