Zoroastrian Association
of Metropolitan Chicago

Hamāzor Hamā Ashō-bēd
Posted by ZAMC 
· July 23, 2021 
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July 2021 Newsletter

ZAC is open for Summer!

Dear community members and friends,

As we are in the thick of summer, we hope you are all enjoying the warmer weather and are grateful for the ability to cautiously reconvene in larger gatherings in various settings.  We in ZAC have been doing our part to continue moving back to a pre-COVID world.  The June 26 Grand Reopening of our Darbe Mehr was a great example of a much-needed celebration and time for us to reconnect with many after over a year apart.  That said, we are happy to announce that our Darbe Mehr is now open for business!  We look forward to seeing our members, both present and future, at our upcoming events.

Looking ahead, as the Shenshahi Zoroastrian New Year is approaching next month immediately after our upcoming Gathas (by the way, Muktad prayers will be conducted in-person at ZAC) we look forward to welcoming a new year full of more opportunities for us to come together as a community with a renewed spirit of togetherness and hope for an enriching future.  Be on the lookout for future updates on our events via e-blast and in this and our upcoming newsletters.

We would also like to provide this kind reminder to renew your ZAC memberships. 

Hamāzor Hamā Ashō-bēd! May we all be united in strength and righteousness!

Atha Jamyad Yatha Afrinami! May we achieve what we have prayed for.

~ZAMC Board of Directors

Read more in the complete July 2021 newsletter

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Posted by ZAMC 
· June 22, 2021 
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June 2021 Newsletter

ZAC’s Grand Reopening!

Dear community members and friends,

As we approach the mid-point of 2021, many of us are inching through this year with mixed emotions.  In many ways, the first half of 2021 has not seen many changes from 2020.  For our families and friends across the globe in India and other regions where the situation remains challenging, we send our prayers for relief from the pandemic-related hardships.  For us in the US, through the blessings of Ahura Mazda we embark on the latter half of 2021 with cautious optimism.   Indeed, the ZAC is working toward finding ways to safely bring us back into each others’ presence.  Our Arbor Day event on April 22 was a grand example of one of our first ZAC events which featured in-person attendance since we went on lockdown in early 2020.  

We next look forward to the grand reopening of our Darbe Mehr on June 26 (details have also been communicated by email about this exciting event).  As we continue to work through the various considerations in bringing our ZAC community back together in-person, we remain in constant gratitude to our priests, religion school teachers, and other volunteers who remain devoted to their great service to our community.  

With all this renewed anticipation of a return to normalcy, we also wanted to take this opportunity to remind our members to renew your ZAC membership online.  

Stay tuned for more information from our ZAC Board as we cautiously chart the course for a safe return to increased in-person operations and events at ZAC.

Hamāzor Hamā Ashō-bēd! May we all be united in strength and righteousness!

Atha Jamyad Yatha Afrinami! May we achieve what we have prayed for.

~ZAMC Board of Directors

Read more in the complete June 2021 newsletter

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Posted by ZAMC 
· April 17, 2021 
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Feb – Mar 2021 Newsletter

Happy Nowruz!

Dear community members and friends,

Wishing you all a very Happy Nowruz!  May this spring bring freshness to our lives and allow us all to be together in person soon! It was nice to see some of our community members who were able to attend the Nowruz event held on March 20th.  In an effort to get the community together, our events committee, in a very short time, orchestrated a very creative virtual event for that day. We would like to thank Er. Pesi Vazifdar for leading the prayers which was followed by an art show by our very own talented children.  Another creative event was our Dar-ni-pori bake along and we saw great participation from our community at large. We have had success with the virtual events and will keep working on adding more virtual activities. Feel free to reach out to Jamshed Rivetna if you have fresh ideas on virtual events. The Board has also been working on a plan to reopen our center and have been closely monitoring the CDC guidelines and are very hopeful that we should be able to meet each other sooner than later.  

It is worth noting that our membership dropped 20% from 2019 to 2020. We realize that many of our members paid their membership at the Nowruz event and since we did not have it last year, it might have slipped your mind.  Memberships are a major source of our income for the year and we would like to bring our membership back to pre pandemic times. So we strongly urge and encourage everyone to become a member, if you already haven’t.  If you had forgotten to pay your membership last year, you can always donate that amount towards the many ZAMC funds. If you are not sure whether you have paid your membership, email us on zamc@zamc.org and we will let you know of your membership status. We would like to thank you all once again  for everything you do for ZAMC.

Hamāzor Hamā Ashō-bēd! May we all be united in strength and righteousness!

Atha Jamyad Yatha Afrinami! May we achieve what we have prayed for.

~ZAMC Board of Directors

Read more in the complete March 2021 newsletter

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Posted by ZAMC 
· January 28, 2021 
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Dec 2020 – Jan 2021 Newsletter

Happy New Year!

Dear community members and friends,

Wishing you all a very Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2021!  May this New Year bring us all together ‘in person’ very soon!!

The year was kicked off with our first ever virtual Humbundagi by Ervard Jamshed Ravji and it was successfully attended by over 50 member families.  We have planned an exciting year full of activities and events for all age groups and varied interests.  Our events will be an assortment of virtual and live events (following CDC guidelines and whenever possible). The desire is to keep our community always connected, especially during these challenging times.  Ideally we would like to have some event every week and welcome any suggestions for new programs or events.  We encourage our community members to  reach out to Jamshed Rivetna or any Board member to share your ideas or also if you’re interested in volunteering to host an event.

