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METRO DETROIT CHALDEAN COMMUNITY VOL. 19 ISSUE V <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong><br />
Our<br />
Fathers<br />
CELEBRATING THE<br />
PATRIARCHS<br />
PLUS<br />
Health & Wellness<br />
Back to Iraq Part II<br />
Jamoua vs. Farm Bureau
CONTACT<br />
ELIE MALOUF<br />
LINCOLN<br />
PRODUCT<br />
SPECIALIST<br />
248-530-4710<br />
DISCOVER THE POWER OF<br />
SANCTUARY<br />
www.lincolnoftroy.com<br />
248-643-6600<br />
1950 W Maple Rd.<br />
Troy, MI 48084
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 3
4 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
METRO DETROIT CHALDEAN COMMUNITY | <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> | VOL. 19 ISSUE V<br />
ON THE COVER<br />
18 Our Fathers<br />
Celebrating dads and<br />
patriarchs this Father’s Day<br />
By Sarah Kittle<br />
FEATURES<br />
20 Iraq’s Water Crisis<br />
By Adhid Miri, PhD<br />
24 Jamoua vs. Michigan<br />
Farm Bureau<br />
Lawsuit reveals discrimination<br />
By Cal Abbo<br />
18<br />
26 Chaldean Cold Cases<br />
Fares Fouad Atto<br />
By Crystal Kassab Jabiro<br />
DEPARTMENTS<br />
6 From the Editor<br />
Happy Summer<br />
By Sarah Kittle<br />
8 Guest Columns<br />
Water Safety<br />
By Dr. Jennifer Burlingame<br />
9 Easter in Jerusalem<br />
By Christina Salem<br />
10 Foundation Update<br />
New programs<br />
12 Noteworthy<br />
Steve Francis and the<br />
Sheena brothers<br />
14 Chaldean Digest<br />
Peace, co-existence and ACN<br />
16 In Memoriam<br />
17 Obituary<br />
Sulaiman Hermiz Mansour<br />
38 Culture and History<br />
Worry Beads<br />
By Adhid Miri, PhD<br />
42 Community Profile<br />
Mark Abbo: Northville<br />
Township Supervisor<br />
By Cal Abbo<br />
44 Event<br />
Chaldean Chamber’s<br />
18th Annual Awards dinner<br />
46 From the Archive<br />
Remembering Chaldean<br />
Soccer Clubs<br />
28 Back to Iraq<br />
Part II<br />
By Adhid Miri, PhD<br />
34 The New Stressed Out<br />
Coping with our coping<br />
mechanisms<br />
By Sarah Kittle<br />
28<br />
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 5
FROM THE EDITOR<br />
PUBLISHED BY<br />
Chaldean News, LLC<br />
Chaldean Community Foundation<br />
Martin Manna<br />
EDITORIAL<br />
EDITOR<br />
Sarah Kittle<br />
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS<br />
Cal Abbo<br />
Jennifer Burlingame<br />
Crystal Kassab Jabiro<br />
Sarah Kittle<br />
Dr. Adhid Miri<br />
Christina Salem<br />
ART & PRODUCTION<br />
CREATIVE DIRECTOR<br />
Alex Lumelsky with SKY Creative<br />
GRAPHIC DESIGNER<br />
Zina Lumelsky with SKY Creative<br />
PHOTOGRAPHERS<br />
Dany Ashaka<br />
Wilson Sarkis<br />
SALES<br />
Interlink Media<br />
Sana Navarrette<br />
CLASSIFIEDS<br />
Sana Navarrette<br />
CONTACT INFORMATION<br />
Story ideas: edit@chaldeannews.com<br />
Advertisements: ads@chaldeannews.com<br />
Subscription and all other inquiries:<br />
info@chaldeannews.com<br />
Chaldean News<br />
30095 Northwestern Hwy, Suite 101<br />
Farmington Hills, MI 48334<br />
www.chaldeannews.com<br />
Phone: (248) 851-8600<br />
Publication: The Chaldean News (P-6);<br />
Published monthly; Issue Date: June <strong>2022</strong><br />
Subscriptions: 12 months, $35.<br />
Publication Address:<br />
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Permit to mail at periodicals postage rates<br />
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Postmaster: Send address changes to<br />
“The Chaldean News 30095 Northwestern<br />
Hwy., Suite 101, Farmington Hills, MI 48334”<br />
Happy Summer!<br />
Although it may not feel like it the whole<br />
way through, the season of sun officially<br />
begins this month. June is the host month<br />
for backyard barbecues and lazy days at the beach,<br />
and I for one can’t wait!<br />
June is also the month we celebrate Father’s<br />
Day, some with time-honored traditions like<br />
homemade cards and new neckties. As patriarchs,<br />
fathers are so essential for a happy and well-adjusted<br />
family. Good fathers lead their loved ones<br />
on a straight moral path by example and deed;<br />
great fathers inspire us to model our behavior on<br />
their own. My father was a great man who raised 9 children<br />
to be generous and kind; he was genuinely in love with my<br />
mother for their entire 57 years of married life and pined for<br />
her for almost 3 years after her death. Daddy wrote beautiful<br />
poetry and raised his daughters to stand up for themselves.<br />
He was a stalwart, a sermon, and a song. I miss him dearly.<br />
As we head to the beaches and lakes this summer, it is a<br />
good thing to remember to practice water safety. Thirty seconds<br />
can truly change a life, for better or worse. We can take<br />
all the precautions in the world but knowing CPR is a must,<br />
as Dr. Jennifer Burlingame reminds us in her guest column.<br />
Travel is a topic for the summer months as well, and we<br />
have a guest column on traveling in Jerusalem from Christina<br />
Salem. She was part of a Gishru trip to Iraq, and then<br />
went on to Israel, sharing her experience with our readers.<br />
We also feature the second part of Dr. Miri’s travel reflections<br />
in “Back to Iraq: Part II,” in which he shares stories of his<br />
recent trip back to the homeland.<br />
Other contributions from our esteemed historian this month<br />
include an article on the history of worry beads, related to the<br />
rosary but not quite the same. Worry beads have a prominent<br />
place in many Middle Eastern cultures and Dr. Miri explains<br />
their significance in an informative yet humorous way.<br />
Another subject about which he writes, not so<br />
humorously, is the water shortage in Iraq. Real climate<br />
changes are affecting our planet, and Iraq is among the 5<br />
countries most severely ravaged by the crisis. Once known<br />
as “the land between two rivers,” what happens to the land<br />
SARAH KITTLE<br />
EDITOR<br />
when the rivers run dry? Dr. Miri looks at the root<br />
causes, what we as humans have done to aggravate<br />
the problem, and what some possible solutions<br />
might be. Hint: we have to work together.<br />
New world environs bring new world stressors,<br />
and the things we are doing to cope may be hurting<br />
rather than helping. We cover that in our health<br />
and wellness section and tell you the number one<br />
thing you can do to combat stress. Spoiler alert: it<br />
involves action.<br />
Chaldeans entering the political arena is something<br />
we are very much in support of, and CN’s Cal<br />
Abbo profiles Northville Township Supervisor Mark Abbo<br />
(yes, they are not-too-distantly related) in this month’s issue.<br />
We also continue our coverage of Chaldean Cold Cases;<br />
open police cases where store owners have been murdered<br />
Good fathers lead their loved<br />
ones on a straight moral path by<br />
example and deed; great fathers<br />
inspire us to model our behavior<br />
on their own.<br />
and their killers are still at large. Our hope is that something<br />
will come of these articles and some sort of justice may be<br />
served. These families deserve that.<br />
Also continuing is our “From the Archives” section, this<br />
month focusing on the Chaldean Soccer League. It is so<br />
much fun to look back on these precious memories from decades<br />
past.<br />
Enjoy!<br />
Sarah Kittle<br />
Editor<br />
New York Life Congratulates<br />
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6 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
Join the Chaldean<br />
American Chamber<br />
of Commerce.<br />
Nearly 1,000<br />
Members Strong!<br />
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with opportunity to exhibit<br />
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Chamber website<br />
Business description in Annual<br />
Report/Annual Directory<br />
Ability to host events<br />
Join<br />
today<br />
and refer<br />
a friend!<br />
Now more than ever,<br />
we need each other.<br />
Contact Sana Navarrette at<br />
snavarrette@chaldeanchamber.com<br />
or 248-851-1200 for more information<br />
30095 NORTHWESTERN HIGHWAY, SUITE 101. FARMINGTON HILLS, MI 48334<br />
248-851-1200 • CHALDEANCHAMBER.COM
GUEST COLUMNS<br />
Water Safety Reminder<br />
All it took was thirty<br />
seconds. It was thirty<br />
seconds that my<br />
heart stopped beating because<br />
I realized our reality.<br />
What I thought was going to<br />
be a simple ‘let’s go help a<br />
kayaker get back on her kayak’<br />
turned into something I<br />
still think about to this day;<br />
it invades my dreams. All it<br />
took was thirty seconds for<br />
me to realize that me and<br />
my children would witness<br />
something that, as a mother, I was not<br />
ready for. All it took was thirty seconds<br />
for me to realize that my daughter was<br />
willing to put someone else’s life first.<br />
All it took was thirty seconds for us to<br />
go from ‘Good Samaritans’ to ‘Heroes.’<br />
It was a beautiful summer day in<br />
July. I had just come home from the<br />
gym and my kids wanted to go out<br />
for a pontoon ride. We were visiting<br />
our family in Wisconsin. My husband<br />
moved to Michigan 15 years ago when<br />
we were married, so as often as we are<br />
able, we try to go back and visit. We’ve<br />
made it a tradition to attend a festival<br />
called Country Thunder each summer<br />
with his family. The event took place<br />
that week. This time we stayed in a<br />
lake house where his cousins keep<br />
their boats. We are drawn to water.<br />
My father, an immigrant from Iraq,<br />
ironically found his way to the water as<br />
a teenager. In his early 20s, he bought<br />
his first house on a lake and purchased<br />
his first boat. Who would’ve imagined<br />
that he would go from the desert to the<br />
lake? He became the man that taught<br />
everyone to water ski. He taught me<br />
and my siblings, he taught all my cousins,<br />
and he taught his friends. He became<br />
a lake man. When he passed six<br />
years ago, I took over that role. I love<br />
the water. I love skiing like my dad<br />
did. I love teaching everyone to ski. It’s<br />
a passion and it helps me feel close to<br />
my dad. It was natural for us to gravitate<br />
to the lake. And so, here we were<br />
in Wisconsin on a lake enjoying our<br />
family’s past time.<br />
My husband was on a run, so our<br />
nanny (Terry, who came with us to<br />
DR. JENNIFER<br />
LOUSSIA<br />
BURLINGAME<br />
SPECIAL TO<br />
THE CHALDEAN<br />
NEWS<br />
watch the kids while we went<br />
to the festival), my three kids,<br />
and I took out the pontoon.<br />
It was a perfect lake day and<br />
the kids wanted to go knee<br />
boarding. Because I grew up<br />
boating, it was natural for<br />
me to take the kids out on<br />
the lake. Fortunately for us<br />
and for a certain middle-aged<br />
woman, our nanny had an<br />
eye that helped save a life.<br />
While driving the pontoon<br />
I noticed two kayakers<br />
on my left. This was not typical<br />
as normally they stay close to shore,<br />
especially on a lake that size. They<br />
seemed to be lounging in the middle<br />
of the lake, so I didn’t think anything<br />
of it. Terry also noticed them as she is<br />
an avid kayaker. Her intuition told her<br />
that something was amiss and inevitably<br />
she was right. One of the kayakers<br />
was in the water and Terry told me<br />
there was no way she was getting back<br />
in the kayak easily in open water. So,<br />
despite my son having the best knee<br />
boarding run yet, I stopped the boat to<br />
pull him in. By the time I did so and<br />
turned the boat around, my 30 seconds<br />
had started.<br />
It felt like an eternity to get to them<br />
- one woman screaming at the top of<br />
her lungs for help, the other woman<br />
floating with one leg over the edge of<br />
the kayak. As we got closer, I realized<br />
the second woman was blue and her<br />
head was completely submerged. It<br />
felt like another eternity for me to realize<br />
my children may witness someone<br />
die before their eyes if we didn’t do<br />
something in those next 5 seconds.<br />
I called 911 and tried to stop the<br />
boat; I was at full speed trying to get<br />
there as soon as possible. Before I realized<br />
it, my daughter Maria had jumped<br />
in. MY DAUGHTER JUMPED IN!! She<br />
was 11 years old at the time and one of<br />
the bravest and most empathetic kids I<br />
know, but when she jumped in, I panicked<br />
again.<br />
By the time I could get a life jacket<br />
on and jump in, she had reached the<br />
lady and had her head above the water.<br />
The lady in distress did not have a life<br />
jacket on, and we managed to get one<br />
under her as the kayak floated away.<br />
Together, Maria and I swam her<br />
to the back of the pontoon. And of all<br />
miracles God could have granted us, I<br />
deadlifted a middle-aged, overweight<br />
woman up the ladder steps of the pontoon.<br />
Terry made her way to the stairs;<br />
she had been consoling my boys who<br />
were terrified and unsure what was<br />
happening.<br />
As Terry pulled the woman up by<br />
her hair and I lifted her body, we got<br />
her on the deck halfway, which was<br />
enough to start CPR and ensure she<br />
would not fall back in the water. My<br />
family sat back as I, a trained family<br />
physician, performed CPR on a pontoon<br />
in the middle of a lake. If anyone<br />
would have asked me during my<br />
training if I ever imagined I would be<br />
in that situation, I would have denied<br />
it. Could that have been anyone in that<br />
situation? Yes. Luckily, I knew CPR.<br />
Every adult should know CPR.<br />
By now 3 minutes had passed. Before<br />
the police arrived, other ‘Good<br />
Samaritans’ who heard the screams<br />
came to help. An older gentleman<br />
jumped on the pontoon and drove<br />
us to shore as I continued CPR. By<br />
another miracle, the woman started<br />
coughing. I turned her to her side and<br />
out came the stream of water that had<br />
suffocated her as she tried to get back<br />
in her kayak in open water without a<br />
life jacket. Back came the pink color<br />
to what was once a blue (and surely<br />
dead) face that my children and I will<br />
likely never forget.<br />
The kayaker was transferred via<br />
EMS to a local hospital and regained<br />
consciousness within 24 hours. I did<br />
not know in those 30 seconds that my<br />
daughter and I would save a life. I realize<br />
now that we were way too close to<br />
being witnesses to death by drowning.<br />
It wasn’t until that night that I realized<br />
my daughter could have drowned. I<br />
could have drowned. If that woman<br />
had had any form of consciousness,<br />
she could have drowned us out of hysteria.<br />
It is miraculous to me that she<br />
was that far gone to spare us a struggle,<br />
but not far gone enough to enter the<br />
gates of Heaven. An angel watched over<br />
us that day. I have no words to explain<br />
the rollercoaster of emotions I had that<br />
weekend and still have to this day.<br />
I hope the lessons left behind are<br />
ones we can all learn from. Water safety<br />
knowledge is of utmost importance<br />
and anyone who enjoys the water<br />
should take classes and, at the least,<br />
wear a life jacket when out in deep water.<br />
And lastly, to anyone who is able,<br />
a CPR class would serve in ways one<br />
may never imagine. Thirty seconds<br />
was all it took for me, a physician and<br />
lake lover, to realize the importance of<br />
water safety for all. It may seem intuitive,<br />
yet too many people fail to actively<br />
realize it.<br />
The life you save may be your own<br />
or the life of someone you love.<br />
8 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
Easter in Jerusalem<br />
Easter in Jerusalem<br />
could be summed up in<br />
one word - humbling.<br />
My journey into Israel<br />
began with a stir. As I landed<br />
into the country and began<br />
to go through customs, I encountered<br />
my first challenge:<br />
Iraqi stamps on my American<br />
passport.<br />
I had attended our community’s<br />
