Chaldean News: A Commemorative Edition of 'Chaldean Story' Series

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FEATURE CCC continued from page 63 their loans. So, we totally stopped.” Around the same time, the CCC ran into an even larger problem. Shenandoah Country Club as a whole could not meet its financial obligations as a result of the downturn. According to the terms of its loan, the club had to maintain a certain number of members, otherwise the bank could call it in and look for a new buyer to purchase the club. As the recession drew on, several interested buyers presented themselves, but the CCC’s presence helped save the club and keep it in the Chaldean community. When Shenandoah was initially purchased, CIAAM added the CCC to the deed of the property. This meant that any future owners would need to keep the CCC inside, since this organization did not have any obligation to the bank. According to Romaya, this deterred multiple potential buyers from closing a deal. After it was clear nobody would buy Shenandoah while the CCC remained, its loan was greatly reduced. “Shenandoah survived, therefore, we survived,” Romaya said. They began actively constructing the museum around 2013. The CCC’s current museum consists of five exhibits: Ancient Mesopotamia, Faith and Church, Village Life, Journey to America, and Chaldeans Today. Each displays a significant portion of Chaldean history and uses interesting and unique forms to tell the story of the Chaldeans. The Ancient Mesopotamia exhibit displays authentic replicas as well as original artifacts retrieved from ancient cities. The main feature is a replica of the Stele of Hammurabi as well as a digital interactive that translates a few of the laws encoded on the stele. The Faith and Church gallery traces the origins and development of the Church of the East and, eventually, the Chaldean Church. It shows how important Chaldeans were for the development of the Church and, in turn, how deeply those traditions inform our cultural identity today. The section on Village Life gives geographic and detailed information about living in a village and where Chaldeans come from. It also draws in the audience with realistic displays and A hologram in the Village Gallery in which Hanna Shina, a founding board member, is portraying a grandfather showing his grandson how to use a slingshot. a holographic video showing Chaldean village traditions like bread-making. The Journey to America exhibit shows documents from some of the earliest Chaldean immigrants from Iraq. It also has an audio exhibit where you can hear stories from Chaldean pioneers. Take a few steps forward to enter an old-style grocery store that Chaldeans were famous for in the early 1900s. In the Chaldeans Today gallery, the museum explains the local and recent history of Chaldeans as well as the rest of the diaspora around the world. It showcases some of the modern Chaldean success stories and community builders in a documentary-style video at the end of the tour. After opening the museum to the public, Romaya felt her work was done and wanted to find a suitable replacement as the CCC’s leader. “We had a museum now,” she said. “What we needed was someone who was there on a regular basis. My background is a historian and educator. We needed someone who was into programming and social media, someone who could really promote the CCC.” It wasn’t until 2019 when the CCC found Romaya’s long-term replacement. In the spring of that year, Weam Namou, who is the current Executive Director of the CCC, received a call from Judy Jonna, who served as the CCC board’s chairperson. Namou is a published author and filmmaker, among many other things, and had experience in the nonprofit sector working with artist organizations. Her mother had passed away recently, she said, which meant she was not looking for a job at that time, and didn’t think she would be interested in this particular role anyway. That is, however, until she stepped inside the museum. “I felt so deeply our culture and heritage and history through my whole body, reaching out to grab my attention,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting that. I went home that day thinking about it. Like so many others, I spent a lot of time complaining that we don’t value our heritage, we don’t try to preserve it, and we don’t spend enough time doing that.” That’s why Namou accepted the position. She worked with the CCC to premiere one of her films at the now closed Maple Theater, and soon after, began working as the executive director. “We had a gorgeous, beautiful museum, but we didn’t have any programming,” she said. To Namou, the museum was a true gem with lots to offer the community, but it hid behind the walls of Shenandoah. Shortly after she joined the CCC’s team, an administrator left the organization, which meant a lot more work for Namou. The first thing she did was apply for a certain grant that she expected to get with relative ease. To her surprise, her application was rejected, with a long list of reasons why the CCC was unqualified. “I literally took every single item they listed and addressed it,” she said. “A lot of it had to do with the website and our social media. There was a serious lack of activity. We needed to start posting and having activities.” As she revamped these programs, Namou also tried her best to involve other Chaldean communities besides those in West Bloomfield to interact with the CCC. Since Namou herself was from Sterling Heights, she knew for certain that the communities living far from the CCC needed to be made aware of it and could help expand its reach. “In the beginning, I didn’t see how far we would come,” she said. “When things got really hard, I had doubts in the back of my head. But I had this sense, deep down, that this place was very special. The meaning and significance just piled on.” Namou is proud of the work she did from the very beginning of her tenure as the executive director. Her goal was to teach as many people about Chaldeans and their culture as she could. To that end, she contacted every school within driving distance and offered to give a presentation. To her surprise, nearly everyone accepted, and within a few months she gave these presentations to dozens of schools and thousands of students. “I was so proud whenever I did these presentations to Chaldean students. They looked at me with wide eyes, trying to tell me they themselves were Chaldean,” she said. “These were the things that fed my spirit, seeing their reactions to the lesson about their heritage.” The other program she restarted was the digital storytelling, which resembles the original program that began almost 20 years ago. “We went out to senior homes and had elderly Chaldeans tell us their stories and do 64 CHALDEAN NEWS CHALDEAN STORY

