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PETER BALAKIAN: IMPORTANCE OF ETHICAL MEMORY IS DEFINING PART OF JEWISH INTELLECTUAL TRADITION
PanARMENIAN.Net
October 21, 2010 - 16:33 AMT 11:33 GMT
On October 19, Tablet Magazine published an article by Prof. Peter
Balakian on the importance of Israel's recognition of the Armenian
Genocide, Asbarez.com reports.
In the article, titled "State of Denial: It's time for Israel to
rethink its rejection of the Armenian Genocide," Balakian notes the
irony of the collusion between Turkey and Israeli and Jewish diasporan
groups in genocide denial.
Balakian writes:
"Given this long-standing record of Jewish engagement and intellectual
achievement concerning the Armenian Genocide, and the deep ties
between the two cultures-it would seem an organic thing for Israel
to finally say: The game is over. The truth of history, the meaning
of genocide, the importance of ethical memory is a defining part of
Jewish intellectual tradition and identity. And, in the Armenian case,
the two genocidal histories commingle in deep and historical ways..."
"The Israeli government could recognize the Armenian Genocide by
honoring the words of the great founding genocide scholar Lemkin - a
Holocaust survivor who lost 49 members of his own family to the Nazis.
In August 1950, Lemkin wrote to a colleague: 'Let us not forget that
the heat of this month is less unbearable to us than the heat of the
ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau and more lenient than the murderous heat
in the desert of Aleppo which burned to death the bodies of hundreds
of thousands of Christian Armenian victims of genocide in 1915.'"
From: A. Papazian
PanARMENIAN.Net
October 21, 2010 - 16:33 AMT 11:33 GMT
On October 19, Tablet Magazine published an article by Prof. Peter
Balakian on the importance of Israel's recognition of the Armenian
Genocide, Asbarez.com reports.
In the article, titled "State of Denial: It's time for Israel to
rethink its rejection of the Armenian Genocide," Balakian notes the
irony of the collusion between Turkey and Israeli and Jewish diasporan
groups in genocide denial.
Balakian writes:
"Given this long-standing record of Jewish engagement and intellectual
achievement concerning the Armenian Genocide, and the deep ties
between the two cultures-it would seem an organic thing for Israel
to finally say: The game is over. The truth of history, the meaning
of genocide, the importance of ethical memory is a defining part of
Jewish intellectual tradition and identity. And, in the Armenian case,
the two genocidal histories commingle in deep and historical ways..."
"The Israeli government could recognize the Armenian Genocide by
honoring the words of the great founding genocide scholar Lemkin - a
Holocaust survivor who lost 49 members of his own family to the Nazis.
In August 1950, Lemkin wrote to a colleague: 'Let us not forget that
the heat of this month is less unbearable to us than the heat of the
ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau and more lenient than the murderous heat
in the desert of Aleppo which burned to death the bodies of hundreds
of thousands of Christian Armenian victims of genocide in 1915.'"
From: A. Papazian