version of a birthright<br />
trip called Gishru a week<br />
prior to touching down in the<br />
Holy Land. I was pulled aside and questioned,<br />
asked if I was a Kurd and what<br />
my business was in Israel. Terrorist attacks<br />
in Al-Aqsa and Tel Aviv had taken<br />
place days before and a high-alert<br />
country was on even higher alert.<br />
For the first time in 30 years, all<br />
three Abrahamic religions were having a<br />
shared holy month. With the coming of<br />
Easter, the feast of Passover, and the fast<br />
of Ramadan, tensions were high as were<br />
the spirits of the proud who inhabited<br />
such a psychologically complex land.<br />
After repeated insistence that I was<br />
a Chaldean Catholic wanting to celebrate<br />
Easter with my family, and the<br />
reassurance that I was not a threat in<br />
any way, shape, or form, I was moved<br />
to the next phase.<br />
Following questioning, everyone<br />
passing through was required to pay for<br />
and take another COVID test prior to exiting<br />
the airport. While this would seem<br />
to be an easy process, it is only easy if<br />
there is internet or Wi-Fi connection<br />
over 2G speed, which was a struggle to<br />
obtain throughout the Middle East.<br />
My expressions of excitement and<br />
concern earned me the help of kind<br />
people who wanted to contribute to<br />
moving me along my way as seamlessly<br />
as possible. Completing the test,<br />
I now had to find a way to my hotel.<br />
Many people outside of the airport<br />
looking for transportation dissuaded me<br />
from using a taxi due to the high cost;<br />
however, I found a Canadian woman on<br />
holiday for Passover who I was able to<br />
split cab fare with to get to my hotel.<br />
After settling in, I was eager to explore<br />
the city. It was a challenge to find<br />
CHRISTINA<br />
SALEM<br />
SPECIAL TO<br />
THE CHALDEAN<br />
NEWS<br />
food, because of Passover<br />
and arriving on a Friday, but<br />
I saw a hip little cafe with<br />
an amazing menu. Within<br />
thirty minutes, people were<br />
running and screaming in a<br />
random direction away from<br />
the center square in the city.<br />
A terrorist attack had taken<br />
place about a week ago and<br />
there were imminent threats<br />
more would take place. All in<br />
the name of God.<br />
Tensions were high. I spent<br />
the rest of the night in my room.<br />
I met my uncle the next day at the airport,<br />
and we got in a cab to go to the Old<br />
City, Jerusalem. We stayed at St. Mark’s<br />
The Holy<br />
Scripture<br />
in Sureth<br />
Below: Holy<br />
Sepulchre<br />
Church<br />
Monastery, the apostle Mark’s home and<br />
reported place of the Last Supper.<br />
Walking into this place and seeing<br />
our language written on these walls<br />
was surreal. Walking in the footsteps<br />
of Jesus was transformative. There<br />
was an indescribable feeling of peace<br />
and serenity – unfortunately, one that<br />
wouldn’t last for long.<br />
As the days went by and holidays<br />
were celebrated, I personally experienced<br />
a lot of negativity.<br />
I was catcalled, spit at for being<br />
Christian, cussed out, sexually harassed,<br />
disturbed in the middle of the<br />
night by protests, chants, and loud<br />
“booms;” discriminated against,<br />
searched, scammed, yelled at, witnessed<br />
beatings and more. Passing<br />
through the Stations of the Cross<br />
throughout the different quarters of<br />
Jerusalem was chilling. It reminded me<br />
that peace and serenity had rarely ever<br />
existed here historically. It felt like I was<br />
in biblical times with better technology.<br />
I was somewhat traumatized to say<br />
the least. Toward the very end, waking<br />
up in the morning came with grown<br />
men screaming and fighting with each<br />
other at disturbingly early hours, every<br />
hour, until everyone staying in the<br />
monastery could silence them.<br />
I was in the holiest land, yet it felt<br />
like what was missing most was God.<br />
Everyone around me seemed to hate<br />
thy neighbor. Each sect and group felt<br />
like they were entitled, correct, eager<br />
for power and hungry for dominance,<br />
so they constantly fought with each<br />
other. Yet everything around me was<br />
still beautiful. The presence of Jesus<br />
was still so clear and unassuming.<br />
Even in places where there was terror,<br />
a countenance of grace was offered.<br />
Entitlement led to much humility, power<br />
balanced in forms to create a still harsh<br />
coexistence, and the innocence of the<br />
sacrificial lamb (symbolic of why we eat<br />
pacha and take communion). This was<br />
what I signed up for - Easter in Jerusalem.<br />
The city of peace; a pilgrimage made permanent<br />
by inking it on my arm.<br />
Christina Salem is an Assyrian Chaldean<br />
journalist who documents and shares<br />
her journeys across the world.<br />
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 9
FOUNDATION UPDATE<br />
Ascension Primary Care<br />
Clinic Now Open on<br />
Tuesdays<br />
The Ascension Chaldean Community Foundation Primary Care<br />
Clinic extended their office hours to include Tuesdays from 8:00<br />
am-5:00 pm. The new hours for the facility are Monday-Thursday<br />
from 8:00am-5:00pm.<br />
The Ascension Chaldean Community Foundation Primary<br />
Care Clinic is accepting new patients. If you are aiming to switch<br />
your primary care physician, call the Ascension Clinic at 586-738-<br />
9475 to schedule your appointment.<br />
New Grant Helps<br />
Aging Chaldeans<br />
The Chaldean Community Foundation (CCF) is proud to announce<br />
that the Michigan Health Endowment Fund awarded a $99,796<br />
grant to translate and adapt a program to reduce falls for Michigan’s<br />
aging Arabic-speaking population.<br />
The Chaldean Community Foundation is one of 57 Community<br />
Health Impact projects that have received support, with grant<br />
awards ranging from $34,000 to $100,000. The grants support<br />
health-focused, community-driven initiatives taking place in every<br />
region of Michigan.<br />
The CCF is grateful for the funding and looks forward to providing<br />
more assistance to our aging population.<br />
Healthy Living<br />
From above:<br />
Macomb Community<br />
College nursing students<br />
gather for a group photo.<br />
Macomb Community<br />
College nursing student<br />
showing an event<br />
participant how to read<br />
their pulse.<br />
Learning Nutrition<br />
Left: Ascension<br />
Chaldean Community<br />
Foundation Primary<br />
Care Clinic is open to<br />
new patients.<br />
Above: The exam<br />
room at the Ascension<br />
Primary Care Clinic.<br />
The Chaldean Community Foundation, in<br />
partnership with Macomb Community College<br />
nursing students, hosted a Healthy Living<br />
Workshop on April 27.<br />
The event featured over 30 participants<br />
and started with Macomb Community College<br />
nursing students sharing statistics about heart<br />
health, risk factors and demographic statistics.<br />
New Programming<br />
Helps Expectant<br />
and New Moms<br />
The Chaldean Community Foundation is debuting<br />
new programming that is tailored to<br />
new and expectant mothers.<br />
Programs include lactation classes and nutritional<br />
classes and will involve a community event<br />
that will be held at the Chaldean Community<br />
Foundation on August 3 from 3:00pm-6:00pm.<br />
Topics for the community event will include<br />
Home Safety, Preparing Healthy Meals, Wellness,<br />
How to Stay Healthy During Pregnancy, Caring<br />
for Your Newborn, Proper Car Seat Fitting, and a<br />
Touch-a-Truck experience for children.<br />
For more information, contact the Chaldean<br />
Community Foundation at 586-722-7253.<br />
The discussion focused on topics including<br />
anxiety, depression, and how to develop<br />
healthy habits and lifestyles.<br />
The event concluded with community<br />
members interacting with the student nurses<br />
and practicing their newfound techniques for<br />
monitoring general health such as taking one’s<br />
pulse, monitoring blood pressure and more.<br />
MSU Extension’s Food and Nutrition Program has started a new<br />
6-week program with the CCF’s Breaking Barriers B.E.A.M. project<br />
regarding nutrition and healthier eating habits.<br />
The students enjoyed learning more about the food pyramid<br />
and going over subjects such as portion control, healthy recipes<br />
and more. The goal of the program is to cultivate healthy diets for<br />
the community and create resources to learn more about maintaining<br />
a healthy lifestyle.<br />
Left: MSU Extension Staff worked<br />
with B.E.A.M. Project Students to<br />
prepare healthy food.<br />
Above: A B.E.A.M. Project<br />
participant enjoying the lesson.<br />
10 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 11
NOTEWORTHY<br />
Pope condemns human trafficking at conference<br />
involving Church leaders, police<br />
BY INÉS SAN MARTÍN<br />
ROME – Human trafficking and modern-day<br />
slavery have long been at<br />
the top of Pope Francis’s agenda, as<br />
shown at a meeting with the Santa<br />
Marta Group, a coalition of police forces<br />
and the Catholic Church created to<br />
fight the problem.<br />
Thanking the group for their work,<br />
the pope said that the commercialization<br />
of human beings is a “criminal<br />
activity that violates the dignity and<br />
rights of men, women and children,”<br />
leaving long-lasting effects upon the<br />
victims and society.<br />
The pontiff condemned the fact<br />
that modern forms of slavery continue<br />
to spread, “even within the most<br />
developed areas of our world,” and<br />
called on the international community<br />
to increase its fight against human<br />
trafficking, taking into consideration<br />
“a number of broader realities,” including<br />
the use of technology and social<br />
media, “as well as the need for a<br />
renewed ethical vision of our political,<br />
economic and social life, one centered<br />
not on profit but on persons.”<br />
Steve Francis is the acting executive<br />
associate director for Homeland<br />
Security Investigations, the investigative<br />
arm for the U.S. Department of<br />
Homeland Security.<br />
It is estimated that 40 million<br />
people around the world are victims<br />
of human trafficking. Francis said it is<br />
a global problem that requires a local<br />
solution.<br />
“This international forum will allow<br />
us to be more strategic around the<br />
world,” he said. “Law enforcement is<br />
not the solution alone: We cannot arrest<br />
our way out of these crimes. We need to<br />
focus on victims first and foremost.”<br />
– Crux<br />
Steve K. Francis, a leader of investigations at the U.S. Department of Homeland<br />
Security, speaks as representatives of the Santa Marta Group hold a news<br />
conference at the Vatican after a meeting with Pope Francis May 19, <strong>2022</strong>.<br />
PHOTO COURTESY JOE SHEENA.<br />
PizzaPapalis owner<br />
to appear and prepare<br />
pizza on ‘The Talk’<br />
BY SUSAN SELASKY<br />
Brothers Joe and Mark Sheena founded and co-own several<br />
PizzaPapalis locations in metro Detroit and one in Toledo, Ohio.<br />
Detroit-style pizza is getting some national<br />
attention. Joe Sheena, the cofounder<br />
and co-owner of PizzaPapalis,<br />
appeared recently on the CBS daytime<br />
show “The Talk” in a pizza competition.<br />
He competed against Andy Brown<br />
and his New York-style pizza from Andy’s<br />
Pizza in Washington, D.C.<br />
“They just called me out the blue,”<br />
Sheena said. “They wanted a Detroit<br />
operator.”<br />
While PizzaPaplis is known for<br />
its deep-dish Chicago-style pizza, Joe<br />
shared the restaurant’s Detroit-style<br />
pizza. Several years ago, Sheena created<br />
and added Detroit-style pizzas to<br />
the PizzaPapalis menu.<br />
On the show, he made PizzaPapalis’<br />
The 313 Detroit-style pizza, featuring<br />
pepperoni, bacon and yellow<br />
pepper rings. The 313 is their most<br />
popular pizza, Sheena said. He also<br />
made a vegan pizza as well.<br />
“I am so excited about it,” Sheena<br />
said. I am excited because it shows off<br />
a little bit of my talents. And not only<br />
that. I do want to represent Detroit. “<br />
Sheena and his brother Mark<br />
started PizzaPapalis more than three<br />
decades ago. There are several metro<br />
Detroit locations and one in Toledo,<br />
Ohio. Its flagship location in Greektown<br />
permanently closed this year.<br />
–Detroit Free Press<br />
12 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 13
CHALDEAN DIGEST<br />
Cardinal Louis<br />
Sako and Al-Azhar<br />
Grand Imam<br />
Ahmed El Tayeb<br />
Extremists represent<br />
neither Islam<br />
nor Christianity:<br />
Al Azhar Grand Imam<br />
CAIRO: Ahmed El Tayeb, Grand Imam<br />
of Egypt’s top Islamic authority,<br />
Al-Azhar, said that extremists represent<br />
neither Islam nor Christianity,<br />
and that the ‘brotherly relationship,’<br />
moderation and respect for the other<br />
is the only thing that strengthens the<br />
bonds and save humanity.<br />
He added during meeting with Patriarch<br />
of the Chaldean Catholics and<br />
head of the Chaldean Catholic Church<br />
Cardinal Louis Raphaël I Sako, that Al<br />
Azhar is keen to continue the Islamic-<br />
Christian dialogue and address ideas<br />
that trouble societies, especially with<br />
regard to relations between Muslims,<br />
Christians, and followers of other beliefs.<br />
The Grand Imam added that Al<br />
Azhar rejects the “minorities” term<br />
and prefers to replace it with that of<br />
“citizenship” which implies the status<br />
of freedom with accompanying<br />
responsibilities and equality in rights,<br />
duties, and social responsibility.<br />
In turn, Sako hailed Tayeb’s steps<br />
to spread the culture of peace and coexistence.<br />
– Egypt Today<br />
Ressurection Mass in Basra<br />
Aid to the Church in Need calls on<br />
international community<br />
After years helping rebuild homes and church infrastructure,<br />
AID to the Church in Need (ACN) is<br />
issuing an urgent call to the international community<br />
to help guarantee peace and stability in Iraq,<br />
as necessary conditions for economic development<br />
and job creation that will help communities,<br />
including Christians, to stay in their homeland.<br />
The appeal has been made by Thomas Heine-<br />
Geldern, executive president of Aid to the Church in<br />
Need (ACN), fresh back from a visit to the country.<br />
The past few decades have been very hard on<br />
Christians in Iraq. Economic and political uncertainty,<br />
coupled with large-scale persecution that<br />
culminated in the rise of the ISIS, led to a massive<br />
exodus which reduced the Christian population<br />
from over 1 million to between 150,000 and<br />
250,000 today.<br />
But according to Heine-Geldern the current<br />
mood is finally one of hope in a brighter future:<br />
“When I visited in 2014, everybody was scared with<br />
the advance of ISIS, but the mood, and the cooperation<br />
and solidarity, were excellent. Then, in 2018,<br />
I found the community very depressed. Now, however,<br />
there are signs of hope, and there are many<br />
requests to support the development of the country,<br />
including Kurdistan and the different villages and<br />
towns inhabited by Christians.”<br />
The role of the international community is crucial<br />
in helping Iraqi institutions ensure peace, and<br />
economic and political stability, and ACN will continue<br />
to make sure that Iraqi Christians are not forgotten,<br />
said Heine-Geldern during an online press<br />
conference hosted by ACN May 9, under the title<br />
“Iraq: A time of Christian revival?”<br />
The recently inaugurated Al-Tahira secondary<br />
school in Qaraqosh, and the students’ scholarships<br />
for the Catholic University in Erbil, two<br />
projects to which ACN is heavily committed, are<br />
examples of this new approach.<br />
– Felipe D’Aillez, Churchinneed.org<br />
14 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 15
IN MEMORIAM<br />
Nada Yahya<br />
