From: dbd@urartu.sdpa.org (David Davidian)
Subject: Jews in Armenia
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 16:33:39 GMT

After many emails from Jewish member on UseNet asking for a short summary 
regarding the situation of Jews in Armenia ... we can finally post something!
Enclosed are two articles on the subject. 

From: AIM (Armenian International Magazine), December 1992, pages 42-44

_A HERITAGE REBORN; For Many Jewish Armenians, National Identity Has Assumed a
New Twist_

By ANI KLCHIAN

Census figures put the number of Jews living in Armenia today at about 1,000,
but the actual count is fluctuating.

While severe economic conditions are driving some Jewish families out of the
country, many others are coming forth to declare their Jewishness after seven 
decades of concealment and fear of official persecution. But since Jewish law
considers individuals in mixed marriages Jewish if they are born to a Jewish
mother, and Armenian tradition holds the opposite, patriarchal view, children
of mixed marriages are finding that ethnic identity and belonging are, for
legal as well as spiritual purposes, matters of personal choice.

According to the Old Testament, which Jews refer to as the Torah, there once 
were 12 Jewish tribes, of which only two have survived. Their descendants fall
into one of two geographic groupings--the Sephardic Jews who were expelled 
from Spain in 1492, and the Ashkhenazi Jews of Europe. The Jewish community
in Armenia belongs to the Ashkhenazi branch.

A Jewish-Armenia Cultural Relations Center, Arev, was founded two years ago in
Yerevan. Igor Ulanovsky, 35, a chemist, was elected president of the 
foundation. The following is an interview with Rabbi Gersh Bourshtein, 33, 
spiritual leader of the Jewish-Armenian community and a physician at the 
Yerevan State Medical Institute.

AIM--How did the Jews settle in Armenia?

Rabbi Bourshtein-- The first Jewish communities dated back to the first
century AD, when Tigran the Great settled them in the country. In the course
of time, that early wave has totally assimilated into the Armenian population.
The second influx began in 1937, when rampant anti-semitism drove many Jews 
out of Russia and the Ukraine. Armenia was perhaps the only Soviet republic
where Jews were not persecuted, though Zionism, like all other forms of
religious worship, was repressed throughout the Union.

[AIM] Where are your spiritual gatherings held now?

[RB] We don't have a synagogue yet. However, following Armenia's declaration
of independence, we obtained permission to build one and have even chosen the
site. It is at the end of Mashtots Boulevard, across from the St. Sargis 
Church.

We usually gather at the houses of community leaders. Last year, for instance,
we marked Yom Kippur at Igor Ulanovsky's house. The New Year festivities were
held at the State Medical Institute. This year Hanukkah was celebrated on a 
larger scale. Also, announcements about Jewish religious holidays are being
published in the newspapers.

[AIM] What about schools and other organizations?

A Sunday school was founded in August. Here, both young and old will be taught
the Torah, become acquainted with the history of Judaism and learn Hebrew. The 
school has 175 students -- 75 children and 100 adults. Only the adults pay
tuition. We are planning to open at least three more such schools. There is no
point in having a full-fledged Jewish secondary school, since the Jewish
community is not very large here. This year we have also established a
community service for the care and preservation of Jewish cemeteries.

[AIM] Do you see a consensus in the Jewish community, particularly among 
intellectuals, on the current state of Armenian politics?

[RB] Jewish-Armenian intellectuals consider themselves part of Armenia, and 
many have sympathized with the Karabakh movement from the very first day. Most
of us participated in the rallies and the demonstrations for the self-
determination of Karabakh, shoulder to shoulder with Armenians. Now, in the 
post-Soviet landscape, people are beginning to see a broader cultural and
geopolitical perspective and I think national sovereignty is necessary for 
progress. Every nation should be independent, regardless of its size. This 
doesn't mean, of course, that newly established states should isolate 
themselves from the rest of the world. Without international, truly cross-
cultural relations, progress is impossible. Cooperation between nations is 
increasingly crucial, and it must be based on equal relations between the 
parties, regardless of geography or population count.

[AIM] Do you maintain ties with Israel?

[RB] Our relations with Israel are conducted on both official and unofficial 
levels. The Jewish community keeps in touch with friends and relatives in 
Israel who have emigrated from Armenia. Thanks to our contacts there, the
Israeli government issued a document supporting the Armenians of Karabakh,
along with an objective evaluation of the events by the prime minister's 
office.

[AIM] Is there a new emigration pattern among Jewish Armenians today?

[RB] Indeed there is, and it is difficult to say whether it is for the better
or the worse. On the one hand, all Jews, as the children of Israel, should
sooner or later return to their Motherland.

On the other hand, Soviet Jews, many of whom were born and lived in these 
lands for long years, have established strong roots, and it is difficult for 
them to leave everything behind. Unfortunately, the recent Jewish exodus from 
the republics of the former Soviet Union is basically motivated by economic
problems rather than patriotic urges. Jewish-Armenians are also choosing the 
repatriation route. The question remains, whether they will be able to acquire 
a home in Israel.

