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Msgr. Sami Yacoub Totah, who served the Latin Catholic Arabic Community of Good Shepherd in Westchester for 37 years, died July 20 in San Francisco. He was 67.
This community is located at Immaculate Conception/St. Mary’s parish in Yonkers.
Born in Ramallah, Palestine, he entered the Latin Patriarchal Seminary, also in Palestine, in 1959. He was ordained in 1971 at the Co-Cathedral of the Holy Name of Jesus in Jerusalem.
He served in Madaba, Jordan, until 1975. While visiting his family in San Francisco, he was chosen to serve in Yonkers, where he ministered starting in 1977. He was named a monsignor in 2011.
Msgr. Totah was a member of the board of trustees of St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers.
A Funeral Mass was offered July 23 at St. Thomas More Church in San Francisco. Burial was at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, Calif.
A Memorial Mass was celebrated July 26 at Immaculate Conception by His Beatitude Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