Yacoub<br />
Sep 25, 1968 –<br />
Mar 30, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Ahlam Faranci<br />
Dickow<br />
Jul 4, 1949 –<br />
Apr 1, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Mike Mikha<br />
Nagara<br />
Apr 25, 1952 –<br />
Apr 1, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Latifa Jappaya<br />
Zeituna<br />
Jul 1, 1942 –<br />
Apr 2, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Malik Shamoun<br />
Dec 1, 1937 –<br />
Apr 4, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Suzan Khoshaba<br />
Isshaq<br />
Nov 18, 1979 –<br />
Apr 5, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Jalila Shallal<br />
Kainaya<br />
Jun 23, 1938 –<br />
Apr 5, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Esho Yohana<br />
Sawa<br />
Jul 1, 1957 –<br />
Apr 5, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Shukria Pattah<br />
Mikhail<br />
Jul 1, 1938 –<br />
Apr 5, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Salwan Saleem<br />
Katoola<br />
May 16, 1977 –<br />
Apr 6, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Michael Steven<br />
Sinawi<br />
Sep 29, 1985 –<br />
Apr 6, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Hayat Hermiz<br />
Toma Abdo<br />
Apr 10, 1936 –<br />
Apr 6, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Dawood Bahnan<br />
Dawood<br />
Jul 1, 1935 –<br />
Apr 8, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Jamila Shounia<br />
Jouja<br />
Jul 1, 1939 –<br />
Apr 9, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Nizar Hanna<br />
Katoula<br />
Feb 15, 1951 –<br />
Apr 9, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Mukhlis Murad<br />
Mona<br />
Apr 10, 1958 –<br />
Apr 10, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Mary Matti<br />
Jul 1, 1928 –<br />
Apr 10, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Musa Farhat<br />
Oct 11, 1939 –<br />
Apr 10, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Salim Sulymun<br />
Khumo-Safar<br />
Jul 1, 1971 –<br />
Apr 11, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Bassam<br />
Alsamak<br />
Jun 23, 1975 –<br />
Apr 15, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Farida Ajluni<br />
Rabah<br />
May 5, 1927 –<br />
Apr 15, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Najla Meza<br />
Jul 1, 1939 –<br />
Apr 16, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Najeba Salem<br />
Amseeh<br />
Sep 1, 1947 –<br />
Apr 19, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Muneer Naem<br />
Hasso<br />
Oct 10, 1927 –<br />
Apr 20, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Laith Solyman<br />
Boudagh<br />
May 13, 1970 –<br />
Apr 20, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Kamal Naoum<br />
Oraha<br />
Oct 13, 1949 –<br />
Apr 20, <strong>2022</strong><br />
George Petros<br />
Shamoon<br />
Jul 1, 1931 –<br />
Apr 21, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Sabri “Bahi”<br />
Shango<br />
Jul 1, 1946 –<br />
Apr 20, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Shawqi Jurjis<br />
Kachi<br />
Jun 5, 1937 –<br />
Apr 23, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Iklass Brikho<br />
Zeer<br />
Jun 30, 1957 –<br />
Apr 24, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Katreena Kasmikha<br />
Shammo<br />
Apr 6, 1932 –<br />
Apr 25, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Rakia Mansour<br />
Tossa<br />
Sep 14, 1948 –<br />
Apr 25, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Taimo Korail<br />
Yohana<br />
Jul 1, 1926 –<br />
Apr 26, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Sahira Bashi<br />
Jul 1, 1950 –<br />
Apr 26, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Shawqi Aziz<br />
Farhat<br />
Jun 27, 1938 –<br />
Apr 27, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Talal Alsayeeg<br />
Nov 27, 1947 –<br />
Apr 27, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Jalal Faraj<br />
Kilano<br />
Jul 8, 2948 –<br />
Apr 28, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Achila Marooki<br />
Hermiz Kamacha<br />
Jul 1, 1924 –<br />
Apr 29, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Margaret<br />
“Moggie” Hesano<br />
Jan 1, 1934 –<br />
Apr 29, <strong>2022</strong><br />
Nazie Baba<br />
Masho<br />
May 18, 1949 –<br />
Apr 30, <strong>2022</strong><br />
16 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
OBITUARY<br />
Sulaiman Hermiz Mansour<br />
Sulaiman Hermiz Mansour was born on June 1, 1923<br />
and passed away on April 20, <strong>2022</strong>. He was preceded<br />
in death by his parents, Hermiz and Miriam;<br />
four brothers George, Hanna, Faraj, and Joseph;<br />
and three sisters Sarah, Katrina, and Agatha. He is survived by his wife of 64<br />
years, Joan; three children, Phyllis, David, and Nancy (Michael) May; and loving<br />
grandchildren Brian and Mark May. Sulaiman was a teacher of French for over<br />
thirty years, studied in France on a Fulbright Scholarship through the University<br />
of Michigan, and was also given a scholarship from Purdue University to study<br />
in Grenoble, France. He enjoyed his family, reading, and gardening, and was<br />
an active member of Saint Alphonsus Catholic Church in Dearborn, Michigan.<br />
He was an ordained Deacon at Mother of God Chaldean Catholic Cathedral in<br />
Southfield, Michigan. He will be missed by many family members and friends.<br />
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 17
COVER STORY<br />
Our Fathers<br />
Celebrating dads and patriarchs this Fathers Day<br />
BY SARAH KITTLE<br />
Father’s Day is just around the<br />
corner. It’s a good time of year<br />
to take a look at all that fathers<br />
do for us, and how richer our lives are<br />
because of them. I’m talking fathers,<br />
dads, daddies, papas, and priests,<br />
too! After all, the annual day celebrating<br />
dads started out as a religious<br />
holiday.<br />
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the<br />
Patriarch of the Chaldean Church,<br />
was educated by Dominican Fathers<br />
and published a book on the Church<br />
Fathers. The role of the father is so important<br />
in the Church that the Pope is<br />
called the Holy Father.<br />
The term “father” for a priest has<br />
its origins in the monastic world of<br />
the medieval period. The head of a<br />
monastery was an “abbot,” meaning<br />
the father of the community. Over<br />
the centuries, the abbots were almost<br />
always priests, and ordinary people<br />
referred to the monastic clergy in general<br />
as “the fathers.”<br />
Aside from the name itself, priests<br />
are referred to as “father” for multiple<br />
reasons: as both a sign of respect and<br />
because they act as spiritual leaders in<br />
our lives. As the head of a parish, each<br />
priest assumes the spiritual care of his<br />
congregation. In return, the congregation<br />
views him with filial affection.<br />
The Apostle Paul compared himself<br />
to a father when he wrote in 1<br />
Corinthians 4:14-15, “I am writing this<br />
not to shame you but to warn you as<br />
my dear children.”<br />
Although it was originally observed<br />
as a religious holiday, Father’s<br />
Day has become as commercialized<br />
as Mother’s Day in America. According<br />
to Encyclopedia Britannica, the<br />
first recorded Father’s Day was June<br />
19, 1910. Now celebrated on the third<br />
Sunday in June as legislated by then-<br />
President Richard Nixon in 1972, Father’s<br />
Day has quickly become the<br />
go-to holiday for backyard barbecues<br />
and golf-related gifts.<br />
Two dramatic national events<br />
pushed Father’s Day to the forefront:<br />
The Great Depression and World War<br />
II. The Great Depression was the worst<br />
economic downturn in the history of<br />
the industrialized world, lasting from<br />
1929 to 1939. It began after the stock<br />
market crash of October 1929, which<br />
sent Wall Street into a panic and<br />
wiped-out millions of investors.<br />
Over the next several years, consumer<br />
spending and investment<br />
dropped, causing steep declines in<br />
industrial output and employment<br />
as failing companies laid off workers.<br />
By 1933, when the Great Depression<br />
reached its lowest point, some 15<br />
million Americans were unemployed<br />
and nearly half the country’s banks<br />
had failed.<br />
As companies struggled to survive,<br />
promoting gifts of socks or<br />
neckties for hardworking, struggling<br />
fathers became a marketing plan.<br />
Father’s Day provided families the<br />
opportunity to show their appreciation<br />
for the patriarchs in their life.<br />
According to History.com, economists<br />
estimate that Americans spend more<br />
than $1 billion each year on Father’s<br />
Day gifts. That’s a whole lot of appreciation!<br />
A supportive father boosts selfconfidence<br />
and gives the child a role<br />
model. More than mere providers, fathers<br />
are usually the moral compass<br />
(good or bad) for a family.<br />
Traditionally serving as financial<br />
providers for the family, men have it<br />
tough. They are more likely to struggle<br />
with alcoholism and depression<br />
than their female counterparts. They<br />
wrestle with feelings of inadequacy<br />
and failure, especially when their<br />
means of providing is threatened.<br />
Fathers carry much more than just<br />
a wallet; they carry kids to bed and<br />
in from the car when traveling. They<br />
give piggy-back rides and boosts up,<br />
and they chase and toss and roar and<br />
stomp. Impacting child development<br />
in numerous ways, active dads may<br />
increase the intellect of their children<br />
by interacting and playing games<br />
with them. I once read that fathers’<br />
rough house play actually stimulates<br />
brain cell growth!<br />
The modern role of father has become<br />
more of a partner than a patriarch.<br />
With so many women also in the<br />
workplace, men have had to step up<br />
and cover school functions, doctors’<br />
appointments, and the like. Today’s<br />
dads are aware of their kid’s social<br />
life, who their friends are, and what<br />
they enjoy doing in their “off” time.<br />
Still holding the traditional role<br />
of patriarch, however, are our parish<br />
priests, bishops, and cardinals. They<br />
remain the moral compass and role<br />
models they have always been. Regarding<br />
the spiritual role, the father<br />
has the huge responsibility to portray<br />
Jesus Christ on earth and to his family.<br />
The father is the one within the<br />
family context who must ensure that<br />
God is worshiped and obeyed.<br />
In todays’ uncertain times, it is<br />
more important than ever that we follow<br />
the guidance of our “fathers” and<br />
celebrate their contributions to the<br />
family. God uses the Christian father<br />
as an instrument for instruction and<br />
discipline, in which God commands<br />
and administers.<br />
In regard to harmonious coexistence<br />
between creeds, the Chaldean<br />
Patriarch appealed to Christians’<br />
vocation “to help others to open<br />
themselves; we must be prepared,<br />
be courageous and not be afraid.”<br />
The Church “has the duty to explain<br />
the faith in a clear way. Dialogue and<br />
respect are necessary. Unity doesn’t<br />
mean uniformity,” he commented.<br />
The Bible is full of instructions to<br />
fathers. “Fathers, do not exasperate<br />
your children, instead, bring them up<br />
in the training and instruction of the<br />
Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). A wise father<br />
seeks to make obedience desirable<br />
and attainable by love and gentleness.<br />
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train a child in<br />
the way he should go, and when he is<br />
old, he will not turn from it.”<br />
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako is a<br />
true example of a leader and a father<br />
figure. A few years ago, in a message<br />
sent to AsiaNews, the cardinal called<br />
on the clergy to “show our believers<br />
the meaning of fatherhood” as “human<br />
and spiritual care with sensitivity<br />
and tenderness rather than roughness<br />
and criticism.”<br />
Sako recently received members<br />
of the International Federation of<br />
Minority Media and Human Rights<br />
to discuss the Iraqi Bill of Rights, in<br />
order to ensure that every person is<br />
recognized as equal and of importance<br />
under the law. In a sermon he<br />
gave to the faithful within the past<br />
few weeks, he focused on family ties,<br />
patience, and endurance. “Where is<br />
the love, sacrifice and self-denial?”<br />
the Patriarch asked. “These Christian<br />
principles should be the center of our<br />
lives.”<br />
18 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
CHALDEAN COMMUNITY<br />
FOUNDATION<br />
Thinking about babies<br />
In partnership with Think Babies Michigan and the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC), the<br />
Chaldean Community Foundation [CCF] will be offering education and identifying resources for prenatal<br />
moms, new moms, and their babies. Pre & post-natal yoga, lactation, and nutritional classes are just<br />
a handful of classes moms can attend to support their health and nurture their babies. Watch for our<br />
community event on August 3, <strong>2022</strong>, from 3:00pm – 6:00pm to include - Home Safety; Preparing Healthy<br />
Meals; Wellness; How to Stay Healthy During Pregnancy; Caring for Your Newborn; Proper car seat fitting<br />
and a Touch a Truck experience for children.<br />
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 19
FEATURE<br />
Iraq’s Water Crisis<br />
BY ADHID MIRI, PHD<br />
Water is life, and life exists<br />
because of water. As a<br />
chemist and also an Iraqi,<br />
the H2O molecule has a special meaning<br />
for me. Iraq, where water used to<br />
be abundant, is facing an incredible<br />
crisis. This article examines the impact<br />
of climate change on water resources<br />
and the ensuing economic and political<br />
challenges in the Euphrates-Tigris<br />
basin shared by the countries of Iraq,<br />
Iran, Syria, and Turkey.<br />
Known as “the land between the<br />
two rivers,” Iraq has enjoyed access to<br />
plentiful water since the dawn of civilization;<br />
however, most of Iraq’s water<br />
supply either originates from or passes<br />
through neighboring countries.<br />
Iraq’s main sources of water are<br />
the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers,<br />
providing 98% of the country’s surface<br />
water. Both rivers originate in<br />
Turkey while the Euphrates passes<br />
through Syria and some tributaries<br />
flow through Iran. Both the Tigris and<br />
Euphrates have dropped to precariously<br />
low levels, creating consequences<br />
such as public health concerns, decreased<br />
agricultural productivity, and<br />
political unrest.<br />
Alongside rivers, groundwater is<br />
Iraq’s second most important supply<br />
of water, albeit underutilized. Unfortunately,<br />
in the future groundwater is<br />
expected to decline significantly due<br />
to increased salinization.<br />
The water policies of Turkey and<br />
Iran have reduced Iraq’s water supply,<br />
affecting agriculture and increasing<br />
water pollution in most areas of<br />
the country. In addition, Iraq’s rising<br />
population, government mismanagement<br />
of water, and climate change<br />
also affect Iraqis’ access to water. The<br />
current trends do not bode well for the<br />
country’s water security.<br />
Iraq’s extreme vulnerability to climate<br />
change can be seen in the rapidly<br />
declining rainfall rates, which<br />
have fallen 25% to 65% below normal<br />
levels, leading to prolonged drought<br />
periods. Iraq is also experiencing<br />
its second driest season in 40 years<br />
due to record low rainfall. Since the<br />
1980s, water flows from the Euphrates<br />
and Tigris Rivers have decreased by<br />
30%. This water flow is expected to<br />
decline even further, by 50% (Euphrates)<br />
and 25% (Tigris) by 2025.<br />
Adding to the problem is the construction<br />
of dams, reservoirs, and irrigation<br />
projects by Iraq’s upstream<br />
neighboring countries, Turkey and<br />