But people throughout Armenia are facing the same socio-economic problems. I 
think we are all in this together and we have to combine efforts to get out 
of the pit together.

[AIM] How do you explain the paranoid attitude of some circles and groups 
towards Jewishness and Jews?

[RB] There have always been scapegoats in history. Jews have often been used 
to discharge tension in times of political instability. Today, in Russia, 
anti-semitic groups and organizations are using age-old methods to divert the 
attention of the masses from the real causes of social unrest. The notion of 
anti-semitism in Russia has been advanced as a means of political distraction 
since Tzarist times. And because the Jewish community was isolated under a 
shroud of secrecy and mystery, it was easy to blame it for engineering all
kinds of plots. You have probably heard of the so-called Masonic League, a 
mythical organization, which allegedly plans to conquer the world. Anti-
semitism is also used to provoke international hostility. The same kind of
of intrigue was played off in Karabakh. Here there was no effort on the side 
of the Soviet government to find a solution -- on the contrary, there was an 
obvious attempt to further deepen the antagonism.

The gist of Zionism is not the conquest of the world, but the conviction that
all Jews must live in their country, a claim natural to each and every nation 
in the world.

[AIM] What is your interpretation of the fact that the Holocaust was almost
universally acknowledged, whereas the veracity of the Armenian Genocide is 
still questioned by a number of international powers?

[RB] I have often asked the same question. Many countries do not realize the 
seriousness of the act of acknowledgment as a guarantee for preventing new 
genocides.

That indifference has resulted in the recent massacres of Armenians in Baku,
Kirovabad and Sumgait in Azerbaijan. These events were not isolated cases of 
hooliganism. They were premeditated, highly organized massacres.

An Armenian girl I knew had been thrown into the fire alive. Another, a child,
witnessed his father being killed. How can these people believe in 
international friendship ever again, if the democratic world is so indifferent
toward their plight?

There is no doubt about the factuality of the 1915 Genocide. The Turkish
government should accept its responsibility, as the Germans did after World
War II. Maybe the present generation is not blame for the crimes of their
forefathers, but an official acknowledgment of historic facts by Turkey
would demonstrate sincerity in joining the international democratic
community.

------------------------------ end article 1 ---------------------------

Ancient Ties,  Modern Realities, by Tigran Xmalian, AIM, page 44.

Our ties--and similarities--traditionally stemmed from common catastrophes. 
Flood was the first cause."And on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, 
the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat" (Genesis, 8:4).

Next came an invitation to arms during the storming of Babylon. "Lift up a 
banner in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations
for battle against her; summon against her these kingdoms: Ararat, Minni and 
Ashkenaz" (Jeremy, 51;27).

Perhaps the widest cross-cultural contact between the Armenian and Jewish
peoples occurred in the first century BC, when Tigran the Great resettled 
some 10,000 Jews in Armenia after retreating from Palestine.

Six hundred years later, Moses of Khorene claimed in his History of Armenia 
that his sponsor, Prince Smbat Bagratuni, was a descendant of those early
Jewish settlers: "You have to know that your name Smbat, by which Bagratounis 
used to call their sons, means originally Shambat in their former language,
that is Jewish," Khorenatsi wrote.

And perhaps the so-called Zogs, a community of some 20,000 Semitic Armenians, 
were the last representatives of the oldest Jewish community in Armenia. The
Zogs, who had lived in Nakhichevan since Tigran's time, were deported by
Azerbaijan in 1988, along with the rest of the area's Armenian population.

But the similarities end here. Today, Israel regards Turkey as an ally and the 
Arab world as its nemesis, while Armenia may gain much from relations with
Arab states, especially in light of a defacto war with Azerbaijan over
Karabakh and Turkey's active support of its Turkic neighbor.

Israel and the great powers undoubtedly support Azerbaijan, because only the
isolation of Iran can guarantee the control of oil reserves in both the Middle 
East and the Transcaucasus, while Arab countries and Russia remain dependent 
upon the West for military and financial aid.

But politics has scarcely affected personal sympathies between Jews and 
Armenians. Composer Aram Khachaturian, chess champion Tigran Petrossian and 
President Levon Ter Petrossian have all married Jewish women, and world chess 
champion Gary Kasparov is the child of a Jewish and Armenian union.

At least 1,000 Jews call Armenia home, though a lot of them are going to meet
next year in Jerusalem, while thousands of Armenians still live in Israel.

--Tigran Xmalian

-- 
David Davidian <dbd@urartu.sdpa.org> |"The massacres? Oh well! They merely  
S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies | amuse me!"  -Talaat Pasha, architect of 
P.O. Box 382761                      | Turkish the genocide of Armenian people. 
Cambridge, MA 02238                  | (Four Years Beneath the Crescent, p 208) 
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