Issa Benyamin

Issa Benyamin (May 15, 1924 - January 14, 2014) is an Assyrian calligrapher and educator.

Biography

Assyrian calligrapher, Issa Benyamin was born to Assyrian parents, Mirza Benyamin Kaldani (1879-1966) and Esther in 1924 in Tabriz, Iran and shortly thereafter, settled in Urmia, once a heavily Assyrian populated region in northwestern Iran that was the site of the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918.

Benyamin's love for the Neo-Aramaic language developed early on when his father, who was originally from Salamas, Iran, taught him to read and write Neo-Aramaic. By the time Benyamin was seventeen, he fell in love with the art of calligraphy and began mastering it under the tutelage of Bishop Havil Zaya, the Archbishop of Urmia and Salamas.

Benyamin's many publications included the weekly Assyrian-Persian Datid barana'Bright Future in 1951 and in 1962, one of the first books on the principles of Assyrian writing. From 1981 to 1983, he was the Assyrian editor of the weekly Ishtar (name of ancient Assyrian female deity) .'