Iran. The question of dams and their<br />
impact on downstream regions is a vital<br />
one in Iraq and Iran, where the Tigris<br />
and its tributaries are an economic<br />
lifeline in an arid region.<br />
The UN Environment Program<br />
reported in 2018 that Iraq was losing<br />
around 25,000 hectares of arable<br />
land annually.<br />
The article focuses on three different<br />
risks that are affected through<br />
climate-related water challenges: livelihoods<br />
and food security; political<br />
stability and violence; and international<br />
conflict and cooperation.<br />
The impact of climate change<br />
Iraq is listed among the countries most<br />
prone to climate change. Temperatures<br />
there have risen significantly and<br />
following three years of drought, the<br />
rains did not fall at all in the provinces<br />
this year. The country needs several<br />
seasons of abundant rainfall which it<br />
is unlikely to receive.<br />
Of key importance to the future of<br />
Iraq is dealing with water scarcity and<br />
the degradation of water quality in its<br />
rivers and groundwater. The new Economic<br />
Monitor’s special focus calls<br />
for dramatic sector reforms to capture<br />
opportunities and manage risks. A fall<br />
of 20% in Iraq’s water supply and the<br />
related declining crop yields that accompany<br />
climate change could reduce<br />
real GDP in Iraq by up to 4%, or $6.6<br />
billion in US dollars.<br />
According to the Iraqi government,<br />
average annual rainfall has become<br />
less predictable since the 1970s<br />
and has decreased by 10% in the last<br />
20 years. Scholars estimate that by<br />
2050 precipitation will decrease by<br />
25% in Iraq, which will intensify desertification.<br />
Iraq relies on flood man-<br />
20 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
agement in agricultural areas and has<br />
built several dams to protect large cities<br />
from flooding, which unfortunately<br />
makes water more susceptible to evaporation.<br />
This decrease in water supply has<br />
been compounded by a steep rise in<br />
the population in the past few decades.<br />
By the end of 2020, Iraq’s population<br />
surpassed 40 million, although<br />
the rate of growth has declined in the<br />
past 10 years.<br />
At the same time, the Iraqi government<br />
has subsidized the price of water,<br />
leading to overconsumption and<br />
waste by Iraqi citizens. Iraqis consume<br />
392 liters per capita daily, while the<br />
international average is 200 liters per<br />
capita. Without reform in water pricing,<br />
overconsumption and undersupply<br />
will almost certainly continue.<br />
One in five Iraqis is employed in<br />
the farming industry. The water crisis<br />
has left many without an income and<br />
has forced others to find work elsewhere.<br />
This affects not only the farmers<br />
but the thousands of Iraqis who<br />
rely on the food they produce.<br />
Canals branching out of the Tigris<br />
which are typically used to water<br />
rice, wheat, and barley fields have run<br />
dry, leaving fields barren. In a country<br />
where an estimated fifth of the population<br />
participates in agriculture, this<br />
has been particularly devastating.<br />
Some farmers have been reduced from<br />
cultivating 60 hectares of land to five.<br />
In fact, the water crisis in Iraq prompted<br />
the government to suspend rice<br />
farming entirely.<br />
If Iraqis have access to water, it is<br />
often unsafe for consumption. Basra, a<br />
governorate of approximately 4 million<br />
people, has been hit hard by the water<br />
crisis. The region has suffered from a<br />
lack of reliable clean drinking water<br />
for the past 30 years, relying mostly on<br />
the Shatt al-Arab River and its smaller<br />
canals for water; however, upstream<br />
damming has diverted river water for<br />
use on sugar plantations and other agricultural<br />
projects. This combined with<br />
decades of decreasing rainfall levels<br />
has created a severe lack of clean water<br />
in Basra. 120,000 residents required<br />
hospital treatment in just one year due<br />
to contaminated water. According to<br />
the organization Human Rights Watch,<br />
the Iraqi government often fails to warn<br />
citizens about the dangers and presence<br />
of poor water quality.<br />
Many Iraqis are dissatisfied with<br />
the government due to the water crisis.<br />
They believe that Iraq’s government<br />
should have done more to protect water<br />
security by building dams of their<br />
own. In a country racked by instability<br />
and violence, recent protests over the<br />
government’s mishandling of water<br />
left nine dead, hundreds injured and<br />
many more detained in prison.<br />
Compounding the problem, mismanagement<br />
and corruption have derailed<br />
promised government projects<br />
to improve water quality. Authorities<br />
have also failed to provide residents<br />
with adequate information to protect<br />
themselves in the event of a future<br />
crisis that experts say is inevitable.<br />
These combined failures violate Basra<br />
residents’ right to water, sanitation,<br />
health, information, a healthy environment,<br />
and property (land and<br />
crops) guaranteed under international<br />
law as well as national law.<br />
Turkey and Iran’s water squeeze<br />
Perhaps the most complicated challenge<br />
is the role that Iran and Turkey<br />
play in siphoning Iraqi water flow. Iraq<br />
was considered a water-rich country<br />
until the 1970s, when Turkey began<br />
building dams, significantly decreasing<br />
Iraq’s water supply. The Turkish<br />
government initiated the Southeastern<br />
Anatolia Project, building 22 dams and<br />
19 hydraulic power plants for developing<br />
southeastern provinces. They have<br />
been unwilling to negotiate an agreement<br />
with Iraq and Syria regarding<br />
water allocation.<br />
While decreasing Iraq’s water supply<br />
overall, Turkey can also cut the water<br />
flow downstream on short notice.<br />
For example, in the 1990s, Turkey increased<br />
the water level in the Ataturk<br />
dam without notifying Syria and Iraq.<br />
Turkey, now roughly fifty years<br />
into its dam-building project, has begun<br />
power production from its newly<br />
constructed Ilisu Dam, one of the largest<br />
in the country, giving the Turkish<br />
government significant control over<br />
water flow on the Tigris River. This is<br />
in addition to dams on the Euphrates<br />
in Syria and Turkey.<br />
Turkey’s ongoing dam projects<br />
have received considerable press coverage<br />
and their effects on Iraq may<br />
be greater from a purely hydrological<br />
perspective; however, Iran’s projects<br />
are particularly notable for the ways<br />
in which they entangle the two countries’<br />
relations. These projects indicate<br />
political dynamics within Iran that are<br />
also likely to have an impact on Iraq’s<br />
future as Iraq’s current prime minister<br />
seeks to navigate through what he has<br />
recently called a “tightrope between<br />
U.S. and Iranian interests.”<br />
Iran’s domestic water policies are<br />
largely the source of crisis developments<br />
on the Sirwan (Deyala) and<br />
Little Zab Rivers. The country lacks a<br />
comprehensive water policy, but the<br />
Iranian government claims official<br />
ownership over all the country’s waters,<br />
with local people entitled to priority<br />
for use.<br />
With 600 dams built in Iran and<br />
more planned, the waters of rivers<br />
such as the Karun and Karkheh have<br />
been diverted to stay within Iranian<br />
territory and no longer flow into Iraq.<br />
These diversions have not only decreased<br />
the water flow to Iraq but have<br />
also increased salinity.<br />
Recent talks between Iraq and Iran<br />
have addressed issues over dredging<br />
the Shatt Al-Arab waterway, which defines<br />
the southernmost section of the<br />
Iran-Iraq border. It is unclear whether<br />
the two countries can reach agreements<br />
about other waterways like the<br />
Sirwan and the Little Zab. Iran has<br />
demonstrated, through its delivery of<br />
water to Iraqis in Basra, and its continued<br />
support for destabilizing militant<br />
factions in Iraq, that an ordered, legally<br />
binding agreement is not as useful<br />
to its regional vision as is the exploitation<br />
of turmoil in Iraq.<br />
The geological engineering of land<br />
and political manipulation of water<br />
WATER on page 22<br />
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 21
FEATURE<br />
WATER from page 21<br />
resources are likely to have negative<br />
effects both up and downstream.<br />
Iran has called on Iraq to irrigate and<br />
manage dry regions of the country<br />
where they claim desertification has<br />
produced newly intensified sandstorms<br />
that blow into Iran, polluting<br />
its own water supplies.<br />
Acute water shortages in Iraq<br />
threaten to increase security concerns<br />
by impoverishing rural communities,<br />
increasing population growth in urban<br />
slums, and providing fertile grounds<br />
for recruitment into Salafi jihadist organizations<br />
like the Islamic State.<br />
The Iraqi government threatened<br />
to internationalize the water crisis by<br />
submitting a formal complaint to the<br />
United Nations if Iran continues to<br />
limit the water. However, the government<br />
did not follow through and failed<br />
to formulate any viable alternative options<br />
for dealing with Iran or Turkey.<br />
Mismanagement and internal conflict<br />
The deteriorating quality and declining<br />
availability of water in Iraq<br />
no doubt has adverse effects on the<br />
Iraqi people. The United Nations International<br />
Organization for Migration<br />
reported in 2019 that 21,314 Iraqis<br />
had been internally displaced in<br />
Iraq’s southern and central governorates<br />
due to lack of potable water.<br />
Moreover, Iraqi President Barham<br />
Salih warned that Iraq might face<br />
a deficit of 10.8 billion cubic meters of<br />
water annually by 2035 and that 54%<br />
of Iraq’s arable land is under threat<br />
because of increased salination.<br />
Although agriculture contributes<br />
less than 5% of gross domestic product,<br />
it employs nearly one-third of<br />
Iraqis who live in rural areas. Iraq’s<br />
agricultural sector will face a severe<br />
blow in the future because of decreased<br />
water levels.<br />
Given this pressure, tension between<br />
tribes over water is on the rise.<br />
The lack of water in southern governorates<br />
such as Maysan and Dhi<br />
Qar (Nassiriyah) and recurrence of<br />
droughts are the main drivers of local<br />
conflict. The United Nations reported<br />
in 2013 that nearly daily incidents of<br />
confrontations, including clashes<br />
or verbal arguments, were recorded<br />
in 38 locations in Baghdad alone.<br />
And there have been water-related<br />
conflicts among Arabs, Kurds, and<br />
Turkmen in Kirkuk.<br />
There has been contention at the<br />
provisional level as well. Officials<br />
from Maysan and Muthanna governorates<br />
have expressed their discontent<br />
toward governorates to their<br />
north, saying they were taking more<br />
than their share of water.<br />
Iraqis have tried to leverage their<br />
control over the water supply domestically.<br />
The Kurdistan Regional Government<br />
(KRG), which lies in the north<br />
and controls much of the water flow<br />
to other parts of Iraq, threatened to<br />
reduce the water supply over political<br />
disagreements with the central government<br />
in Baghdad in 2016. The KRG<br />
also cut the flow of water to Arab governorates<br />
after Iran reduced the water<br />
supply to the Little Zab River in 2018.<br />
Despite the gravity of the situation,<br />
the Iraqi government’s response to the<br />
water crisis has been modest because<br />
of inherent weakness and limited solutions.<br />
Numerous domestic problems<br />
have taken the government’s attention<br />
away from formulating a viable strategy<br />
to address water shortages. The<br />
focus of the Iraqi government over the<br />
past two decades has been fighting<br />
terrorism, dealing with strong militias<br />
allied with Iran, and tackling corruption,<br />
thus neglecting other priorities.<br />
For example, Iraq has lagged in the agricultural<br />
sector, and the government<br />
has not done enough to modernize irrigation<br />
methods.<br />
Depleted flows in the Sirwan are<br />
now affecting over 8,000 acres of<br />
farmland in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate<br />
alone. Aside from irrigation,<br />
it is possible that drinking water in<br />
towns like Qalat Daza and Raniyah<br />
in Sulaymaniyah Province will be<br />
threatened.<br />
Death of a lake<br />
The Mesopotamian marshlands in<br />
southern Iraq were once the largest<br />
wetland ecosystem in Western Eurasia.<br />
But after years of drought and<br />
political turmoil, they are in danger<br />
of disappearing.<br />
Iraq’s Lake Sawa is no longer a<br />
lake. It has completely dried up; this<br />
unique water spot that was located<br />
in the middle of the arid Muthanna<br />
Desert for thousands of years has<br />
disappeared. Iraqis called the salty<br />
lake the “Pearl of the South,” and its<br />
water contained minerals used for<br />
medicinal purposes. The Muthanna<br />
Province has seen 3 years of drought,<br />
which significantly contributed to the<br />
lake’s disappearance.<br />
Lake Sawa existed in a closed basin,<br />
meaning it wasn’t fed by any river<br />
or stream, which explains a rise in<br />
salt concentration and encroaching<br />
sandstorms detrimental to the lake’s<br />
existence. For centuries the lake was<br />
home to at least 31 bird species including<br />
gray heron and ferruginous<br />
duck, and a hub for fishing and recreation.<br />
Until the 1990s the water<br />
level of the lake was normal, and the<br />
lake turned into a tourist facility for<br />
the people of the governorate. Now<br />
left in its place is cracked soil and a<br />
dry lakebed with a small pond in the<br />
middle. Abandoned hotels and tourist<br />
facilities speckle the shoreline.<br />
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands,<br />
a global treaty, recognized<br />
Sawa as “unique ... because it is a<br />
closed water body in an area of sab-<br />
22 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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kha (salt flat) with no inlet or outlet.<br />
The lake is formed over limestone<br />
rock and is isolated by gypsum barriers<br />
surrounding the lake; its water<br />
chemistry is unique,” says the convention’s<br />
website.<br />
Sawa is not the only body of water<br />
in Iraq facing the perils of drought.<br />
Other dead water reserves in the last<br />
two years include Lake Hemrin and<br />
the Abou Zarag Marshes. UNESCO<br />
listed the Howeiza Marshes in the<br />
Shia’a south and Razzaza Lake in the<br />
central province of Karbala as other<br />
endangered landmarks. The marshes<br />
and the lake are a stopover for migratory<br />
birds. This expanse of water was<br />
once home to several globally vulnerable<br />
species such as the eastern<br />
imperial eagle, houbara bustard and<br />
marbled duck. Hundreds of families<br />
used to rely on fishing the Razzaza for<br />
their livelihood. Now the number of<br />
dead fish that turns up is bigger than<br />
the number of live fish they can catch.<br />
With the death of Lake Sawa, Iraq<br />
lost a cultural landmark, a rare environmental<br />
and biodiverse area that<br />
was once rich in fish, marine animals,<br />
and migratory birds. A former school<br />
instructor from the area sums up the<br />
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eco-system disaster: Colors: “I am 60 years 4/Cold,<br />
and I grew up with the Format: lake. I thought 1/4 Page I Ad<br />
Version: 05.06.22<br />
would disappear before it, but unfortunately,<br />
it has died before me.”<br />
Live: NA<br />
The solution<br />
Climate change and development in<br />
