Tweet
Armenians and Jews: Natural Allies, Kindred Spirits
By Christopher Atamian
01/30/2015
Armenians and Jews share many things in common: they are both ancient
Near Eastern people with a long and storied history. They have often
faced persecution, which culminated in the Armenian Genocide of 1915
and the Holocaust of the Jews in WWII. Adolf Hitler in fact modeled
the Holocaust on the Ottoman extermination of the Western Armenians.
The similarities between Armenians and Jews, and Armenians and
Israelis, go deeper in fact: both people are known for their prowess
in the arts and commerce and value education to an almost
preternatural extent. There is an Armenian quarter in Jerusalem that
dates back to at least the 4th century A.D. Armenia, broadly defined,
has known at last three historic migrations of Jews and was most
recently considered a haven for Soviet Jews, a land where
anti-Semitism was--and remains--virtually nonexistent. In fact when
you visit Armenia you will meet Armenians with names like Israel
Aharonian and Movses Kaplanian--the kinship has been lost over many
centuries of co-existence, but looking at names and even physiological
similarities, it is not hard to imagine how close these two people
have been historically.
Recent attempts by Azeri lobbies and right-wing writers in Israel to
portray Armenia as an anti-semitic country are abhorrent in the
extreme. Commentators such as Arye Gut--who is a member of the Board
of the Israeli-Azerbaijani International Organization--have recently
taken it upon themselves to deform the truth, openly lie and make up
incidents which simply don't exist in order to try to drive a wedge
between Armenia and Israel. Considering the denialist nature of the
Azeri government which will not even acknowledge the Armenian Genocide
and falsely accuses Armenia of starting the war in Nagorno-Karabagh,
none of this should be surprising. It won't work. Go to almost any
Armenian household in the Armenian Diaspora or the Republic of Armenia
and Jews are looked up to and even revered. Armenians are even known
in certain quarters as the "Jews of the Caucasus." In contrast, at the
recent Gezi Park demonstrations in Istanbul, Turkey--a close ally and
ethnic "cousin" of Azerbaijan--a policeman shooting at the
demonstrators was overheard shouting "You are not Turks, you are
Armenians and Jews."
In a recent open letter to world Jewry, the Head of the Jewish
Community in Armenia Rima Varzhapetyan Feller stated the following,
worth repeating in some detail: "...targeted efforts have been exerted
recently to cast a shadow on Armenian-Jewish relations...those
attempts cannot but fail. The history of the two ancient peoples -
Armenians and Jews - is full of similarities and mutual contacts, and
even with the utmost effort in the world, one can not derail those
relations....Can the restoration of the Jewish medieval cemetery in
one of the provinces of Armenia at the expense of funds allocated by
the Government, be considered as an expression of anti-Semitic
policy?...Armenians always treated Jews and the State of Israel with
admiration... one cannot even imagine holding anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel demonstrations in Armenia [such as those] which took place
in different towns of Azerbaijan a couple of years ago." "
Like Israel, Armenia finds itself surrounded by mostly hostile
states--in particular Turkey and Azerbaijan. Israel is in a difficult
position. It has been blackmailed by the Republic of Turkey into not
recognizing the Armenian Genocide, while oil rich Azerbaijan buys arms
by the bucket load from the tiny and imperiled Jewish state. But
Israel has recently learned during the Mavi Marmara incident that
Turkey and President Erdogan--and Azerbaijan by extension--are
fair-weather friends at best. And while it is true that Turkey let in
thousand of Jews fleeing the Inquisition into the Ottoman Empire, they
did so in large part because these wealthy immigrants helped them
finance their war against the powerful Republic of Venice and other
European states. Since then, Jews in Turkey and Azerbaijan have
regularly been persecuted. In 1915, as the Ottoman Empire's 3
million-strong Christian population was slowly extinguished, many Jews
saw the handwriting on the wall and emigrated. More recently as many
as 50,000 Jews were slaughtered and/or expelled from the Rumeli Region
alone. Hundreds of the Republic's wealthiest Jewish members were sent
to labor battalions along with Armenians during the wealth taxes
imposed on minorities in the 1950's.