We are always grateful to our community for their continued engagement, through membership, donations and constant support to our center.  As you all are aware that there weren’t any events hosted at our center since March last year thus limiting our ability to raise funds.  So we strongly urge everyone to become members and request you, that along with your membership dues, please consider a kind donation to any of ZAMC’s many funds, towards our capital projects or donate to our Ava Project, which still needs to be paid off to replenish the loan from our General Fund.

We would like to thank you all once again for everything you do for ZAMC and hope you continue to do so in 2021!!

Hamāzor Hamā Ashō-bēd! May we all be united in strength and righteousness!

Atha Jamyad Yatha Afrinami! May we achieve what we have prayed for.

~ZAMC Board of Directors

Read more in the complete January 2021 newsletter

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Posted by ZAMC 
· November 18, 2020 
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Aug-Nov 2020 Newsletter

An Attitude of Gratitude Brings Great Things!

Dear community members and friends,

It’s hard to believe it has been over 3 months since our virtual AGM, where our community ‘virtually’ connected for the first time ever. I am grateful to everyone who was able to attend. It was a grand success as we had over 75 members participate, the most I have experienced in my 15+ years of being involved with ZAC. I am thankful to our past and continuing board members for their selfless commitment towards serving our community, and am excited to welcome our newly-appointed board members. We are fortunate to continue to have a magnificent group with bright ideas, high energy, and great dedication to ZAMC!

The pandemic slowed our ability to host events earlier this year and we greatly appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding. In the spirit of maintaining an attitude of gratitude, I would like to point out that though there have been many challenges in this past year, there is still a lot to be grateful for.

After the virtual AGM, regained momentum by hosting our first-ever virtual Muktad Prayers. The prayers were well-attended by our community members (50-75 attendees daily!) and it was exciting to see our children participate too. We would like to thank all our Priests for conducting these prayers. Similarly, virtual Jashans and Gambhars have also been conducted and we are grateful to the leadership of Ervad Pesi Vazifdar in orchestrating these ceremonies. Ervad Jamshed Ravji and Ervad Pesi Vazifdar continued the Daily Priest services despite our center being closed due to the pandemic. We thank them for their dedication to the spiritual well-being of our community.

On the education and social fronts, our monthly Children’s Religious Class is still being virtually conducted and we are grateful to Zenobia Damania, Persis Driver, Persis Guard, and Khursheed Ichaporia for their continued leadership with this initiative. We also thank Yazmin Rustomji for organizing and facilitating the Bingo event for our Senior citizens and the Kids Game Night.

As we understand the importance of community connectedness, especially during such challenging times, ZAC now has our own Zoom subscription which allows us to maintain regular community connections. We are working diligently to find ways to virtually connect and engage our community more frequently. I urge and encourage all of you to share any event ideas that will bring our community together and keep us connected during these unprecedented times.

While we are certainly experiencing some challenging times, I truly believe that tough times don’t last forever, but the tough do! Let’s stay positive, cherish every moment, and never forget to offer our gratitude to Ahura Mazda!

Hamāzor Hamā Ashō-bēd! May we all be united in strength and righteousness!

Atha Jamyad Yatha Afrinami! May we achieve what we have prayed for.

~ Afshan Barshan – ZAMC President

Read more in the complete August-November 2020 newsletter

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Posted by ZAMC 
· November 9, 2020 
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Dadabhai Naoroji and the Global Zoroastrian Community

ZAC virtual event

Dinyar Patel, Ph.D.

Please join us via Zoom for a presentation on Dadabhai Naoroji and the Global Zoroastrian Community, by Prof. Dinyar Patel, on Saturday, November 14, 2020, at 9:30am CT.

Dinyar is the author of “Naoroji, Pioneer of Indian Nationalism”, a brilliant biography of the “Grand Old Man” of Indian nationalism and the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons.

Please click here to RSVP for the event

For security reasons we will only send Zoom links to those who have RSVP’d prior to the event.

Dadabhai Naoroji and the Global Zoroastrian Community

Dadabhai Naoroji was arguably the most significant Indian nationalist leader before Gandhi. Naoroji was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, became the first Indian elected to the British Parliament in 1892, and, 1906, declared swaraj or self-government to be the policy of the Indian National Congress.

Naoroji was also an extremely significant leader within the global Zoroastrian community. His community-related activities spanned three different countries. In India, Naoroji played a pioneering role in Parsi social and religious reform, especially regarding women’s equality. He also helped orchestrate a much more long-term process of scholarly exchange between Zoroastrian scholars in Europe and Parsi scholars and priests in Bombay and western India. In the United Kingdom, Naoroji helped lay the foundations of the British Zoroastrian community, giving it an institutional basis (the modern-day Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe), mentoring new arrivals from India, and educating the British public about Zoroastrianism. Finally, Dadabhai Naoroji maintained a lifelong interest in the affairs of the Iranian Zoroastrian community. He contributed to that community’s rising fortunes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by lobbying the shah of Iran and other Iranian officials to crack down on discriminatory policies.

Please join us as Dinyar discusses the life of Naoroji, his significance to the global Zoroastrian community, and lessons from his life. 

About Prof. Dinyar Patel

http://www.dinyarpatel.com

Dinyar Patel is an Assistant Professor of History at the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) in Mumbai. Previously, he taught in the Department of History at the University of South Carolina. He teaches courses on modern South Asia, the Indian nationalist movement, and the British Empire. Most of his research has focused on the life and career of Dadabhai Naoroji. In 2015, Dinyar received his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University. His biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, “Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism”, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2020.

Dinyar’s academic research focuses on the Indian nationalist movement, the city of Bombay/Mumbai, and the Parsi Zoroastrian community. He has received two Fulbright fellowships and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his research. In addition to his academic writing, he has contributed pieces to BBC News, the New York Times online, the Hindu, the Indian Express, and Scroll.in.

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