Abboud Zeitoune
Born in Qamishli in 1970, and in 1975 moved with my family to Lebanon as my father was working in Beirut, and enrolled at the “Taw Mim Simkat” High School, and there I learned to read and write Syriac.
Because of the Lebanese civil war the family was forced to immigrate to Germany in 1984. In Germany I continued my studies and graduated from University of Trade and Economics in 1996, and now I am working for an international rail freight company (DB Cargo) as Compliance Manager.
Worked in Assyrian national field, and became a member of many organizations in Germany, including the Assyrian Beth-Nahrin culture and sport association in Wiesbaden, and a long membership in the Assyrian Democratic Organization.
From 1987 I particpated in regular activities, like festivals, lectures and meetings of the Assyrian Beth-Nahrin association in Wiesbaden. There I was responsible for several tasks (such as leader of youth group and university graduates group). I was elected as chairman of this association for 3 periods (2000-2001 and 2008-2012). Since 2008 I am also chairman of the Mor Afrem Foundation (established by Dr. Samir Afram), which is a charity organization and support Assyrian project around the world.
I edited and published many articles in known Assyrian magazines in Europe like, (Shrogo), (Shemsho) and (Funoyo) Magazines. Became interested in Assyrian music from an early age, and embarked in a project to collect all the known Assyrian music records, and that work resulted in publishing the first Assyrian Music Discography book, published in Germany in 2007 (
Music Pearls of Beth-Nahrin, an Assyrian/Syriac Discography). Since then I gave many lectures on the history and heritage of Assyrian music in Germany and outside. I was twice a member of the judge committee of the Syriac Music Awards ceremony in Sweden and Switzerland.
In cooperation with SuroyoTV (a Sweden based Assyrian channel) I produced in 2012/13 a 22 parts series where I introduced the chronology of modern Assyrian music to the viewers (
check video section
).
In my second work (
Modern Assyrian Music) published in 2015 I completed missed issues from his first book. So both books represent now the whole discography of Assyrian Music of the last 100 years. Beside that I own the largest digital and material collection of Assyrian music records worldwide.
In 2016 I worked in cooperation with the Assyrian Youth Association of Germany (AJM) on a third book (
Music Heritage of Mesopotamia). A song book containing the lyrics and mp3-files on DVD of 145 selected songs in eastern and western Assyrian.
In 2020 my first book including writings of
Naum Faiq
(1868-1930), one of the founding fathers of assyrian nationalism was published.
Currently I am working on a German and a English version of the book of Naum Faiq writings.
I am a happy family father with my wife Wafa and our three children (Tuma, Sibora and Lebaryo).