In a recent piece in Ha'aretz cleverly titled "Baku to the future:
Azerbaijan, not Armenia, is Israel's true ally," Maxime Gauin and
Alexander Murinson repeat the same old canards about Karekin
Njhdeh--an Armenian revolutionary who fought the Ottoman Turks in
1915--and write about a supposed "Nazi" Armenian battalion in WWII.
Both writers are part of the extreme right-wing in Israel: for good
measure, the authors use a picture of the Presidents of Armenia and
Iran together at an official welcoming ceremony, implying that a
friend of Israel's enemy must be an enemy of Israel as well, an absurd
proposition in international relations. Armenians have a long history
of living in the Persian Empire and Iran is one of the only trade
partners Armenia has in the region as both Turkey and Azerbaijan have
blockaded the country--something that Israelis are all too familiar
with given long-standing Arab boycotts of their own country.
Unlike many countries in the region that have denied the Holocaust, on
January 27th the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan reiterated his
commitment to commemorating the event and recalled the similar
destinies of Armenian and Jew: "The genocide committed against the
Jews during the World War II was one of the most tragic pages in the
human history. January 27th symbolizes the liberation of the Auschwitz
concentration camp...This year Armenian people are commemorating the
Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, and we more than anyone empathize
with the pain of the Jewish people." You can't get much clearer than
that.
Finally, I would like to recall that the Ottoman Turks led by Cemal
Pasha along with their Azeri allies planned to wipe out the entire
Lebanese and Jewish populations in Palestine after doing away with the
Armenians. If that, combined with the recent anti-semitic bile that
President Erdogan and Aliyev have both spouted is not enough to
convince Israel of who their true ally is, then nothing will. In fact,
most Armenians are not worried--everyone knows that Israel and
Armenia, and Armenians and Jews, are kindred spirits and friends. To
believe otherwise is simply to turn the world upside down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-atamian/armenians-and-jews-natura_b_6565870.html
By Christopher Atamian
01/30/2015
Armenians and Jews share many things in common: they are both ancient
Near Eastern people with a long and storied history. They have often
faced persecution, which culminated in the Armenian Genocide of 1915
and the Holocaust of the Jews in WWII. Adolf Hitler in fact modeled
the Holocaust on the Ottoman extermination of the Western Armenians.
The similarities between Armenians and Jews, and Armenians and
Israelis, go deeper in fact: both people are known for their prowess
in the arts and commerce and value education to an almost
preternatural extent. There is an Armenian quarter in Jerusalem that
dates back to at least the 4th century A.D. Armenia, broadly defined,
has known at last three historic migrations of Jews and was most
recently considered a haven for Soviet Jews, a land where
anti-Semitism was--and remains--virtually nonexistent. In fact when
you visit Armenia you will meet Armenians with names like Israel
Aharonian and Movses Kaplanian--the kinship has been lost over many
centuries of co-existence, but looking at names and even physiological
similarities, it is not hard to imagine how close these two people
have been historically.
Recent attempts by Azeri lobbies and right-wing writers in Israel to
portray Armenia as an anti-semitic country are abhorrent in the
extreme. Commentators such as Arye Gut--who is a member of the Board
of the Israeli-Azerbaijani International Organization--have recently
taken it upon themselves to deform the truth, openly lie and make up
incidents which simply don't exist in order to try to drive a wedge
between Armenia and Israel. Considering the denialist nature of the
Azeri government which will not even acknowledge the Armenian Genocide
and falsely accuses Armenia of starting the war in Nagorno-Karabagh,
none of this should be surprising. It won't work. Go to almost any
Armenian household in the Armenian Diaspora or the Republic of Armenia
and Jews are looked up to and even revered. Armenians are even known
in certain quarters as the "Jews of the Caucasus." In contrast, at the
recent Gezi Park demonstrations in Istanbul, Turkey--a close ally and
ethnic "cousin" of Azerbaijan--a policeman shooting at the
demonstrators was overheard shouting "You are not Turks, you are
Armenians and Jews."
