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Shabtha, IshwaTt 4, 6761 - 12:55 b'lilya b'Nineweh, Atour
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 12:55 PM in Nineveh, Assyria

Welcome to the home of the indigenous Aramaic-speaking Christian Assyrians of the Middle East.

The Assyrians of today are the descendants of the ancient Assyrian people, one of the earliest civilizations emerging in the Middle East, and have a history spanning over 6750 years. Assyrians are not Arabian, we are not Kurdish, our religion is not Islam. The Assyrians are Christian, with our own unique language, culture and heritage. Although the Assyrian empire ended in 612 B.C., history is replete with recorded details of the continuous presence of the Assyrian people till the present time.

To know your past, is to know yourself.

The next morning we woke up and washed our hands and faces and the old woman had a white sheet with which she let me wipe my wet hands and face. Suddenly across the river we saw some soldiers. The soldiers waved and signalled us to come to them. We all slowly crossed over the shallow water along the underneath of the broken bridge, carefully holding on to the posts of the bridge. As we approached these men with our clothes wet to our knees, we saw that they were Turkish soldiers. They asked the old woman who we were and what we were doing there. In Turkish, the woman told them that we were Assyrians, and were left behind. At that point, one of the soldiers picked up the woman's older granddaughter and put her in the arms of a soldier who was still mounted on his horse...

- Ben S. Benjamin (Assyrian Holocaust Survivor)

Assyrian Holocaust | History Timeline

Assyria \ã-'sir-é-ä\ n (1998) 1: an ancient empire of Ashur 2: a democratic state in Bet-Nahren, Assyria (northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and Syria.) 3: a democratic state that fosters the social and political rights to all of its inhabitants irrespective of their religion, race, or gender
4: a democratic state that believes in the freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture in faithfulness to the principles of the United Nations Charter — Atour synonym

Ethnicity, Religion, Language
» Israeli, Jewish, Hebrew
» Assyrian, Christian, Aramaic
» Saudi Arabian, Muslim, Arabic

Assyrian \ã-'sir-é-an\ adj or n (1998) 1: descendants of the ancient empire of Ashur 2: the Assyrians, although representing but one single nation as the direct heirs of the ancient Assyrian Empire, are now doctrinally divided, inter sese, into five principle ecclesiastically designated religious sects with their corresponding hierarchies and distinct church governments, namely, Church of the East, Chaldean, Maronite, Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic. These formal divisions had their origin in the 5th century of the Christian Era. No one can coherently understand the Assyrians as a whole until he can distinguish that which is religion or church from that which is nation -- a matter which is particularly difficult for the people from the western world to understand; for in the East, by force of circumstances beyond their control, religion has been made, from time immemorial, virtually into a criterion of nationality. 3: the Assyrians have been referred to as Aramaean, Aramaye, Ashuraya, Ashureen, Ashuri, Ashuroyo, Assyrio-Chaldean, Aturaya, Chaldean, Chaldo, ChaldoAssyrian, ChaldoAssyrio, Jacobite, Kaldany, Kaldu, Kasdu, Malabar, Maronite, Maronaya, Nestorian, Nestornaye, Oromoye, Suraya, Syriac, Syrian, Syriani, Suryoye, Suryoyo and Telkeffee. — Assyrianism verb

Aramaic \ar-é-'máik\ n (1998) 1: a Semitic language which became the lingua franca of the Middle East during the ancient Assyrian empire. 2: has been referred to as Neo-Aramaic, Neo-Syriac, Classical Syriac, Syriac, Swadaya and Turoyo.