Are Armenians Angry at Jews?
Khatchig Mouradian
Jewcy.com
November 30, 2007
"Thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbor." – Leviticus 19:16
As editor of the Armenian Weekly, I often receive calls from journalists
seeking the perspective of the Armenian community. These days, they
frequently ask me whether the Anti-Defamation League is damaging relations
between the Armenian and Jewish communities. My answer is always a
resounding "no."
Yes, the Armenian community is upset that a prominent Jewish civil rights
organization supports Turkey’s campaign to the deny the Armenian Genocide,
the great tragedy that haunts our community. But we are also aware of the
Jewish-American writers, bloggers, and activists who speak out against ADL’s
hypocrisy.
Armenians also know that throughout the 20th century there was never a
shortage of righteous Jews, individuals who spoke out against the Armenian
genocide. Here, I present three such righteous Jews, whose efforts will
always be treasured by the Armenian community.
Henry Morgenthau
>From the very day when the Ottoman Turkish government started implementing
the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Jewish "upstanders"-as Pulitzer
Prize winning scholar Samantha Power would call them in her book A Problem
>From Hell-have spoken up courageously, against all odds. Take U.S.
Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau, for instance. He not only
informed his government, telegram after telegram, of the horrors being
committed against the Armenians, but also challenged one of the main
architects of the genocide, Talaat Pasha.
On one occasion, Talaat told him, "Why are you so interested in the
Armenians, anyway? You are a Jew; these people are Christians…We are
treating the Jews here all right. What have you to complain of? Why can’t
you let us do with these Christians as we please?"
Morgenthau replied, "You don’t seem to realize that I am not here as a Jew
but as American Ambassador. My country contains something more than
97,000,000 Christians and something less than 3,000,000 Jews. So, at least
in my ambassadorial capacity, I am 97 per cent Christian. But after all,
that is not the point. I do not appeal to you in the name of any race or any
religion, but merely as a human being. You have told me many times that you
want to make Turkey a part of the modern progressive world. The way you are
treating the Armenians will not help you to realize that ambition; it puts
you in the class of backward, reactionary peoples."
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel, an Austrian-Jewish writer, became an international literary
figure with his 1933 novel, Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh, originally
written in German and published a year later in English under the title The
Forty Days of Musa Dagh. The novel tells the story of the heroic
self-defense of the Armenians of Musa Dagh during the Armenian genocide of
1915.
Werfel decided to write the novel after witnessing the plight of Armenian
refugee children in Damascus in 1929. Little did he know that his novel
would not only become a classic and an inspiration for generations of
Armenians, but would also serve as a model of survival and resistance for
his own people during the Holocaust. Prof. Yair Auron writes, "The story of
the defense of Musa Dagh became, indeed, a source of inspiration, an example
for the underground members to learn, a model to imitate. They [the Jewish
youth movements] equated their fate with that of the Armenians. In both
cases, murderous evil empires conspired to uproot entire communities, to
bring about their total physical extinction. In both cases, resistance
embodied the concept of death and national honor on the one hand, and the
chance of being saved as individuals and as a nation on the other."
Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jew, coined the term "genocide" in 1944 based on
the planned extermination of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 and
the Jews during World War II. He worked tirelessly to have the United
Nations pass a law on the prevention and punishment of that crime. Finally,
on Dec. 9, 1948, the UN General Assembly ratified the Genocide Convention.
Lemkin, who lost 49 relatives during the Holocaust, wrote, "The sufferings
of the Armenian men, women, and children thrown into the Euphrates River or
massacred on the way to [the Syrian desert of] Der-el-Zor have prepared the
way for the adoption for the Genocide Convention by the United Nations." He
added, "One million Armenians died, but a law against the murder of peoples
was written with the ink of their blood and the spirit of their sufferings."
***
Today, many Jewish writers and activists are walking in the footsteps of
Morgenthau, Werfel and Lemkin. Time will show that it is they who are
genuinely fighting against anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry. They will
prove stronger than the Foxmen of this world.
ngry_jews