the Euphrates -Tigris basin is a 21st<br />
century challenge for Middle Eastern<br />
countries. No easy solution for the<br />
water crisis in Iraq exists. Progress<br />
will require international cooperation<br />
and dialogue to address the Syrian<br />
and Turkish dams that starve Iraqi<br />
portions of the Tigris and Euphrates.<br />
Iraq is also in desperate need of aid<br />
to build its own water infrastructure.<br />
In July 2019, Turkey published<br />
a detailed report regarding its plan<br />
to assist Iraq through the crisis. Turkey<br />
plans to take three critical steps<br />
to alleviate the strain placed on its<br />
southern neighbor: They will allow<br />
more water to flow into Iraq from the<br />
Tigris and the Euphrates; to help rebuild<br />
infrastructure, Turkey will provide<br />
financial aid.; and finally, they<br />
promise to train Iraqi engineers and<br />
technical personnel on wastewater<br />
treatment and hydrology.<br />
Although the water crisis in<br />
Iraq seems dire, steps are already being<br />
taken to rectify it. UNESCO is partnering<br />
with the Iraqi government to<br />
reform the water management sector<br />
and improve irrigation systems.<br />
The agency is assisting the Ministry<br />
of Water Resources’ efforts to<br />
expand the capabilities of water<br />
management experts, strengthen the<br />
institutions which impact water resource<br />
management, and create a national<br />
policy for water sustainability.<br />
Additionally, UNESCO addressed<br />
the water crisis in Iraq through improvements<br />
to irrigation systems,<br />
often utilizing ancient methods that<br />
have existed in the region for millennia.<br />
In the northern Kurdish governorates,<br />
for instance, UNESCO has<br />
worked to restore the Kariz (Qanat-<br />
Canal) system, an ancient method of<br />
providing drinking water and agricultural<br />
irrigation.<br />
The agency is also collaborating<br />
with officials in the Kurdistan Regional<br />
Government to train workers in the<br />
water management field and provide<br />
hydrological testing equipment.<br />
Conclusion<br />
Seven million people in Iraq are at<br />
risk because of a lack of water and<br />
the crisis is only intensifying. Political<br />
divisions and corruption within<br />
successive Iraqi governments as well<br />
as social divisions in Iraq have contributed<br />
to the neglect of important<br />
issues such as water.<br />
To reverse or at least halt the current<br />
negative trends the Iraqi government<br />
will need not only to come to<br />
an agreement with its much stronger<br />
neighbors over water rights, but also<br />
to commit to a long process of major<br />
domestic political, economic, and social<br />
reforms, including water use and<br />
pricing.<br />
Time is running out. Long-term solutions<br />
to Iraq’s water challenges are<br />
less than clear and time is not on its<br />
side. If action is not taken today, we<br />
may live to see the death of the Tigris<br />
and Euphrates.<br />
Additional sources: Wikipedia,<br />
articles by Hamza Shareef, Massaab<br />
Al-Aloosy, Nabeel Darweesh, Ashraf<br />
Al-Saeed, Mustapha Mohammed<br />
Gharib, Clarissa Cooney, Kyle Linder,<br />
Al-Sumaria news, the Cascade project<br />
report. Special editing by Jacqueline<br />
Raxter and Rand Isaq.<br />
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 23
FEATURE<br />
Jamoua v. Michigan<br />
Farm Bureau:<br />
Lawsuit Reveals Discrimination<br />
Against Chaldeans<br />
BY CAL ABBO<br />
Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court denied<br />
Michigan Farm Bureau’s appeal for summary<br />
judgment, sending the case to trial. Al Jamoua,<br />
the plaintiff and a former MFB agent, claims the insurance<br />
company discriminated against Chaldean<br />
and Arab agents and customers.<br />
Jamoua’s suit, which includes testimony from<br />
several other agents, alleges several illegal practices<br />
by MFB and its managing partners ranging from outright<br />
discrimination to dubious loss ratios and rate<br />
hikes in Sterling Heights zip codes where many Chaldeans<br />
live.<br />
MFB did not respond to a request for comment.<br />
Jamoua and his legal team said they are pleased with<br />
the court’s decision and look forward to the trial.<br />
Jamoua began his career at MFB in 2011. By many<br />
metrics, such as policies sold, Jamoua was a successful<br />
agent and built his personal book of business to<br />
a value of nearly $3 million. Around the end of 2017,<br />
Jamoua received pushback from some of MFB’s managing<br />
partners.<br />
Specifically, Jamoua claims he was told to avoid<br />
selling insurance policies to people from “his culture.”<br />
As an agent with several years of experience and deep<br />
roots in the Chaldean community, Jamoua said he refused<br />
to follow the directive. “It’s against my principle<br />
to select people,” he said in a deposition. He also has<br />
deep roots in the Chaldean community, from which he<br />
draws a large percentage of his clients.<br />
Tom Sokol worked as a MFB agent for seven years<br />
and was deposed in the lawsuit. In two separate<br />
meetings with MFB managing partners, they named<br />
specific Arab and Chaldean agents, including Jamoua,<br />
and told Sokol that they sell too many policies<br />
to their “own people.” Sokol recalls the partner saying<br />
that one agent, Sal Yaldo, “tends to write a lot of<br />
his own people, and he needs some help with that.”<br />
Sokol also said MFB targeted locations with a<br />
high number of Middle Eastern customers for rate<br />
increases. Managing partners would joke, he said,<br />
about zip code 48310 because it has a high population<br />
of Middle Easterners. 48310 describes eight<br />
square miles between Dequindre and Mound and extends<br />
from 14 Mile Road to 18 Mile Road. Many Chaldeans<br />
live in this area.<br />
Another agent, Antonio Asmar, said he rarely<br />
wrote policy in that zip code because of the prices. He<br />
also testified that it was common knowledge to avoid<br />
the area because of the high and uncompetitive rates<br />
assigned by MFB.<br />
Asmar mentioned a training video he was showed<br />
by the special investigative unit division at MFB. The alleged<br />
purpose of the training was to teach new agents<br />
how to spot insurance fraud. The video was about a<br />
well-known Chaldean who owned a collision shop and<br />
was convicted for insurance fraud.<br />
“He kept saying he was Chaldean over and over,”<br />
Asmar said. “I just thought it was inappropriate. I<br />
don’t know why that video had anything to do with<br />
insurance fraud.” As the only Chaldean in the training<br />
session, the video made Asmar uncomfortable,<br />
and he thought the message might be to stay away<br />
from Chaldean collision shops.<br />
Loss ratio<br />
In 2019, MFB formalized their directive that some<br />
agents avoid selling to Middle Easterners. This came in<br />
the form of the Auto Loss Initiative (ALI), which placed<br />
a few agents in a program that required more scrutiny<br />
and bureaucratic approval for new and existing clients.<br />
Agents under ALI had to receive approval from a<br />
managing partner to write auto insurance. Of<br />
the five agents selected for the program, two<br />
are Chaldean, one is Arab, one is Albanian,<br />
and one is a Russian Jewish immigrant.<br />
MFB justified these decisions by appealing<br />
to loss ratios. An agent’s loss ratio<br />
measures the value of claims paid out compared<br />
to the premiums paid by clients. If an<br />
agent’s ratio is over 100%, it means MFB<br />
paid out more money in claims than it<br />
collected in premiums. The goal, according<br />
to MFB, is for agents to keep<br />
their loss ratios below 60%.<br />
MFB reported that Jamoua’s loss<br />
ratio was 171% in 2016 and 124.6%<br />
in 2017. The comments Jamoua received<br />
about avoiding people from<br />
his own culture occurred in the context<br />
of loss ratio concerns. Tom Sokol<br />
said he understood the managing<br />
partners to hold the stereotype<br />
that Middle Eastern clients would<br />
have higher loss ratios than others.<br />
To any insurance agent, a loss ratio this high<br />
would be very troubling, so Jamoua did some digging.<br />
He called some of his clients who recently<br />
filed a claim. In one example, Jamoua learned from<br />
the client that MFB only paid around $6,000 for the<br />
claim but would register a $60,000 loss.<br />
Jamoua found out that MFB put a large reserve<br />
on the loss report in case of any future expenses that<br />
would come from the claim. This could include, for<br />
example, a medical expense that was filed later on.<br />
Another agent, Al Mullalli, explained that MFB<br />
attached an automatic $30,000 reserve loss to any<br />
claim where the client reported discomfort or soreness.<br />
The issue, however, is that the reserve was<br />
never taken off the claim; instead, that money still<br />
counted against the agent’s loss ratio. Mullalli reported<br />
drastic changes in his loss ratio over a very<br />
short period of time – from 109% to 37.5% just before<br />
MFB issued a new agent contract.<br />
Other agents in the ALI reported similar drops in<br />
their loss ratios around summer 2020. As a result, Jamoua<br />
and his legal team speculate that the loss ratios<br />
could be arbitrary.<br />
In addition to his being part of the ALI, Jamoua’s<br />
entire client base was subject to re-underwriting by<br />
MFB. This meant that every auto and home policy, almost<br />
all of which belonged to Chaldean clients, was<br />
probed as if it were a new application. Jamoua said he<br />
believes some people in MFB’s underwriting department<br />
discriminated against Chaldean customers and<br />
agents by asking for additional documentation or cancelling<br />
policies for no reason.<br />
Sokol remembers a time when an underwriter<br />
made a comment about a Middle Eastern customer<br />
having a funny name. “They asked me if it was a<br />
claim waiting to happen like it was a joke,” he said.<br />
Sokol noted that this happened more than once.<br />
All of these issues culminated in Jamoua’s<br />
policy writing stagnating at very low numbers.<br />
He was doing just a small fraction of the business<br />
he had in prior years and was suffering<br />
financially for it. The managing partners offered<br />
a sort of severance pay for agents in the<br />
ALI who wanted to leave, since their business<br />
was suffering so much.<br />
Jamoua said he fell into a dire<br />
financial situation as a result.<br />
He had to leave his office and<br />
sell his home. MFB offered<br />
Jamoua only $120,000 over<br />
10 years essentially if they<br />
could have his book, which<br />
Jamoua refused. In January<br />
2020, Jamoua filed this<br />
lawsuit; a few days later,<br />
he left MFB.<br />
Thankfully, Jamoua’s<br />
career is healthy once<br />
again and he has resumed<br />
writing insurance policies<br />
with a different agency.<br />
24 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 25
FEATURE<br />
Chaldean Cold Case: Fares Fouad Atto<br />
BY CRYSTAL KASSAB JABIRO<br />
Fares Fouad Atto<br />
One day, a frustrated Roxanne<br />
Atto called her father Fares upset<br />
about her car. She had taken<br />
it to the collision shop of his friend<br />
for service and it was going to cost her<br />
more than she had. Her dad tried to<br />
calm her down and even offered to pay<br />
for the rest of it. Roxanne was angry<br />
with him. She was short – by her own<br />
admission, just mean. That was Roxanne’s<br />
last memory of him. A couple<br />
of days later, he was shot in cold blood<br />
through the glass door of his store.<br />
She has not talked about his murder<br />
since. Not to her mom or her brothers<br />
or her relatives or her friends or<br />
even her husband. It hurts so much<br />
she just wants to tuck it away as if it<br />
never happened.<br />
“In my mind, my dad is somewhere<br />
far away, and it’s just too much,” Roxanne<br />
remarked. “The reality is that my<br />
dad was shot in the face and there’s<br />
been no justice. It’s just unfair.”<br />
Fares Atto was born on September<br />
19, 1957, and grew up in Dora in Baghdad,<br />
Iraq. In 1979 or 1980, he escaped<br />
to Italy as a refugee. It was there he<br />
met another refugee named Alishwa<br />
who left in 1980 for Texas in America.<br />
Two years later, Fares also immigrated<br />
to the United States, but to Michigan.<br />
He kept in touch with Alishwa and was<br />
able to visit her a few times, and after<br />
she relocated closer to him in Chicago,<br />
Illinois, they got engaged. The couple<br />
married in Detroit and had three children:<br />
Ramen, Ramiz, and Roxanne.<br />
As was so common in the Chaldean<br />
community in the 20th century, Fares<br />
learned the store business by working<br />
for relatives and family friends. Eventually,<br />
he and his brothers owned their<br />
own stores together.<br />
On that fateful night of December<br />
19, 2011, Fares was locking up Star Liquor<br />
in River Rouge, a high-crime area<br />
right outside the city of Detroit. An unidentified<br />
person shot Fares through<br />
the glass door with a .45 pistol, hitting<br />
him in the cheek. Miraculously, Fares<br />
called the police himself and was able<br />
to walk into the ambulance, even sitting<br />
upright on the way. However, he<br />
died shortly after he arrived at the hospital,<br />
having lost a great deal of blood.<br />
Ramen, Fares’ oldest son, was at<br />
Greektown Casino working as a dealer<br />
when his brother Ramiz called him with<br />
the horrific news. They were devastated;<br />
at no time had they ever envisioned anything<br />
like this would ever happen.<br />
“I never thought much about the<br />
store being dangerous,” Ramen said.<br />
“I was more worried about my brother,<br />
a Marine, being on the front lines in<br />
Iraq. I never expected my dad to die.”<br />
The killer stole Fares’ car, took it<br />
for a ride, and then ditched it with the<br />
keys. The River Rouge Police Department<br />
dusted the car for fingerprints<br />
and got nothing. Robbery was never<br />
considered a motive because Fares’<br />
wallet was found with money in it.<br />
Ramen saw the video of the shooting<br />
for himself about a month or two later.<br />
According to him, the alleged killer’s<br />
ex-girlfriend snitched him out, but without<br />
hard evidence, it was just her word<br />
against his, and there was no further<br />
investigation. There was also word that<br />
it was a sort of revenge killing meant for<br />
someone else, but there were not enough<br />
leads. It quickly became a cold case.<br />
Feeling helpless, Ramen moved<br />
on, claiming there was only so much<br />
he could do. “I miss him a lot,” he affirmed.<br />
“If I could tell him something,<br />
I’d tell him he has the most beautiful<br />
grandchild in the whole world.”<br />
Fares loved kids, and it saddens<br />
Ramen that his seven-year-old son<br />
Fares visiting Alishwa (Liz) for the first time since last seeing her in Italy, September 1982.<br />
Liam never got to meet his grandfather.<br />
Roxanne feels like that was the<br />
most significant stage of life her dad<br />
was deprived of – being a grandfather.<br />
Fares adored his mother and his<br />
siblings and was very close to them,<br />
and he would do anything they asked<br />
of him. A true family man and wellrespected<br />
business owner in the River<br />
Rouge community, he also loved sports<br />
and watching the horse races.<br />
Roxanne admits that at the time<br />
of her father’s murder, she did not appreciate<br />
her parents and that she acted<br />
entitled, especially at the time of that<br />
last encounter with her dad. She now<br />
spends all her free time with her mother,<br />
citing it was a lesson learned ever<br />
since that dreadful December night.<br />
“Don’t forget, these people we love<br />
could be gone in a second,” she attested.<br />
If you or someone you know has<br />
any information on this case, please<br />
contact the River Rouge Police<br />
