Commentaries and Responses from the Visitors of the Website, Regarding the Comments by Archbishop Clemis Eugene Kaplan

The Comments and Messages displayed below were sent to us by the visitors of our website and they represent the views and opinions of the authors of the emails.  Views expressed below do not necessarily represent those of the Beth Suryoyo Assyrian Website, or any member of our staff.

   Dear Beth Suryoyo Assyrian,

I as an Assyrian can not believe my eyes when I hear & see such a claim is coming from one of our Syriac Orthodox church leader see such a claim is coming from one of our Syriac Orthodox church leader. Now I’m confused because of Bishop Kaplan himself asked his church followers in a combined letter with the Bishop Mar Cirilus Aphram Karim last year to stated in their application to the American year 2000 census only as Syriacs (with a big C at the end not Syrian with an N) because the word SYRIAN according to the letter of last year means Arabs & we are not ARABS as he claimed last year. Now I’m wondering, which Kaplan is the honest one & which one should be taken to court for lying to the American Government & his people in the daylight. I ask Aloho almighty to be with us and to help us as the lost people in the arc but without NOAH.

TAWDI
Jean Baba

   Dear Beth Suryoyo Assyrian,

In regard to the archbishop

I live in Los Angeles and I have visited the Syrian Orthodox Church in Burbank. I wanted to let you know that there are several persons who are somehow working in that church to Arabize the community within that church. Last Christmas, I had decided to go to the church and ask the priest if I can pass out fliers to the community attending the church so that they also may attend our Christmas party and be among their Assyrian brothers and sisters. I told one of my good friends who is a Suryoyo Assyrian from Turkey to ask the priest. After she asked the priest she was met with wrinkled noses and words like “why are we going to go there” we are not “Ashuries”. The priest had turned down not only my flier but also my visit prohibiting me from going there at all. But unlucky him I decided to go pass out the fliers anyway resulting In being escorted out by some ugly guy speaking Arabic to me, after he went in I stood in front of the Church passing out the fliers to everyone I saw, and we had a very good showing by their youth members at the Christmas party.

This is not new in this community of Antiochian churches. There are persons there that spread Arabism, none of the youth speak Syriac Aramaic and upon being asked what their ethnic background is they say we are all Syrian, Arab or even worse Turkish. It is a shame because it is not the youth’s fault, it is the fault of the diocese and also the priests and the older people who only speak Arabic to their kids. I have tried many times to reach the church but upon saying I am an Assyrian who would like to speak with the priest, I get turned down every time with excuses of how his Royalness is not in and he cannot speak at the moment. This community in Burbank Los Angeles needs help, Send some representatives because they are truly lost people whom I really feel sad for. I have tried my best and I have also spoken to other members of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Please write back and I will really fill you in on the politics these churches play to split our people and gain in their own pockets. I just wanted to let you know because 
I wasn’t surprised when the archbishop had written what he wrote. I have heard rumors that the priest here is speaking to various Arab TV stations and papers about how great the Arab community has grown in the church...etc

Anonymous

   Dear Beth Suryoyo Assyrian,

Rest assured that Kaplan and his crony Al-Banna are themselves infiltrators and sappers. Neither one of them is an Assyrian. Al-Banna is an agent of Saddam Hussein, and Kaplan is anything but Christian, let alone Assyrian.

Middle Eastern regimes have been seeking not only to destroy our Assyrian Identity and Nationality, but our total annihilation. For more than 2000 years their attempts have failed. This one will also fail.

In the Scripture, Almighty God calls Assyria “The rod in my right hand. I raise it up and bring it down upon the heads of iniquitous nations”. No one can tell Almighty God to abandon the rod of his Mighty Hand. And he has not abandoned us because we have kept our Faith in His Son! He makes us tenacious and gives us strength and perseverance. We shall prevail. We shall be raised up!

I strongly and vigorously urge the entire Assyrian community to immediately expel both Kaplan and Al-Banna from the church and to de-frock them and expose them as frauds.

I also would like to criticize the Boy Scouts Leader’s resignation. A most unwise move!!! His job was to remain the leader and continue doing what he knows to be right, instead of caving in and abandoning his post. His resignation was childish and an act of incompetence and incorrect response to Kaplan’s actions. He should have remained the leader and defied traitor Kaplan.

God Bless our Assyrian Heritage and Identity.

Your brother,
Joe Davida

   Dear Beth Suryoyo Assyrian,

I have read what the Archbishop has said, and am in shock over it. How can a leader of a Church with such a venerable NON-ARABIC heritage totally deny his roots. I mean, this would be like a Jewish person joining the Nazis. It is also distressing, as the Syriac/Assyrian people have a long and rich heritage - they ruled great empires while the Arabs were still riding around in the Saudi deserts whacking each others’ heads off over the rights of camel’s milk. Recently, too, there have been voices like this among other Middle Eastern Christian groups, and it is like a cancer - too many are getting what I call "T.E. Lawrence Syndrome" (i.e. an obsessive, militant pan-Arabism). It is a cancer that must be removed from the Middle Eastern Christian communities before the very survival and existence of them is endangered. As a Maronite, I am very thankful that our Patriarch has asserted a strong conviction to propagate more Syriac studies among the Maronite faithful, and indeed this is encouraging. However, it is a start only - much more is to be done, my friends. Also, if the good Archbishop is so in love with his "Arab" identity, then why does he have a Jewish name? "Kaplan" is the Yiddish name for people in the hat-making profession, which is where the family business was for them - they also served as synagogue cantors as well. That puzzles me - a pan-Arabist bishop with a last name that is shared by at least 100,000 or more Jewish-Americans, one of whom is head of the World Zionist Organization - how would the PLO terrorists with whom he’s expressed this spirit of pan-Arab solidarity view that? He’d be better to stick with his own people, the Syriacs/Assyrians, who do not judge his name so harshly. This is not saying that the good Archbishop supports terrorism, please don’t misunderstand - all I’m saying is that his pan-Arab sentiments are the same as those voiced every day over Arafat’s airwaves, and that is not a good thing. Anyway, I have rambled enough, so let me wrap this up.

We who are Middle Eastern Christians need to stand against this onslaught of pan-Arabism, for to be honest, it is the most lethal weapon radical Islamists have in their jihad against Christians and Jews - they feel as if they have won if they convince the world that all we are is a bunch of "Christian Arabs," and therefore if we oppose their agenda, they consider us "unpatriotic" and "traitors". Our patriotism is not to some Arab state, be it ruled by Saddam or Osama bin Laden. Our patriotism is to the identity we have inherited from our Syriac/Assyrian forefathers, but most of all, it is to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we all profess to serve. In Him we have the victory over the demonic forces that drive militant Islam and fascist pan-Arabism, and we need to trust more in that victory in order to truly realize it. Let us do this, please.

God bless each and every person that reads this, and Breekh Moloda d’Moran.
David Thrower

Archbishop Clemis Eugene Kaplan, Claims that we are Arabs

Copts and the Necessity to Define the Identity,
the Copts' Response

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