Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down.

“My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a physician, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights.

The equilateral cross with its legs bent at right angles is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism that represents peace and good fortune, and was also used widely by Indigenous people worldwide in a similar vein.

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Rocker Freddy Mercury of Queen is probably still the most famous Zoroastrian for most Americans. But the ancient religion still has followers nationwide and a New York temple in Pomona.

Saturday marks the major Zoroastrian holiday of Nowruz, translated from the Farsi as “New Day”. It falls on the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring, and is celebrated as the Persian New Year. For Zoroastrians, the holiday celebrates kinship (friends can be kin), the beauty of spring, fresh starts and clean slates.

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BURR RIDGE, IL – FEZANA, the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, at its 34th Annual General Meeting announced it has reached its matching fundraising goal of $1.1 million (USD) in partnership with the University of Toronto, officially establishing the FEZANA Professorship of Zoroastrian Languages and Literature at the University of Toronto. This milestone achievement will transform and advance the study of Zoroastrian languages and literature in the Western hemisphere for future generations, and marks an historic moment for FEZANA, its member associations and small...

“Dad, everyone’s wearing a mask!” exclaimed the son of Adi Sidhwa, a Zoroastrian priest, about the COVID mask requirement. “Is it different than yours?”

The boy wasn’t referring to his father’s COVID mask but the long, white, cloth one – padan -- that Sidhwa, 46, from eastern Bergen County, wears when he presides at the service in the Pomona, New York, temple. A Zoroastrian priest, also referred to as mobed, has always worn a mask when performing prayers in front of the sacred flame used in most Zoroastrian ceremonies.

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Most elementary-school boys spend their free time playing videogames or hanging out with friends. Zerkxis Bhandara’s childhood was a bit different. He started training to become a Zoroastrian priest when he was 9. 

Mr. Bhandara, whose family traces its lineage to a 12th-century Indian cleric, was born into the role. But the 25-year-old graduate student from Irvine, Calif., pushed back on his early religious obligations. “Oh gosh, I was a bad student,” he recalls. There were classes. Homework. “Like every 9-year-old, I would rather do any other thing.”

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