In a recent open letter to world Jewry, the Head of the Jewish
Community in Armenia Rima Varzhapetyan Feller stated the following,
worth repeating in some detail: "...targeted efforts have been exerted
recently to cast a shadow on Armenian-Jewish relations...those
attempts cannot but fail. The history of the two ancient peoples -
Armenians and Jews - is full of similarities and mutual contacts, and
even with the utmost effort in the world, one can not derail those
relations....Can the restoration of the Jewish medieval cemetery in
one of the provinces of Armenia at the expense of funds allocated by
the Government, be considered as an expression of anti-Semitic
policy?...Armenians always treated Jews and the State of Israel with
admiration... one cannot even imagine holding anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel demonstrations in Armenia [such as those] which took place
in different towns of Azerbaijan a couple of years ago." "
Like Israel, Armenia finds itself surrounded by mostly hostile
states--in particular Turkey and Azerbaijan. Israel is in a difficult
position. It has been blackmailed by the Republic of Turkey into not
recognizing the Armenian Genocide, while oil rich Azerbaijan buys arms
by the bucket load from the tiny and imperiled Jewish state. But
Israel has recently learned during the Mavi Marmara incident that
Turkey and President Erdogan--and Azerbaijan by extension--are
fair-weather friends at best. And while it is true that Turkey let in
thousand of Jews fleeing the Inquisition into the Ottoman Empire, they
did so in large part because these wealthy immigrants helped them
finance their war against the powerful Republic of Venice and other
European states. Since then, Jews in Turkey and Azerbaijan have
regularly been persecuted. In 1915, as the Ottoman Empire's 3
million-strong Christian population was slowly extinguished, many Jews
saw the handwriting on the wall and emigrated. More recently as many
as 50,000 Jews were slaughtered and/or expelled from the Rumeli Region
alone. Hundreds of the Republic's wealthiest Jewish members were sent
to labor battalions along with Armenians during the wealth taxes
imposed on minorities in the 1950's.
In a recent piece in Ha'aretz cleverly titled "Baku to the future:
Azerbaijan, not Armenia, is Israel's true ally," Maxime Gauin and
Alexander Murinson repeat the same old canards about Karekin
Njhdeh--an Armenian revolutionary who fought the Ottoman Turks in
1915--and write about a supposed "Nazi" Armenian battalion in WWII.
Both writers are part of the extreme right-wing in Israel: for good
measure, the authors use a picture of the Presidents of Armenia and
Iran together at an official welcoming ceremony, implying that a
friend of Israel's enemy must be an enemy of Israel as well, an absurd
proposition in international relations. Armenians have a long history
of living in the Persian Empire and Iran is one of the only trade
partners Armenia has in the region as both Turkey and Azerbaijan have
blockaded the country--something that Israelis are all too familiar
with given long-standing Arab boycotts of their own country.
Unlike many countries in the region that have denied the Holocaust, on
January 27th the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan reiterated his
commitment to commemorating the event and recalled the similar
destinies of Armenian and Jew: "The genocide committed against the
Jews during the World War II was one of the most tragic pages in the
human history. January 27th symbolizes the liberation of the Auschwitz
concentration camp...This year Armenian people are commemorating the
Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, and we more than anyone empathize
with the pain of the Jewish people." You can't get much clearer than
that.
Finally, I would like to recall that the Ottoman Turks led by Cemal
Pasha along with their Azeri allies planned to wipe out the entire
Lebanese and Jewish populations in Palestine after doing away with the
Armenians. If that, combined with the recent anti-semitic bile that
President Erdogan and Aliyev have both spouted is not enough to
convince Israel of who their true ally is, then nothing will. In fact,
most Armenians are not worried--everyone knows that Israel and
Armenia, and Armenians and Jews, are kindred spirits and friends. To
believe otherwise is simply to turn the world upside down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-atamian/armenians-and-jews-natura_b_6565870.html