Eat, dance and celebrate with the Cradle of Civilization this weekend in Tarzana

It’s a festival 7,000 years in the making.

The 24^th annual Los Angeles Assyrian Food Festival will get underway Saturday, running all weekend from noon to 10 p.m.

This free event invites the community to learn about the Assyrian community, and enjoy authentic cuisine, music and fun activities for all ages.

Arch-Priest Father George Bet-Rasho leads one of the Southland's most vibrant communities at St. Mary's Assyrian Church of the East, in Tarzana.

“Remember, we’ve been cooking for almost 7,000 years, so, it really, we’ve learned a thing or two,” Father Bet-Rasho said. “It’s really, really good.”

Assyrians are known as the “Cradle of Civilization,” credited with inventing mass production of iron weapons, the battering ram, and organizing the first courier system.

But, as a result of violence and genocide in the nineteenth century, Assyrians today are a stateless nation, taking refuge in the U.S., Russia, Sweden and Australia.

Los Angeles is home to more than 5,000 Assyrian people, who immigrated to Southern California after WWII.

Their population here is second only to Chicago.

Father Bet-Rasho said this weekend's festival gives everyone the chance to learn the story of the Assyrian people, and to take part in some of their traditions.

Among them, of course, is the food.

“These are recipes that have been brought down from generation to generation,” ABC7 anchor Irene Cruz said Thursday in an Eyewitness News interview.

“From Mesopotamia to Los Angeles,” Father Bet-Rasho added.

The festival will also include performances, including traditional music and dancing by the Bet-Nahrain Dance Team.

The team will showcase ornate costumes handmade by an Assyrian designer in Iraq, while presenting dances tracing back nearly 3,000 years.

St. Mary’s Assyrian Church of the East is at 5955 Lindley Ave., in Tarzana.

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