chants that you can no longer hear unless you’re from back home because that’s how old they are,” Namou said. “We interviewed people in Australia, India, Iraq, and even Argentina. I believe this storytelling has a healing component. We had so many people shed tears because we gave them an opportunity to share things that have been stuck in their hearts.” One of the CCC’s goals, aside from its aim to preserve and document our culture, is to forge relationships with other cultural and educational institutions and to promote a greater understanding of the Chaldean culture among other communities. To accomplish this, Namou started the virtual discussion series, with which she connects and interviews people from all cultures. Bridging this gap and listening to others, which comes from her journalistic instincts, is crucial for fostering respect from other communities. “By reaching out to other communities, they get to learn about your heritage and you get to learn about theirs,” Namou said. “This program helps us step outside of ourselves. We can’t stay in our own bubble like we’re in Iraq.” The beautiful museum remains the CCC’s crown jewel. Although it is not even ten years old, the organization plans to move its space and expand on the galleries at the new Chaldean Community Foundation’s West Campus. “It was hidden,” Namou said about the current CCC museum. “Because of that, there’s not enough traffic for regular operating hours. When we move, the goal is to have a regular, 9-5 schedule and allow people to walk through the museum at any point.” Right when it was presented to her, Weam said, the move seemed like a perfect fit. Even members of Shenandoah who frequent the country club aren’t familiar with the CCC or the fact that there’s a museum located inside. She most looks forward to being neighbors with other organizations that have similar goals and being able to share resources. The CCF’s new campus will feature a Radio and Television studio for the Chaldean News virtually next door to the CCC’s museum. The CCF also plans to create the Bishop Ibrahim Library, which will contain delicate manuscripts written hundreds of years ago as well as modern-day books. Finally, the building has office and meeting areas as well as a large event space available to the CCC. The biggest addition to the museum will be the new Genocide Gallery. Namou thinks it’s a necessary addition, even though it’s an unpleasant topic. “It’s a responsibility now,” she said, adding that for a while, she didn’t want to look at the issue because it’s too painful. “I feel like I’m honoring a part of our history in a way that I never really saw before.” There are plenty of genocides in Chaldean history that need to be addressed, taught, discussed, and remembered. Throughout most of Muslim rule in the Middle East, Christians were persecuted at varying degrees of intensity depending on the age and the leader. The Mongol invasions left many Chaldean villages ravaged and destroyed. The stories are centuriesold, but these tragic deeds still ripple through time and affect the Chaldean community today. Other events are much more recent, including those that living Chaldeans remember vividly through their family stories. Throughout the 1800s, warlords in modern-day Iraq, Turkey, and Syria would frequently raid Chaldean villages. This kind of behavior culminated around the time of WWI in an event often called the Sayfo, or “Sword” in Sureth, or in academia, the Assyrian Genocide. Unfortunately for its victims, this genocide is often overlooked and grouped in with the Armenian Genocide, although its targeted community is entirely separate and suffered on its own. Namou began reading a book called “Shall This Nation Die?” written by Rev. Joseph Naayem. He recounts the events of the Sayfo, as witnessed by the subjects of his books, and pleads with his audience to make this event known so that it doesn’t fall into obscurity or happen again. “We owe him that,” Namou said. “Their stories will be told in the Genocide Gallery.” Of course, much more recent events One of the CCC’s goals, aside from its aim to preserve and document our culture, is to forge relationships with other cultural and educational institutions and to promote a greater understanding of the Chaldean culture among other communities. CHALDEAN STORY like the ISIS invasion completely destroyed or gutted plenty of Chaldean villages and towns. Tel Keppe, the village from which most of Detroit’s Chaldeans originate, was emptied of its residents by ISIS in the summer of 2014, only ten years ago. Many Chaldeans have family or remember these events themselves. Certain areas of the Tel Keppe were vandalized, like the churches, which ISIS used as shooting ranges. Other places were totally destroyed, like the cemetery, which featured toppled headstones and disrespected deceased ancestors. Only a few Chaldeans returned to the village, which currently holds around 50 Christian families, compared to thousands that lived there prior. These events are fresh in the Chaldean cultural memory and need to be preserved for future generations, Namou argued. The new space will allow them This report is made possible with generous support from Michigan Stories, a Michigan Humanities Grants initiative. to expand on the rest of the museum and include items relevant to the community and its history that happened since the CCC opened, like the ISIS invasion and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For Chaldeans who know about it and have toured the museum, the CCC is a treasure. It has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2003, establishing a cultural agenda that will influence the Chaldean community for years to come. Mary Romaya’s favorite memory of the CCC came when they filmed a promotional video of the museum. Sanan Media, which helped the organization before, asked Romaya to bring everyone she could for the shoot. She called all her friends and family until the museum was virtually at capacity. “It was February 2017, and the museum was basically built,” she said. “The grand opening was not until September. Sanan videotaped people walking through the museum, touching interactives, and learning about Chaldean culture.” The video, which was filmed seven years ago, is still featured on the CCC’s website. “When it was all over, my son hugged me and told me, ‘I am so proud to be a Chaldean.’ My heart just melted,” Romaya said, proving how important the museum and her own heritage are. “That is a moment in my life I will always treasure.” Namou appeals to her Chaldean community, imploring them to spend more time understanding their heritage and reading about their history, how special it is, and what we’ve contributed throughout history. “We have an amazing, powerful, and rich community,” she said. “Rich in history and wealth. I want us to use some of that, whether it’s time and energy or funds, to give a bit more attention to the CCC and preserving our culture in general.” Understanding our culture, according to Namou, will give us a better understanding of who we are today in the diaspora. “I used to travel to Europe. People who live in Rome don’t care about the Colosseum because they pass it every day,” she said. “I didn’t understand it, but now, I think sometimes we too ignore what we have. I hope we don’t neglect it because this history is a very powerful and important part of who we are.” CHALDEAN STORY CHALDEAN NEWS 65