Department at 313.842.8700.<br />
26 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 27
FEATURE<br />
Back<br />
to Iraq<br />
BY ADHID MIRI, PHD<br />
Part II<br />
In many countries throughout history, thousands<br />
of villages have been deserted for a variety of reasons.<br />
Abandonment of villages is often related to<br />
epidemic, famine, climate change, economic depression,<br />
war, environmental destruction, or in the case<br />
of the Islamic State genocide in 2007 and 2014, deliberate<br />
ethnic cleansing.<br />
On my recent journey to Iraq, I visited Christian<br />
villages like Tel-Keppe (Telkaif), Alqosh, Batnaya,<br />
Telskuf, and Baqoofa. These villages had mostly<br />
been spared from modern development. Riding<br />
around the old part of these towns one can see old<br />
mud and brick homes, which was the style before the<br />
age of concrete. The old homes blend perfectly with<br />
the colors of the surrounding landscape.<br />
These little villages are good places to meet local<br />
people. Visiting the town market, public cafes, and<br />
churches increases the chances of meeting someone<br />
who speaks the Sureth dialect and wants to practice<br />
their English.<br />
If you are looking for a souvenir of your trip, vases<br />
from the small towns are very popular. But these are<br />
not just ordinary vases; prior to refrigeration, these<br />
vases were a kitchen standard, dating back thousands<br />
of years. Vases were found by the Iraqi Directorate<br />
of Antiquities that date back to before 2000 BC.<br />
Tel-Keppe<br />
Tel-Keppe is a compound Aramaic name. It consists<br />
of “Tel,” which means hill and “Keppe,” which<br />
means stones. Thus, the meaning of Tel-Keppe is “the<br />
hill of stones.” According to Fr. Michael Jajjo Bizzi,<br />
there are Assyrian and Akkadian remains that are<br />
still waiting to be uncovered there.<br />
The town has changed and sprawled over recent<br />
years. The old village seems to have been abandoned,<br />
although chickens roam here and there. I wandered<br />
in and out of the abandoned houses and went up on<br />
the roof of one that faces the main church. It had once<br />
belonged to my grandmother’s brother, Namou Arabo.<br />
I looked out over the neighborhood, seeing the<br />
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and the main<br />
cemetery, Maqbarat Tel-Keppe, situated nearby the<br />
church and close to the famous Tel-Keppe tahini.<br />
Fields of wheat surround the village on all sides.<br />
Tel-Keppe is an interesting place; you can walk<br />
down the deserted streets of a town that once had a<br />
population of nearly 10,000 people. You can feel a<br />
true atmosphere from the old past.<br />
Today, the demographically changed village is a<br />
Author Dr. Adhid Miri points out the sign welcoming visitors to Alqosh.<br />
shadow of its glorious past. It is featured in numerous<br />
poems and songs that describe the decline of a village<br />
and the emigration of many of its residents to America.<br />
The town of Tel-Keppe has faced Arabization since<br />
the early 60s. Under the Ba’athist rule Arabs began<br />
moving to Tel-Keppe while Chaldeans began moving<br />
to the big cities of Iraq, mainly Baghdad and Basra.<br />
The ISIS offensive in 2014 made things even worse for<br />
the town’s remaining residents. Most of its people fled<br />
to the Kurdistan region or fled Iraq entirely, allowing<br />
more Arabs to settle in the town.<br />
In August 2014, the town was taken over by the Islamic<br />
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), along with<br />
the nearby towns of Batnaya, Telskuf, Bakhdaida/Qaraqoosh,<br />
Bartella, and Kramlesh. ISIS looted homes<br />
and removed crosses and other religious objects from<br />
the churches. The Christian cemetery in the town was<br />
later destroyed.<br />
ISIS’s occupation of 12 Christian-inhabited towns<br />
between 2014 and 2017 was the peak of this insurgency.<br />
Prior to the invasion, Tel-Keppe was a thriving town, rich<br />
with ancient culture and a population of 5,500. Since<br />
the invasion and eventual fall of ISIS in that region,<br />
only 47 families have returned, finding their homeland<br />
ravaged and their ancient cemetery in pieces.<br />
Life after ISIS has been difficult for the people of<br />
Tel-Keppe and presents tragic challenges for Christianity<br />
in Iraq. The most pressing needs are in the villages<br />
rather than the major cities. Economic development<br />
tops the list. There is zero support from the KRG<br />
or central government.<br />
Saving the cemetery<br />
Maqbarat (Cemetery) Tel-Keppe is an historic landmark.<br />
Knowing the importance of this heritage site,<br />
ISIS destroyed the cemetery, inflicting unthinkable<br />
damage on Iraqi Christians’ cultural heritage.<br />
This destruction of heritage was an integral part<br />
of the ISIS campaign. The centuries-old cemetery of<br />
Tel-Keppe, located on a hill behind the main church,<br />
was erased by bulldozers. Graves and monuments<br />
from the site were damaged during the rampage.<br />
The city’s main church, containing centuries-old<br />
manuscripts, was also ravaged.<br />
For me, the cemetery was a sad sight to see. In their<br />
ruthless campaign ISIS completely demolished the site,<br />
digging up every grave in search of gold, rings, necklaces,<br />
and other jewelry. They found only bones and burial<br />
28 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
cloth. Three families restored and fixed their burial sites<br />
but most of the graveyard is still in disrepair.<br />
Thanks to years of hard work and the dedication<br />
of the Shlama Foundation, its donors and 40 Michigan<br />
volunteers, portions of the rubble have been<br />
cleared. The entrance to the cemetery has been repaired<br />
and the sacred cross that stood at its gate for<br />
centuries has been carefully restored and re-erected.<br />
Sidewalk reconstruction, installation of water<br />
pipes, and a motor for the well at the site are now completed<br />
as the first phase of the Tel-Keppe Cemetery<br />
Project, but there is still plenty of work to be done.<br />
The church situation in Tel-Keppe is another sad<br />
story. There are three churches located on the same<br />
ground: the small old church that was fully burned<br />
down by ISIS; the middle church, which is restored<br />
and usable; and the large original church, which is<br />
abandoned and was used by ISIS as an ammunition<br />
and storage warehouse.<br />
I had to switch vehicles, drivers, and security<br />
detail in order to go through two checkpoints (KRG<br />
and central government) beyond Telskuf to enter<br />
Tel-Keppe and Baqoofa and return. I was required to<br />
speak Arabic fluently to go through one checkpoint.<br />
I met a few local Chaldeans, Sufian Abro and Sefwan<br />
Jarbo, along with the town priest, Father Shahir.<br />
Basim Bello, originally from Alqosh, has been the<br />
mayor of town for the last 18 years.<br />
Less than 50 Christian families live in the town,<br />
which is now dominated by Muslims, Yazidis, and<br />
Shabaks.<br />
Mayor Basim Bello has a plan to restore part of<br />
the old village homes and streets including 12 family<br />
neighborhoods - Abro, Asmar, Dikho, Giezy, Shayota,<br />
Samouna, Shammami, Shango, Mart Shamouni, Oro,<br />
Yalda, and Qashat. Most homes are without maintenance<br />
and in danger of collapse. Funding and support<br />
are needed from communities in the United States.<br />
Alqosh<br />
Alqosh is divided into four quarters: Sienna quarter<br />
to the west; Qasha quarter to the east; O’do quarter<br />
to the north; and Khachaicha (lower) quarter to the<br />
south. Alqosh is a Chaldean Catholic village and one<br />
of the few places where Aramaic is still spoken.<br />
For centuries, Christians and Jews lived together<br />
in Alqosh, until the Jews were expelled in 1948. The<br />
Alqosh synagogue is one of the few standing synagogues<br />
left in Iraq, and the landmarks of Rabban<br />
Hormizd Monastery and Prophet Nahum Tomb are<br />
amazing attractions.<br />
Luckily, ISIS did not reach Alqosh and the historic<br />
Jewish burial site of prophet Nahum Al-Alqoshi was<br />
not desecrated nor even touched. The U.S. and other<br />
donors provided $2 million to restore and rebuild the<br />
historic landmark.<br />
I met with Mayor Lara Zara and received updates<br />
and briefs about the status, needs, and priorities of<br />
the Christians in Alqosh, and the political and security<br />
situation in the region. According to Zara’s statistics<br />
there are 3,500 people living in Alqosh.<br />
The top priority of the mayor is to keep the Christians<br />
in their towns and villages and to help reduce<br />
the immigration of families and youth from the township.<br />
Visas, once restricted due to COVID, are now<br />
open to the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and other European<br />
countries. The mayor lamented that two more<br />
families left Alqosh in recent months.<br />
The mayor has a plan to distribute vacant land to<br />
the citizens of Alqosh to build modern homes in the<br />
town. Candidates must be Alqoshi with an Alqoshi<br />
father and mother.<br />
Economic development tops the list of priorities.<br />
There are no government or job opportunities for<br />
graduates; most of the people’s skills and experiences<br />
are in farming. They want to build greenhouses<br />
but there are no hotels, restaurants, café’s, or malls<br />
in the town of Alqosh. Religious tourism is a favorite<br />
concept and strategic objective.<br />
Alqosh needs a technical school, urgent care<br />
units (they have one old clinic), dentists, female doctors,<br />
and a surgeon (they have two visiting doctors<br />
only), a clinical lab, emergency ward, ambulances,<br />
EKG, imaging, sonar, and scanning units. They could<br />
also use a hospital - the nearest hospital and urgent<br />
care is 2 hours away in Erbil or Mosul!<br />
Left: House of the prophet Nahoum Al-Alqoushi.<br />
Above: The sign welcoming visitors to Rabban<br />
Hormzid Monastery.<br />
We toured the Nahum site with Mayor Lara Zara<br />
and her staff. The mayor advocates for the restoration<br />
of 3-5 homes around the Prophet Nahum landmark,<br />
to be used as mini-fabric cultural village costume factories<br />
run by women. She hopes to attract investors<br />
and build a hotel on a vacant municipality property<br />
nearby the tomb.<br />
Rabban Mar Hormzid Monastery<br />
Rabban Hormizd Monastery is situated north of the<br />
Nineveh province, at the border of the autonomous region<br />
of Iraqi Kurdistan. Dating back to 640 AD, the monastery<br />
sits carved into the Mount Alqosh mountainside.<br />
It is one of the holiest sites for Chaldean Catholics.<br />
The imposing structure of the 1,400-year-old<br />
monastery can be seen upon climbing a long, winding<br />
road on the cliffs of Mount Alqosh. The path has<br />
been paved by generations of monks.<br />
The monastery carved from the rocks seems like<br />
an oyster pearl in its shell. Over the centuries, local<br />
geopolitical rivalries have often disrupted the site’s<br />
peacefulness. In the mid-1700s, a slew of attacks from<br />
Kurdish forces rendered the site all but abandoned.<br />
In 1828, its library, which was stocked with precious<br />
Syriac manuscripts, was looted and damaged.<br />
A new monastery was rebuilt in 1859 with the intention<br />
of improving its defense from attackers. The old<br />
sanctuary remains an important, historic site for<br />
Chaldean Catholic worship.<br />
Visiting the monastery, I saw no marks of fire in<br />
any of the cells. Some cells have a second small cave<br />
cut behind the larger one which is entered through<br />
an opening just large enough for a man of average<br />
size to crawl through.<br />
They have neither doors nor any protection from<br />
inclement weather, and the chill which they strike<br />
into the visitor gives an idea of what those who lived<br />
in them must have suffered during the frosts of winter<br />
and the drifting rain. Some of them have niches<br />
in their sides or backs in which the monks probably<br />
slept, but many lack even these means of comfort.<br />
The cells are separated from each other and are<br />
approached by narrow terraces. Some are perched<br />
in seemingly unapproachable places, unless other<br />
means of entrance existed in former days. They were<br />
accessed by the monks crawling down from the crest<br />
of the mountain and swinging themselves into them.<br />
Nine patriarchal graves, from 1497 to 1804, are<br />
still located in the corridor that leads to the cell of<br />
Rabban Hormizd, who is also buried there.<br />
BACK TO IRAQ on page 30<br />
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 29
FEATURE<br />
BACK TO IRAQ from page 29<br />
Baqoofa – Telskuf<br />
I conducted a short visit to both<br />
Baqoofa and Telskuf. Baqoofa is semivacant<br />
with very little commercial or<br />
residential activity; most of the Telskuf<br />
residents are displaced Christians from<br />
neighboring villages (Tel-Keppe, Batnaya,<br />
and Sharafiya). The population is<br />
a mix of Chaldeans and Assyrians.<br />
Baqoofa, the smallest of villages,<br />
has a skeleton entry sign, almost empty<br />
of life! I did not see a single individual<br />
or business open. A new church<br />
is being constructed but largely unfinished<br />
with no construction equipment<br />
or builders on site.<br />
Both towns are surrounded by<br />
huge fertile agricultural fields that<br />
seem to be abandoned. These towns<br />
have similar challenges. Both need investment<br />
and restoration.<br />
Duhok, Zakho, and Delal Bridge<br />
Delal Bridge, also known as Zakho<br />
Bridge or Pira Delal, is an ancient<br />
bridge over the Khabur River in the<br />
town of Zakho, which is part of the<br />
Dohuk Governorate in the northwestern<br />
part of the Kurdistan Region within<br />
the Republic of Iraq.<br />
The name is derived from the Kurdish<br />
language, where ‘Pir’ means bridge,<br />
while ‘Delal’ means dear or beautiful.<br />
The date of construction is not well<br />
known even though it is believed that<br />
it was first built during the Roman era.<br />
The present structure appears to<br />
be from a later date, most likely from<br />
the time of the Abbasid Caliphate that<br />
ruled the area between the years 750<br />
and 1517. The total length is 115 meters<br />
(377 feet), while being 5 meters (16<br />
feet) wide, it spans over the Little Khabur<br />
River with 5 different arches.<br />
There are many legends behind the<br />
construction of this magnificent piece<br />
of architecture. A particularly gruesome<br />
one is that a very gifted craftsman built it<br />
and then to prevent him from constructing<br />
another as magnificent as this one,<br />
his hands were amputated. To add insult<br />
to injury, one of his nieces was buried<br />
under the bridge as a sacrificial offering.<br />
Regardless of its origin, this carved<br />
limestone bridge is something extravagant<br />
for a small town in the northern<br />
part of Iraq. It has seen a lot of history,<br />
and should certainly be on your mustsee<br />
list if you plan a visit to the country.<br />
The Memories<br />
Traveling to the Kurdistan Region of<br />
northern Iraq is, for me, many experiences<br />
intertwined with memories. It<br />
is the perfect way for someone like me<br />
to dig into ancestral roots and visit the<br />
towns their parents or grandparents<br />
came from. Exploring the churches<br />
and monasteries, enjoying the farmland,<br />
and seeing the villages helps to<br />
form a better understanding of ourselves,<br />
our beliefs, and our lives.<br />
Travel to the region — explore, connect,<br />
plant an olive tree, restore an old<br />
village home, paint the churches, or<br />
make a new friend. I dare to imagine the<br />
wonder and feelings of connecting and<br />
visiting these places every few years.<br />
Perhaps our Chaldean and Iraqi<br />
American community will support<br />
more youth groups trips. High school<br />
and university students in Michigan<br />
