MANDAEAN LITERATURE 535
of 2003, and other tumultuous events in the region have had a major impact
on the environment and peoples of southern Iraq and Iran, including the
Mandaeans. At a recent gathering of Mandaeans and scholars at Harvard
University, leaders of the Mandaean community in Iran estimated the popu-
lation of Mandaeans in Iraq as seventy-five thousand and in Iran as thirty-
five thousand. The Mandaeans of Iran maintain schools where children learn
Mandaic, and the number of Mandaic speakers appears to be greater there
than in Iraq, although any precise comparison is currently impossible.
Turmoil in the Persian Gulf region has created a growing Mandaean dias-
pora. According to recent statistics, there are approximately seventy Man-
daean families in the New York City area, including New Jersey, and others in
Florida, Michigan, and California. There is also a large community of Man-
daeans in Australia, while smaller groups and individuals may be found in
Glasgow, Scotland; Odessa, Ukraine; and other cities. Increasingly, Man-
daeans encounter the challenges of assimilation, modern technology, and a
radically different physical environment.
Mandaeans around the world maintain contact with one another and with
their home communities in the Middle East. They are led by a priesthood still
recovering from a devastating cholera epidemic in 1831, which killed all of the
adult priests but spared a handful of their sons. In recent years, priests from
Iran have traveled to Australia and the United States to perform baptisms,
weddings, and other rituals. As the Mandaeans enter the twenty-first century,
they face the future strengthened by a long history of tenacious survival and
cultural creativity.