Fouad Kashouty has been a member of Masonic Lodge for 27 years. He is a Freemasons and founders of Hiram & Solomon Cigars. Everything started in 2014, when he decided to roll 1000 cigars to raise some money for a scholarship for the Masonic Lodge that he belongs to. That was an immediate success among Masonic Brethren that grew amazingly fast and caught the attention of non-Freemason smokers. Now he is selling about 1 million sticks across the world. This was the passion...  It took them about four or five years to get the rights of the Square and Compass (masonic symbols) for a cigar, he created a premium cigar. After a few years spent going back and forth with the lab and convincing the more conservative members that it is OK to do this and working with all the masonic charities. That’s how Hiram & Solomon Cigars have expanded. They grew faster than other companies because of the help and support of his masonic brothers in the market. That was the brotherhood...  

(Dr Abraham K. Yoosuf, and other Syriacs from Mardin, Kharput and Diyarbakır in Worcester, Massachusetts. 1922, July 4. American Independence Day.)

George Anton Kiraz has published extensively in the fields of computational linguistics, Syriac studies, and the digital humanities. He wrote several books, journals, research papers and articles about Syriacs. He is the founder and director of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, the Editor-in-Chief of Gorgias Press, and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He earned an M.St. degree in Syriac Studies from the University of Oxford (1991) and an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (1992, 1996). His latest books include The Syriac Orthodox in North America (1895–1995): A Short History (2019) and Syriac-English New Testament (2020).

The Mor Gabriel community is extremely tight-knit, and most socialization happens within the community. In addition to weekly church services, there are also many social events throughout the year. The families within the community are not only friends, but most are also related to each other. Even the children, who attend public and private schools in English, do not (usually) become as good of with those who are outside of the community, as those friends would be seen as temporary, while friends from the community are seen as lifelong friends. The young people usually marry within the larger Syriac community. * The Syriac community in the U.S. is small and where everyone knows each other in some way. The majority of them are from the Midyat district of Mardin. (Gebrail) Cebrail Akyön is one of the most loved and respected names of the Syriac community. He is one of well-known names who representing the Syriac community at the official receptions of the Consulate General of the Republic of Turkey in New York.   

Rev. Father Aziz Hadodo has served as pastor of St. Gabriel Syrian Orthodox Church in New Jersey since 1994. One of the rare names to have a chance to know his family roots back 400 years. Due to a disagreement between cousins, a group flees from Diyarbakır, the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey to Midyat, a town in the Mardin province of Türkiye. Others follow them. They reconcile with the intervention of the clergy. As a result of this event, the family migrated from Diyarbakır to Midyat in 400 years ago. A Syriac patriarch from the family drew up a family tree for the first time 200 years ago. Another relative, who was a member of parliament in Syria, worked on the family tree about 60 years ago and brought it up to date.