could be encouraged to work with and<br />
develop exchange programs with local<br />
schools and universities in northern<br />
Iraq and turn migration to education.<br />
The Diaspora Chaldeans, Assyrians,<br />
and Syriacs must work together and improve<br />
their communication and cooperation<br />
with those in Iraq in general and<br />
those in the Nineveh Plain in particular.<br />
The Christians in Iraq must learn how<br />
to protect their towns and villages. If<br />
they continue to sell their lands to the<br />
first bidder, they will lose their villages<br />
and the last stand for Christians in the<br />
Nineveh Plain and Iraq.<br />
I had a great time putting together<br />
this summary of my travel memories.<br />
I hope it can be an inspiration for all<br />
those who want to travel and will help<br />
others change their lives for the better.<br />
Remember, don’t stop before getting<br />
to the hilltop.<br />
Special editing by Jacqueline Raxter<br />
and Rand Isaq.<br />
30 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 31
FEATURE<br />
Remains of two Iraqi martyr priests<br />
found in chapel in Nineveh Plain<br />
BY INÉS SAN MARTÍN, CRUX<br />
The Italian forensic team that found the remains of two priests killed during the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman<br />
Empire between 1915 and 1918.<br />
ROME<br />
After several days of searching,<br />
the remains of two Syrian<br />
Chaldean martyrs, killed<br />
for their faith by the Ottoman Empire,<br />
were found last week in a chapel outside<br />
the Christian village of Qaraqosh<br />
in Iraq’s Nineveh Plain.<br />
Syrian Catholic Father Yusuf Jabo<br />
Sakarya of Mosul, and Father Behnam<br />
Hanam Mikho Khozymi, a monk belonging<br />
to the order of the Brothers of Saint<br />
Ephrem, were murdered by Turkish<br />
gendarmes on June 28, 1915, just outside<br />
of Qaraqosh while they were returning<br />
from Mosul to celebrate the feast of Peter<br />
and Paul the following day.<br />
Their names were recently added<br />
to what is known as the “Great Cause”<br />
of Chaldean Catholics murdered in<br />
odium fidei (in hatred of the faith)<br />
during the final years of the Ottoman<br />
Empire, which was attempting to stop<br />
a bubbling revolution at the beginning<br />
of World War I.<br />
More than 250,000 Assyrians-Chaldeans<br />
are believed to have been massacred<br />
between 1915 and 1918. Close to<br />
40 of them are included in the martyrdom<br />
cause currently at the Vatican’s<br />
Congregation for the Causes of the<br />
Saints.<br />
Sakarya and Khozymi’s remains<br />
are among the few the church has<br />
been able to track down, since most<br />
were buried in unmarked – and often<br />
hidden – graves.<br />
When the Vatican determines that<br />
a person has been martyred, a miracle<br />
is not needed for their beatification.<br />
However, a miracle is required for canonization.<br />
According to Argentine Father Luis<br />
Escalante, the postulator of the martyrdom<br />
cause of four Chaldean bishops,<br />
numerous priests, seven Dominican<br />
nuns of St. Catherine of Siena, and<br />
numerous lay people, the cause is set<br />
to be concluded this summer, after being<br />
started in April of 2018.<br />
For this reason, he said, it was necessary<br />
to ascertain the exact location<br />
and condition of the bodies of the two<br />
priests said to be buried in the Chapel<br />
of St. Dominic, next to the Cathedral of<br />
Our Lady, in Qaraqosh.<br />
“There was a lot of uncertainty<br />
about the true burial place of Father<br />
Behnam, having only oral accounts,”<br />
he told Crux.<br />
A team of five forensic physicians,<br />
who traveled from Italy, began working<br />
on recovering the remains May 3.<br />
On the second day a first set of remains<br />
was found; the second set of remains<br />
was found on the fourth day. They will<br />
be tested against the DNA from direct<br />
family members to make a positive<br />
identification.<br />
“We invite all the faithful to increase<br />
their devotion to these two<br />
worthy sons of Qaraqosh who received<br />
the crown of martyrdom more than a<br />
century ago and who must be remembered<br />
as intercessors for the increase<br />
of faith and prosperity of the city and<br />
of the whole Catholic Church in Iraq,”<br />
Escalante said. “In this way, their<br />
spilled blood will not be in vain.”<br />
Father Georges Bahnan Jiji Jahola<br />
of Qaraqosh told Crux that seeing<br />
the situation Christians live in in this<br />
“martyred land,” the finding of the remains<br />
is a “reason for hope.”<br />
“It’s a spiritual encouragement,<br />
a breath of air from the Holy Spirit,<br />
much needed in this land where we<br />
have suffered much,” he said via<br />
phone. “This strength is necessary if<br />
as Christians we are to remain in this<br />
land where our faith was born.”<br />
The Christian population is still<br />
trying to recover from the attempted<br />
genocide by the Islamic State Group,<br />
which occupied Iraq’s Nineveh Plains<br />
between 2014 and 2017.<br />
The priest acknowledged that the<br />
situation for Christians in Iraq is still<br />
complicated, due in part to the political,<br />
economic, and cultural crises currently<br />
being experienced in the country.<br />
“Fear is always present, and I believe<br />
will aways be,” he said. “There is<br />
always fear of the unknown, including<br />
possible fighting between the government<br />
and extremists. But there is also<br />
a strong will on our side to remain despite<br />
the countless challenges.”<br />
“Christians in Iraq need peace and<br />
unity, and are inspired by these witnesses<br />
of the faith, who stayed strong<br />
despite the fact that it wasn’t comfortable<br />
nor easy to remain Christians,”<br />
he said. “This brings us together as a<br />
church that walks united, guided by<br />
the Risen Christ.”<br />
PHOTO COURTESY FATHER LUIS ESCALANTZE<br />
32 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 33
FEATURE<br />
The New Stressed Out<br />
BY SARAH KITTLE<br />
“<br />
I’m tired.” We have been hearing<br />
that from friends, colleagues,<br />
family members and coworkers<br />
for over two years now. We are<br />
tired of COVID, tired of taking precautions,<br />
trying to catch up, working from<br />
home versus working from the office,<br />
Zoom calls, mask mandates, vaccines,<br />
booster shots, and the back-and-forth<br />
of it all. We are living with uncertainty,<br />
financial pressures, altered daily routines,<br />
and in some cases, continued<br />
social isolation.<br />
It is affecting our health in a big<br />
way.<br />
For meeting and event planners<br />
such as myself, we have had to<br />
broaden our plans to include a Plan<br />
C and Plan D, and work on all possible<br />
outcomes at once, not knowing<br />
what will actually transpire until the<br />
last minute. These virtual meetings<br />
and events we’ve been dealing with<br />
are missing a key component to our<br />
‘feel good’ vibes - the emotional engagement<br />
of meeting in person. It’s<br />
so easy to get distracted when you<br />
are communicating via screen - by<br />
kids, pets, other people, or whatever<br />
is happening around you.<br />
Mental health workers and cosmetic<br />
doctors also report that people<br />
are experiencing a new phenomena of<br />
body and facial dysmorphia from having<br />
to see themselves when telecommunicating,<br />
and from overuse of facial<br />
filters on social media. Users are unsatisfied<br />
with themselves because they<br />
don’t look like their online profiles.<br />
An uptick in the amount and severity<br />
of mental health disorders has<br />
been widely reported. Suicide numbers<br />
have skyrocketed. The impact of<br />
a worldwide pandemic, food shortages,<br />
and regional wars have maxed<br />
out our stress levels. And we aren’t<br />
coping well.<br />
According to Dr. Ryan<br />
Gindi, a cardiologist at Henry<br />
Ford Heart & Vascular Institute,<br />
“We have unhealthy<br />
coping mechanisms to deal<br />
with stress, including poor<br />
dietary habits, increased<br />
alcohol consumption, decreased<br />
exercise, and poor<br />
sleep.” He added that in<br />
outpatient clinics, he and<br />
his colleagues have also<br />
seen decreases in visits and adherence<br />
to medical therapy.<br />
“It would be nice if we as a society<br />
gravitated towards meditation, taking<br />
Dr. Ryan Gindi<br />
walks, and mindful exercise as ways to<br />
cope,” says Dr. Gindi, “but often that<br />
is not the case.” Stress eating, bingewatching<br />
TV, and trying to drink away<br />
our worries - all coping mechanisms<br />
that have increased in use<br />
- have placed us in a very<br />
precarious situation. All of<br />
these factors when taken<br />
together have a very significant<br />
negative impact on our<br />
health.<br />
Unfortunately, bad health<br />
habits can become a downward<br />
spiral. You eat, drink,<br />
smoke, etc. because you<br />
feel bad, and then you feel<br />
bad because you do those things.<br />
So what can be done about it? Even if<br />
STRESSED OUT on page 36<br />
34 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 35
FEATURE<br />
STRESSED OUT from page 34<br />
COVID were no longer a concern, the U.S.<br />
economy is in the dumps, interest rates<br />
are rising, businesses are failing, and the<br />
global environment is giving<br />
us some nasty payback.<br />
If you can change just<br />
one thing, says Dr. Rena Daiza,<br />
a family doctor affiliated<br />
with Henry Ford Health,<br />
it should be increasing the<br />
amount of exercise in your<br />
life. Being and staying active<br />
is the single best thing<br />
Dr. Rena Daiza<br />
you can do for your health. Exercise<br />
prevents health problems, builds<br />
strength, boosts energy, and can help<br />
you reduce stress. It can also help you<br />
maintain a healthy body weight and<br />
curb your appetite.<br />
Exercise has been proven<br />
to make you happier,<br />
increasing the production<br />
of endorphins and decreasing<br />
feelings of depression,<br />
anxiety, and stress. It produces<br />
chemical changes in<br />
the parts of the brain that<br />
regulate stress and anxiety<br />
and can also increase brain sensitivity<br />
to the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine,<br />
which relieve feelings of<br />
depression.<br />
Exercise also plays a vital role in<br />
building and maintaining strong muscles<br />
and bones. It releases hormones<br />
that promote the absorption of amino<br />
acids into muscle. Young people that<br />
exercise are building up their bones to<br />
help stave off osteoporosis later in life;<br />
older people that exercise are helping<br />
their bodies maintain muscle strength.<br />
It doesn’t even matter how much<br />
or how hard you work out, you get the<br />
benefits. Work out a little, get a little<br />
benefit; work out a lot and reap lots of<br />
benefits! Besides helping stay fit, exercise<br />
may help you sleep better, eat better,<br />
and avoid excessive screen time.<br />
If you are experiencing a mental<br />
health crisis, I’m not trying to say exercise<br />
alone will “cure” you. It is, however,<br />
something you could do today,<br />
right now. As with any crisis, often the<br />
only way out is through, and additional<br />
exercise is a great first step. Literally.<br />
This summer, try to spend some time<br />
walking, biking and swimming. Your<br />
body and your mind will thank you.<br />
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 37
CULTURE & HISTORY<br />
The History and Culture of Worry Beads<br />
BY DR. ADHID MIRI<br />
People have myriad assorted<br />
hobbies. They spend time and<br />
money on fulfilling them, taking<br />
care of whatever the hobby is, and<br />
developing it. Some people like music,<br />
art, drawing, reading, and sports of all<br />
kinds; others like hunting and fishing.<br />
In Iraq and the Middle East, there<br />
is a popular hobby among men to acquire<br />
and use worry beads, also called<br />
Subha, Mala’aba, Misbaha, or Tasbih.<br />
They practice its use and cherish its<br />
secrets. Let us sail together in a sea of<br />
worry bead culture and abundance that<br />
we never thought would be this deep.<br />
Worry beads are found in everyday<br />
life across the Middle East region and<br />
the world, but what is their significance?<br />
Worry or prayer beads are used in<br />
many religions and cultures around<br />
the world, either to help with prayer<br />
and meditation or to simply keep<br />
the fingers occupied during times of<br />
stress. The traditional use of worry<br />
beads thrives in modern times as a tool<br />
for personal therapy, a status symbol,<br />
and a faithful companion.<br />
Made from golden brown, amber,<br />
the brightest Iranian turquoise, Russian<br />
pure black coral, and a welcome<br />
burst of color amid a sea of gold, the<br />
subha or misbaha - prayer beads or<br />
worry beads or any one of the other<br />
names they go by in the Middle East<br />
- are found hanging proudly in the<br />
windows of jewelers in every shopping<br />
center.<br />
Used when praying and influenced<br />
by Islam in their design, for many, the<br />
beads are a way to relax; to switch off<br />
from the world. Search through the<br />
crowd and you will see them, poking<br />
out of a pocket or wrapped loosely<br />
around a hand, their owner absentmindedly<br />
moving each bead back and<br />
forth with their thumb. Search further,<br />
and you will find them dangling from<br />
the rear-view mirror of a vehicle.<br />
But prayer beads go beyond prayer<br />
in some cultures. For example, in<br />
Greece, using worry beads is seen as<br />
a daily secular activity, as it is in Turkey.<br />
The beads have long made their<br />
way out of the mosques and churches<br />
in the region and have become a companion<br />
of men.<br />
In Iraq they are called Subha or<br />
Mala’aba, Tasbih in Turkey, and Komboli<br />
in Greece. They can be found in<br />
almost every culture and religion are<br />
well-known all around the world.<br />
Catholic rosaries, the prayer rope of Orthodox<br />
churches, Mt. Carmel monk’s<br />
rosary, Irish marble worry stones, Buddhist,<br />
or Tibetan prayer beads (malas)<br />
are all examples of their use.<br />
It is quite amazing how a string of<br />
beads can carry centuries of stories<br />
and bond people together culturally.<br />
History<br />
Since ancient times, worry beads have<br />
been associated with spiritual ideas,<br />
both religious and magical. Some recorded<br />
historical evidence indicates<br />
that the idea of the beads began with<br />
the Sumerians 5,000 years ago and<br />
then moved to other civilizations.<br />
One of the oldest stones and materials<br />
used by humans has been found<br />
in tombs dating back more than 20,000<br />
years and contained grains of ivory,<br />
oysters, and various bones. Excavations<br />
of the first human civilizations<br />
that arose in Mesopotamia and the<br />
Nile Valley revealed the use of various<br />
stones for religious and worldly purposes,<br />
and for this reason the beads<br />
were taken in prehistoric times as an<br />
ornament, and amulet.<br />
In Phoenician antiquities there<br />
is evidence of their use in barter and<br />
commercial transactions. The idea of <br />
the Christian rosary, then, is a natural<br />
and inevitable evolution from the idea<br />
of the necklace.<br />
The historical evidence indicates<br />
that the religious rosary appeared for<br />
the first time in India at the beginning<br />
of the fifth century BC, and those sources<br />
claim that the God (Brahma) was<br />
carrying a rosary/worry beads with his<br />
right hand, as it appeared clearly in the<br />
drawings that were found.<br />
Some history books state that the<br />
priests of China were the first to invent<br />
the rosary, and one of the accounts reported<br />
that a Greek monk named Father<br />
Wes de Ruby was the first ever to<br />
use the rosary.<br />
Worry beads are commonly believed<br />
to have first been used on<br />
Mount Athos in northern Greece during<br />
