BOSTON (AP) — Refugee activists are developing plans to build a Mandaean cultural center somewhere in Massachusetts so the increasing number of Iraqi Mandaeans settling in the area can try to preserve their rapidly disappearing two-millennia-old religion.
Mandaean doctor Wisam Breegi said activists hope to raise $2.5 million for a cultural center in Boston or Worcester to offer job training to Mandaean refugees and teach Mandaean religion to refugee children.
Mandaeanism is a tiny, ancient religion that views John the Baptist as its great teacher. Around 60,000 Mandaeans remain in the world after fleeing Iraqi and Iran because of persecution.
Breegi said a center could attract one of the world’s two dozen remaining Mandaean priests to Massachusetts, where more than 100 families have resettled, making the state home to one of the largest Mandaean settlements in the United States.
“We’re getting to be diluted and we’re going to lose our identity if we don’t do something,” said Breegi, who has helped hundreds of refugees resettle in Massachusetts and is leading efforts to create a center. “It will probably take a long time, but I think we can do this.”
So far, organizers are in the early stages of an effort to raise funds for a planned center that will be used to expose Mandaean religion to youth and teach Mandaean adults modern jewelry techniques, as many Mandaeans were jewelers back in Iraq.
Breegi said organizers are looking at a number of potential sites located beside a running body of water — a requirement for a Mandaean house of worship.
