Chicagoland Arab American journalist buried after succumbing to COVID-19
Newspaper publisher was constantly helping people and needy families using his own resources and funds
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Jordanian American newspaper publisher Mansour Tadros was buried on Tuesday after succumbing to an apparent case of the coronavirus in an unusual funeral arrangement restricted by fears of the pandemic and government concerns.
Tadros was interned on Tuesday at Lawn Funeral Home but no one except immediate family could attend his wake. Mourners and friends were required by restrictions imposed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to remain in their vehicles during the entire length of the funeral.
More than 70 cars formed a funeral procession that left the funeral home and snaked its way past his home and then to a burial plot at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois. The cemetery is the final resting place for many of Chicagoland’s Christian Arabs. Tadros’ immediate family, the priest who provided the burial service, and members of the funeral home all wore face masks for health reasons. The small group stood around the casket as a few funeral flower arrangements were placed nearby.
After the casket was placed in the tomb, each of the cars slowly passed by the Tadros family vehicles to pay respects from their car to the other, through opened windows. His sons Fadi and Faris sat in another car also greeting mourners who came to pay their respects to their father through their car window, as required by COVID-19 government restrictions. “We are so grateful to everyone who attended,” said Mansour’s sobbing wife Lidya who sat in her car with her daughter Nadine as each car passed slowly and through open windows offered their condolences. “This is so difficult for us.” Tadros was a giant in the Arab American journalism community, publishing The Future News beginning right after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 until last year when he moved the news operation from print to exclusive online.
Tadros had said many times that more needed to be done to educate Americans about the true face of Arab culture which is rich, diverse and embedded in the foundations of many of the great achievements of mankind from science and math to language.
A co-founder of the National Arab American Journalists Association (NAAJA) which has chapters in Chicagoland, Detroit and Houston, Tadros struggled to keep his newspaper financially afloat often paying its publication expenses from his own pocket.
According to NAAJA, the Arab American and Muslim print media in America was severely impacted and many of the Arab ethnic and
Muslim publications were forced to close in the wake of the terrorist attacks because of discrimination. That encourage Tadros to launch his own newspaper, The Future News in 2002.
During his newspaper publishing career, Tadros made it a priority to make his newspaper the “newspaper of record” for Chicagoland’s Arab American community which first settled in the city following the 1893 World Columbian Exposition which featured the popular “Street in Cairo” and exposed the West to “belly dancing” performances, called by Chicagoans at the time as “the hootchie cootchie” dance.
Millions of American Exposition attendees experienced this first contact with Arab culture.
Tadros immigrated with his parents from Na’ur, a suburb of Amman, Jordan and he was very active in the Jordanian American and Palestinian American communities.
Nemer Ziyad, CEO of Ziyad Brothers Importing, expressed shock at the news, noting he had just spoken with Mansour only a few weeks back.
“Mansour was a man that lived and worked constantly on behalf of our Arab American community that was his life and that will be his legacy,” Nemer Ziyad said.
BACKGROUND Mansour Tadros was a giant in the Arab American journalism community, publishing The Future News beginning right after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 until last year when he moved the news operation from print to exclusive online.