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Chaldean Community Needs Our Help

R

eflecting on the April 27
noticed, and the Holocaust followed
meeting I attended between
with little outrage to stop it.
the local Chaldean communi-
ISIS’s horrific crimes were dis-
ty leadership and State Department
missed until recently and rarely
representative Dr. Joseph
mentioned in the evening
Pennington, I could only
news. History has a way of
wonder what it must have
repeating itself.
been like to have been a
Given all that has hap-
Jewish activist trying to
pened, the Chaldean com-
get the attention of the
munity is trying to rebuild
Roosevelt administration in
its ancestral home in areas
the 1940s.
where ISIS has been defeat-
Although the 1940s are
ed. Some villages and cities
Eugene
superficially different from
were totally leveled. While
Greenstein
today, the situations are
the community is looking for
much the same. Hearing
American help to rebuild,
the 20 or so leaders of the
they are raising millions to
Chaldean community telling of their go forward on their own as a proud,
destroyed villages and devastated
resilient people.
communities and knowing of the
The point was made that any
horrors perpetuated by ISIS was sur- outside money provided to the
real. But it was real.
Chaldean community should be
I was given a history lesson about
given directly to the people and
the numerous Christian sects in the
not through the Iraqi govern-
region whose language is biblical
ment. Although worried about
Aramaic. I learned about the little-
security from rogue militias, they
known 300,000 murdered in the
made it clear that the Chaldeans
Assyrian genocide during WWI by
need to be able to provide for their
the Ottoman Turks, who also mur-
own defense. Who would govern
dered 1.5 million Armenians in the
the region in the end was a con-
well-known Armenian genocide. It
cern because both the Kurds and
was the Christians who were not tol- the Iraqis covet Chaldean lands and
erated even though they have lived
there is Iranian influence.
almost 2,000 years in the region.
Pennington pointed out that
The world was silent then, as Hitler
although Iran’s role in Iraq is trou-

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bling, the Iraqis don’t like Iranians,
in general; and once ISIS is defeated
their influence may diminish with a
clear U.S. presence.
Pennington reminded the
community to stay involved and
that help is coming. However, they
should be patient as it will take years
to repair the destruction. He clearly
stated that the United States was
committed for the long run and was
not going to leave as it did in 2011,
either militarily or politically. All the
parties in Iraq look up to the U.S. as
an honest broker, he said.
Just as the conflict between Israel
and the Palestinians has little to do
with land and everything to do with
ideology, so, too, the horrors experi-
enced by the Christian community
are caused by intolerance of another
culture.
It was very meaningful to me to
attend this meeting. I hope that
those of us on the outside will sepa-
rate the Muslim civil wars in the
region from the genocide against the
Christians and other minorities. The
Chaldeans/minorities in Iraq need
and must get our support. If we don’t
help, who will? •

Eugene Greenstein, Ph.D., is immediate past
president of Zionist Organization of America-
Michigan Region.

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FOR MOTHER’S DAY

Far alle mammas here and there
for all your sacrifice and care,
there is a tog in yeder May
so celebrate your special day,
undzer tayere mammas every-
where.

Far alle mammas: for all mothers
tog: day
yeder: every
undzer: our
tayere: dear

By Rachel Kapen

CORRECTION:

In the caption for the cover photo
(“Hadassah at 100,” May 4), the
date was incorrect. Fay Moss, Bess
Ravitz, Sally Jaffee and Helen Rom
were at the corner of Seven Mile and
Livernois in the 1950s.

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