medieval times, where strands of<br />
beads made of woolen knots were tied<br />
on a string and used as an aid to recount<br />
prayers.<br />
Culture<br />
The “Subha” is a wonderful artistic<br />
heritage that permeates ancient and<br />
modern Arab culture. The beads are<br />
used to relieve stress and generally<br />
pass the time. It also has functions<br />
that are closely related to numbers,<br />
counting and arithmetic. It is a personal<br />
adornment, social prestige, material<br />
wealth, a masterpiece, a home pride,<br />
a symbolic gift for family and friends,<br />
and a status symbol.<br />
The beads have a long and amazing<br />
history, and incredible variety. There<br />
are basic categories in evaluating a<br />
Subha: the material used to make the<br />
worry beads; the number and size of<br />
the beads (if there is a piece of a slightly<br />
different size or texture, it is called<br />
a “drunk bead”); harmony of color<br />
WORRY BEADS on page 40<br />
38 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 39
CULTURE & HISTORY<br />
WORRY BEADS from page 38<br />
and sound that the beads produce together; originality;<br />
and artisanship together with the strength of the<br />
top piece, called the Imame, Shahool, or Minaret.<br />
This is the piece that holds all the others together; it<br />
is the first sign of quality artisanship and charm.<br />
Understandably, worry beads have long been<br />
a staple of desert commerce. Antique amber worry<br />
beads are particularly popular partly because amber<br />
beads were favored by kings and nobility.<br />
Since Arabs associate the beads with idleness, some<br />
prominent figures avoid using them in public. Young<br />
people in general use the beads less than their elders.<br />
Traditional minded individuals use them, but young<br />
leftist intellectuals seem to prefer to smoke cigarettes.<br />
They help pass time, they are part of prayer,<br />
and their use can become a habit to calm nerves or<br />
even to beat an addiction. In the era of iPods, smartphones,<br />
and tablets, you can still find them present<br />
in coffee houses of poor areas or executive offices of<br />
rich neighborhoods.<br />
When you sit down at a cafe or a restaurant, briefly<br />
watch the men as they put down their cellphones,<br />
cigarette packages, lighters and worry beads. You may<br />
appreciate the love and the strong bond men feel for<br />
their Subha, keeping them as close as their phones.<br />
At Chaldean weddings, the old-timers who lead<br />
the traditional Dabkka dance intertwine one hand<br />
and swing a Subha in the other during the rhythmic<br />
dance, encouraging others to strengthen their resolve<br />
and dance.<br />
The number of worry-bead enthusiasts is increasing.<br />
Politicians such as Iraq’s famous Prime Minister<br />
Nouri Al-Saeed enjoyed posing with Tasbihs to connect<br />
with constituents. In Iraq, they can be seen in<br />
the hands of almost all men, from taxi drivers to college<br />
professors to domino players and coffee shop<br />
patrons. They can be seen in movie theaters and at<br />
soccer matches.<br />
Men and their beads<br />
Alas, the small strings of beads that Chaldeans, Iraqis,<br />
Arabs, and Middle Eastern people have long loved<br />
to fidget with are perhaps showing signs of going out<br />
of style - especially in the West.<br />
The beads’ decline has been hastened by special<br />
factors: cultural change, progress, handheld gadgets,<br />
and mobile devices that have taken over, even<br />
among the old. Nonetheless, shops remain impressively<br />
draped with worry beads, which come in as<br />
many varieties as the perfumes of Arabia.<br />
The Subha remains as one of the complements of<br />
Iraqi men, an expression of prestige and social status.<br />
High-end and valuable types are used by the elders<br />
and influential people, and this type of bead reflects<br />
an expression of their social status and wealth.<br />
Despite growing female interest in Tasbihs, they<br />
are still almost exclusively in the male domain. The<br />
artisans, designers, salespeople, and customers are<br />
almost all men. It is even seen as a sign of strong masculinity<br />
in different parts of the world.<br />
It is unfortunate that many of the rare collections<br />
were sold outside Iraq, either due to the owner’s ignorance<br />
of their value or out of necessity during the<br />
years of sanctions.<br />
Clockwise from top left: Subha parts and names<br />
in Arabic; Our Lady of Tears white glass rosary<br />
beads; Subha and stones; Cultural fashion and<br />
adornment on display.<br />
Material<br />
The traditional materials used to make worry beads<br />
continue to be used. The craftsmanship is exquisite,<br />
and its craft requires skill, know-how, and refined<br />
taste.<br />
Subha beads are most often made of round or<br />
oval shaped glass, wood, plastic, amber, pearls, or<br />
gemstones. The origins of prayer bead material fall<br />
into four broad categories: precious stones, different<br />
types of wood, animal products, and fossils. The<br />
harder the material of the bead, or the rarer it is, the<br />
more intricate artisanship will be involved, increasing<br />
the value. Snakewood, olive, sandalwood, palm,<br />
tamarind, apple, and walnut trees are commonly<br />
used.<br />
The cord is usually cotton, nylon, or silk. There<br />
are a wide variety of colors and styles on the market,<br />
ranging from cheap mass-produced prayer beads to<br />
those that are made with expensive materials and<br />
high-quality workmanship.<br />
Most generic products use a silver bead for the<br />
Imame, but the precious ones use the same material<br />
as the beads. The last category is the simplicity factor.<br />
Intriguingly, the most precious Tasbihs are the least<br />
eye-catching ones. As one Tasbih lover explained, “it<br />
is not jewelry to show off, but a companion.”<br />
Amber is considered the queen of Misbaha. Today,<br />
it’s difficult to find genuine beads. You must be<br />
very experienced to distinguish fake from genuine.<br />
Real amber, when rubbed between the thumb and<br />
forefinger, will give off the smell of pine-tree resin.<br />
Some sellers provide certificates of authenticity for<br />
amber beads.<br />
A rosary made with pearls is one of the most expensive,<br />
made of precious pearls extracted from Bahrain<br />
or the Arabian Gulf. There are some types that are<br />
less expensive - such as some made in Japan for example<br />
– with pearls that are artificial and not natural.<br />
There are health benefits attributed to the different<br />
materials used. For example, Kuka, a tropical<br />
fruit pit harder than coconut, was known as the Tasbih<br />
of medical doctors during the Ottoman era. The<br />
Kuka pits are known to act as a natural disinfectant,<br />
while releasing a pleasant scent when rolled between<br />
fingers. Several other tree-based beads are valued for<br />
their special scents. Their color also darkens over<br />
time, like leather, increasing their worth.<br />
Bagh Tasbihs made from the shells of the threatened<br />
Caretta turtle are extremely precious, like those<br />
from elephant tusks. Other precious stones used<br />
include agate, dalmatian stone, and if you have the<br />
funds, diamonds. The fanciest of diamonds or the<br />
simplest of stones, it does not matter. There is a philosophy<br />
behind worry beads: “Whoever owns worry<br />
beads, it is a sign that they are a worry-free man.”<br />
References: Wikipedia, Gardenia site, The Monitor,<br />
NYT archives, article by Pinar Tremblay, and Zaineb<br />
Al Hassani at The National. Special editing by<br />
Jaqueline Raxter.<br />
40 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 41
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When I reached out to Mark<br />
Abbo, the Northville Township<br />
Supervisor, for an interview,<br />
all I knew about him was our<br />
shared last name. He invited me to lunch<br />
at Connor’s, a family diner on the northeast<br />
corner of Haggerty and 5 mile.<br />
Connor’s was as busy and loud as<br />
it was cozy. Mark sat in the back and<br />
waved as I walked in. After our introductions,<br />
I took off my jacket and sat<br />
in the booth opposite him. He looked<br />
down at a legal pad, pen in hand.<br />
“First things first. Let’s do some<br />
housekeeping.”<br />
He wrote his grandfather’s name at<br />
the top of the page: Peter. Mark wanted<br />
to figure out our exact relation. He continued<br />
filling in his family tree, writing<br />
his father’s name, Joseph, and under<br />
that, his own.<br />
It was my turn. I told him my family<br />
history, and it became exceedingly<br />
clear. “We’re second cousins, once removed,”<br />
he said. Mark’s father and my<br />
grandfather, whose name I bear, were<br />
first cousins.<br />
Mark’s grandfather, Peter Abbo,<br />
was likely one of the first hundred Chaldeans<br />
to move to Detroit as he came in<br />
the 1920s. Like most Chaldeans, Peter<br />
was a merchant for a living and raised a<br />
family. He and his wife birthed five children,<br />
including Mark’s father, Joseph.<br />
Mark’s father, like many other<br />
Chaldeans, prized education above<br />
all. This inspired Mark to be a highachieving<br />
professional. Many years<br />
ago, he said he wanted to understand<br />
all the numbers and decisions that go<br />
into business. Soon after, Mark graduated<br />
from Eastern Michigan University<br />
and became a Certified Public Accountant,<br />
the highest honor in his field.<br />
His status as a CPA unlocked many<br />
doors for Mark in both the public and<br />
private sphere. Before he began his<br />
work in government, Mark spent time<br />
at accounting firms, something he still<br />
does in addition to his public sector<br />
work. Since then, he has played several<br />
different roles in Northville’s city<br />
government.<br />
In the early ’90s, Mark became<br />
Northville’s Township Trustee and<br />
served in that position for seven years.<br />
For two years, he was Northville’s<br />
Township Treasurer, and in 2000, became<br />
the Township Supervisor. Mark<br />
held this position for 12 consecutive<br />
years before taking a break. Under his<br />
leadership, Northville’s fund balance<br />
grew from $200,000 in 1992 to several<br />
million dollars by 2012.<br />
In 2020, he decided to run once<br />
again because he thought his expertise<br />
could help steer the town in the<br />
right direction after his break. He was<br />
elected as Township Supervisor in November<br />
2020 to a four-year term.<br />
Between his tenure with Northville,<br />
Mark was recruited by Wayne<br />
County to work as its Chief Financial<br />
Officer because of his business acumen<br />
and ability to contain costs. Now,<br />
he is Wayne County Commission’s<br />
Chief Fiscal Advisor and has held that<br />
position since 2016.<br />
Mark maintains some private business<br />
on the side in addition to his<br />
service in government. He is also the<br />
Treasurer for Metro Solutions, a nonprofit<br />
based in Southfield that provides<br />
healthcare to uninsured and underserved<br />
populations in metro Detroit.<br />
Mark’s current plan for Northville<br />
emphasizes fiscal responsibility and<br />
active management of the COVID-19<br />
crisis. He is heavily opposed to raising<br />
taxes in Northville and has already reduced<br />
much of the township’s wasted<br />
expenditures while maintaining the<br />
same quality of service. He wants to<br />
continue to attract more high-tech<br />
business to Northville.<br />
42 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
CHALDEAN COMMUNITY<br />
FOUNDATION<br />
Help<br />
Wanted?<br />
Please consider<br />
investing in one<br />
of our many new<br />
Americans.<br />
HOW WE HELP:<br />
The Career Services Team<br />
at the Chaldean Community<br />
Foundation offers one-on-one<br />
assistance to help individuals<br />
identify their goals and<br />
develop their careers.<br />
SERVICES INCLUDE:<br />
• Resume Building and Cover Letter Writing<br />
• Job Application Completion<br />
• FAFSA Completion<br />
• Mock Interviews<br />
• Employer Referrals<br />
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• Career Fairs<br />
• Access to Transportation via the<br />
Michael J George Chaldean Loan Fund<br />
To inquire about hiring one of our clients and having your business added to our job bank,<br />
please call or email Elias at 586-722-7253 or elias.kattoula@chaldeanfoundation.org<br />
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The Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce celebrated<br />
their 18th Annual (due to COVID) Awards Dinner on April 29. Over<br />
800 guests attended the gala at Shenandoah Country Club and<br />
heard remarks from Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Speaker of<br />
the House Jason Wentworth. Honored this year was Mike Denha<br />
as Businessperson of the Year. Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence<br />
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elias.kattoula@chaldeanfoundation.org<br />
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44 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
4 5<br />
6<br />
8<br />
7<br />
1. Members of the CACC Board of Directors with<br />
Governor Gretchen Whitmer; 2. Dinner Chair<br />
and Ascension COO Joe Hurshe; 3. Much fun<br />
was had at the head table with Mayor Taylor,<br />
Governor Whitmer, and Congresswoman<br />
Lawrence; 4. Bishop Ibrahim and Raad Kathawa<br />
enjoying the program; 5. Members of the Denha<br />
family enjoying the celebration; 6. Martin<br />
Manna, Mike Denha, and Sylvester Sandiha; 7.<br />
Over 800 people attended the much-anticipated<br />
annual event; 8. Governor Gretchen Whitmer<br />
shares a laugh and a handshake with Speaker<br />
Jason Wentworth.<br />
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<strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong> CHALDEAN NEWS 45
FROM THE ARCHIVE<br />
Remembering<br />
Chaldean<br />
soccer clubs<br />
2<br />
3<br />
1<br />
4<br />
The Iraqi United Youth Club<br />
put on a large festival in<br />
July of 1980 that showcased<br />
Chaldean soccer clubs from<br />
around the country. The event,<br />
lasting several days and nights,<br />
was held in historic Chaldean<br />
Town, a district located along 7<br />
Mile Road where many Chaldean<br />
immigrants settled. The festivities<br />
included speeches, music, food,<br />
dance, and much more.<br />
The festival had basketball<br />
games, and many Chaldeans<br />
formed teams to participate against<br />
one another in direct competition<br />
as shown in photo #1.<br />
Photo #2 shows the versatility of<br />
the festival. There were many teams<br />
at the tournament and some, not<br />
from Detroit, hailed from places like<br />
Chicago or San Diego. The competition<br />
also featured youth teams like<br />
the one pictured.<br />
Photo #3 depicts the opening<br />
ceremonies where the Iraqi flag,<br />
American flag, and Iraqi United<br />
Youth Flag were held side by side<br />
and the Iraqi and American national<br />
anthems were performed.<br />
At the end of the festival, players<br />
and teams were awarded trophies<br />
according to their record.<br />
Photo #4 shows Jamal Kallabat<br />
receiving a trophy from Massoud<br />
Karma, who is standing on stage<br />
next to Zuhair Garmo.<br />
Photo #5 features some of the<br />
organizers and original members<br />
of the Iraqi United Youth Club.<br />
Pictured from left to right are Talal<br />
Mukhtar, Massoud Karma, Hanna<br />
Sheena, and Ragied Esshaki. Other<br />
organizers not pictured included<br />
Talal Samona, Kamal Mukhtar,<br />
Sami Bahoora, Wally Jadan, and<br />
Kamil Karma.<br />
5<br />
This page is part of a new<br />
series featuring photos from<br />
the archive. If you have a<br />
special image you want to<br />
feature, please contact<br />
edit@chaldeannews.com.<br />
46 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>JUNE</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
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