The Eight Founders of the Chaldean Cultural Center

On October 20, 2023, the Chaldean Cultural Center honored eight founders with plaques at its 20th Anniversary Founders Gala at Shenandoah Country Club in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Hanna Shina is one of them. The eight are Rosemary Antone, Virjean Arabo, Francis Boji, Raad Kathawa, Mary Romaya, Josephine Sarafa, Victor Saroki and Hanna Shina.

What They Founded

The Chaldean Cultural Center is the first and only Chaldean museum in the world. It sits inside Shenandoah Country Club at 5600 Walnut Lake Road in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and tells the story of an Aramaic-speaking Catholic people from northern Iraq across five galleries: Ancient Mesopotamia, Faith and Church, Chaldean Village Life, Journey to America, and Chaldeans Today. It exists because a group of people decided that a community with a four-thousand-year memory should not rely on memory alone. Read more about Hanna Shina and the Chaldean Cultural Center.

Twenty Years From Idea to Museum

The idea was conceived in 2003 at Southfield Manor. For a decade it lived as committee work, fundraising, and the patient collection of objects and testimony. The Chaldean Iraqi American Association of Michigan acquired Shenandoah Country Club and renovated it, setting aside museum space within the building. Construction of the galleries began in 2013, and the museum opened to the public in May 2017 — fourteen years after the first conversation, and twenty years before the anniversary gala counted from the founding effort itself.

The Gala

The 20th Anniversary Founders Gala was held on October 20, 2023 at Shenandoah. The evening brought the Arabian Knights folk dancing group and a zurna player, traditional Chaldean bread, tours of the museum galleries, and a documentary about the Center. Eight founders received plaques. It was, by design, a night that looked backward at twenty years of work and forward at the institution those years produced. The evening was covered by the Chaldean News in “Celebrating 20 Years: The Chaldean Cultural Center Founders Gala”.

A Different List: The Pre-Opening Tour

The eight names above are the founders honored with plaques at the 2023 gala. They should not be confused with a second, separate list that also circulates: the board members photographed on a special tour of the museum given before it opened to the public. That photograph, published by the Chaldean News in 2024, shows, left to right: Judy Jonna, Francis Boji, Hani Mio, Bishop Ibrahim, Raad Kathawa, Bishop Francis, Mary Romaya, Hanna Shina and Victor Saroki.

Two of those pictured — Judy Jonna and Hani Mio — were Chaldean Cultural Center board members present at that pre-opening tour and are not among the eight 2023 gala honorees. The two lists record different things: one is a photo caption from a day at the museum, the other is the roll of founders honored twenty years on. Hanna Shina, Francis Boji, Raad Kathawa, Mary Romaya and Victor Saroki appear on both. Read our summary of the Chaldean News account of the Center’s founding.