Pappas honors Arab American business and community leaders for Heritage Month

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas hosted her annual celebration for Arab American Heritage Month, one of several dozen events her office sponsors to recognize the many contributions Cook County’s various ethnic and religious groups have made to society.

By Ray Hanania

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas on Monday (April 28, 2025) honored 37 Arab American community leaders and business owners as a part of her office’s annual Arab American Heritage Month celebrations. April is designated as Arab American Heritage Month by a resolution passed by former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan in 2017, was approved in 2018, and was first celebrated in Illinois in 2019.

Every year, Pappas celebrates the achievements of all of Cook County’s ethnic communities, a reflection of her unprecedented commitment to the public interest and her effort to detail all of her office services in brochures translated into 22 different languages spoken by Cook County’s diverse residents.

The emcee for the program was Hassan Nijem, an office adviser and liaison on ethnic affairs for the Cook County Treasurer’s office. Each honoree received a special Certificate of Honor presented by Pappas and her staff.

“Over the years, Maria Pappas has helped Arab Americans save millions of dollars in property tax overpayments and helped them to apply for and receive refunds from overpayments related to missing property exemptions. And the Treasurer’s Office does many events in the Mosques and in the Churches where people are missing exemptions. We refunded the overpayments. I had the honor to work alongside Treasurer Maria Pappas for the last three years,” Nijem said in welcoming the 200 guests at the event held at the Treasurer’s office in the Cook County Building.

“Today, we are gathered here to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month, a time to honor the contributions to cultural achievements of Arab Americans throughout Cook County and beyond. And now it is my great honor to introduce to you to the woman whose leadership and dedication have made this celebration possible. Please join me in welcoming the Cook County Treasurer, Maria Pappas. She recognized many very remarkable individuals from our Arab American community who make a difference in our daily lives.”

Pappas explained why the ethnic diversity of Cook County is so important to her and why she works so hard to ensure that every ethnic and religious group is represented and that no group is left out.

“I grew up in a house that was very poor, but was very rich in love and in tradition and in family. And we had a great respect not only for parents, but grandparents and great-grandparents, and the tradition in which the language, the religion, and the culture were respected. A language in a culture where if you didn’t behave yourself, you would hear about it from your grandmother. And if you stepped out of line, you were quickly put back in line. Because there was a family that cared about who you were and what you were going to become,” said Pappas.

Arab American community liaison Hassan Nijem, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Basta at the Arab American Heritage Month event hosted by Pappas’s office.

“And many, many of the parents and many of the grandparents had the genetic disposition, the DNA to become something. But like my parents and my grandparents, they never had the chance to get into college. But what you see today on this stage is a generation that was able after the grandparents and the parents to improve themselves, to send their kids onto college, to become doctors, to become lawyers, to own businesses in a country where they were welcomed, where they were welcomed by not just the government, but other people in the community who valued their values, who valued their culture, who valued their education, who valued their language … There are people on this stage who’ve made this city, this county and this state a better place to live.”

After the event, the honorees and the guests enjoyed a large array of Middle Eastern food provided by several Chicagoland restaurants, including M’Dakhan, Melt-n-Dip, Reef Kabob, Salam Cola, S2Grills, and Nazareth Sweets.

The individuals from the Arab American community honored by Pappas at the celebration are:

Honorees at the celebration were: Mufid Isa, AlAqsa Supermarket, Reem Hamad, Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Counselor, Abder Ghouleh, U.S. Palestinian Council, Alla Taher, Sr. Assoc. Kelley, Drye & Warren, Dr. Atiyeh Ahmad Salem, M.D. & Entrepreneur, George Tony Wahbeh, Wahbeh Law Group.

Marvet Sweis Drnovsek, IL Commission on Discrimination & Hate, Tammy Amjad Rabadi-Haddad, R.N. Silver Cross Hospital, Jonathan Rajael Haddad Attorney at Law, Dr. Ali Tarokh, New American Advisory Council, Dr. Abdullatif Assaf, Jordanian House of Al-Nashama, Dr. Iliass Najimi, Chiropractor, Adnan Nassan, Businessman, Imam Hassan Mostafa Aly, Humanitarian Faith Initiative, Falah Tabahi, Pita Inn CEO, Maha Abuagel, Divine Design & Events CEO.

Yousif Marei, Islamic & Arab Community Services, Jawad Shalabi, VP Arab American Bar Assoc., Mohammad Shawahin, Airline Pilot, Dr. Jawad Rabi, Pharmacy One Plus, Aber Abueid, Sanad Food Pantry Dir., Naser Alshoweat, Car Dealership Owner, Tesneem Amine, Activist & Law Student, Ekram Hanna, MIRA Chicago Dir., Michael Amjad Rabadi, Airline Pilot, Dr. Nidal Elbaridi, Pain Specialist, Father Fouad Saba, Pastor St. George Antiochian Church, Khalil Ismail, Restaurateur & Philanthropist, Khalid Basti, Entrepreneur & Accountant, Maher Khattab, Bridgeview Zoning & Planning Committee.

Also recognized were Reem Odeh, Attorney at Law Offices of Reem Odeh, Rush Darwish, Arab American Business and Professional Assoc., Suheir Barakat-Williams, S2 Grill Owner, Maha Hamdi, AAA Insurance Office Owner.

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Ray Hanania

Syndicated columnist, radio host, writer at Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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