a remarkable journey
a remarkable journey Chaldean man turns 100 From top: Aziz Najor outside his Detroit store in the 1940s. Aziz and Warana at a granddaughter’s wedding in 2001. Aziz Najor today at age 100. By Ken Marten Aziz Najor has arrived at a milestone most people never reach, turning 100 on August 10. While that’s amazing in and of itself, Najor’s life is all that more remarkable because of the way it’s crisscrossed profound historical and geopolitical changes. What’s more, he’s also a Chaldean American pioneer who set the tone for those who followed while helping them to create new lives in the United States. He assisted a lot of people by bringing them to this country — some 40 families — and helped them by hiring them to work at his grocery store, said daughter Julie Najor- Hallahan, a retired history and English teacher. After Najor retired, he was one of the first Chaldeans to dabble in real estate. The oldest of four siblings, Najor was born in Telkaif in 1909, while Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire. When he left in 1927, it was a British mandate. By the time he returned to visit relatives in 1935, Iraq had been granted independence, although with many strings still tied to Great Britain in the form of defense pacts and oil concessions. “When I came to this country there were only 39 of us, and only two were women,” said Najor, who lives in Southfield with his son George, a dentist. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 established a complex formula for limiting the number of visas issued every year to citizens of any country. Iraq was allowed a measly five. When Najor applied for a visa in 1927, four had already been issued. He got the fifth. Najor was 16 when his father died, and he first traveled to Beirut — while Lebanon was a French mandate — to live with a poorerthan-expected uncle. “I said, ‘Uncle, listen, you don’t make enough money for me and you,’” Najor recalled. “I planned to go to Mexico, but a cousin of my mother told me not to. So I went to the American counsel and told them I want to go to the United States. He said I had to have 0. I wrote my cousin in Detroit, and he sent it to me.” Arriving by ship in Providence, Rhode Island, Najor made his way to Detroit and found work in cousin George Najor’s grocery store. He worked in several more stores, learning English with the help of coworkers and by examining the pictures on the labels of cans and boxes on the shelves. He also worked for a short time — very short — at the Wonderbread Factory. “I worked one day,” Najor said. “You started at 7 in the morning and they gave you one piece of bread, and worked to 8 at night. I said, ‘this is too hard’ and left.” Najor bought his first grocery store from a pair of Chaldeans who failed to make it a successful venture. “They lost it and I bought it, and I made a fortune,” Najor said. He saved his money and in 1935 returned to Telkaif to visit family. There, he also married Warana. By then, Najor’s three siblings had all died within six months in a smallpox epidemic. Son George was born in Iraq in 1937, and daughter Julie came along a year later. Najor returned to the United States in 1939, but his wife and kids stayed behind because World War II had started. “He felt he had to leave us there,” son George said. “My parents were scared because [German] U-boats were sinking ships.” Najor and his family remained separated for nearly seven years while the war raged. Finally, in 1945, the family was reunited in New York. Upon returning to the United States, Najor re-established himself in the grocery business. He was part-owner of Safeway, a supermarket on Woodward and Euclid (not affiliated with the national chain of the same name). The family moved to Southfield in 1952 when it was a rural township. George Najor was Southfield High School’s first Chaldean student. Najor sold Safeway and retired in 1963. He devoted his free time to family and the Mother of God Chaldean Catholic Church. Najor played a major role in acquiring the land for the church and bringing a priest from Iraq. He also served on the church council. Warana died in January 2007. Today, Najor has five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. 26 CHALDEAN NEWS AUGUST 2009
AUGUST 2009 CHALDEAN NEWS 27
