New York Times
Oct 19 2007
Armenian Issue Presents a Dilemma for U.S. Jews
By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: October 19, 2007
LEXINGTON, Mass., Oct. 17 – On the docket for the weekly selectmen’s
meeting here on Monday were the location of park benches, a liquor
license for Vinny T’s restaurant and, not for the first time, the
killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey 90 years ago.
Raised in Turkey, Hovannes Minasian, center, was among many Armenians
attending the town meeting in Lexington.
The debate in this affluent Boston suburb, home to many Jews and
Armenians, centered on a local program to increase awareness of bias.
The issue was not the program itself, but its sponsor, the
Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish advocacy group, which has taken a
stand against a proposed Congressional resolution condemning the
Armenians’ deaths as genocide.
`If you deny one genocide,’ said Dr. Jack Nusan Porter, a child of
Holocaust survivors and a genocide studies scholar who attended the
meeting, `you deny all genocides.’
The Congressional resolution has created an international furor and
deeply offended the Turkish government, both a key ally of Israel’s
and a crucial logistics player for the American presence in Iraq. But
as events in Boston suburbs in recent months have shown, it has also
put American Jews in an anguished dilemma as they try to reconcile
their support of Israel with their commitment to fighting genocide.
In the end, the Board of Selectmen here voted unanimously to cut ties
with the Anti-Defamation League, as did three other Boston suburbs
this week. Three other towns had already done so, with more
considering the option.
For many Jews, the issue has involved much soul-searching.
`It’s hard to talk about it because there are two things or more in
conflict here,’ said Rabbi David Lerner of Temple Emunah in
Lexington. `Israel is in a very vulnerable position in the world, and
Turkey is its only friend in the Middle East. Genocide is a burning
issue for us, now and in the past. It’s something of who we are.’
The House resolution condemning the killings of Armenians as genocide
is nonbinding and largely symbolic, but Turkey’s reaction has been
swift and furious. It has recalled its ambassador from Washington and
threatened to withdraw critical logistical support for the Iraq war.
For Patrick Mehr, a Lexington resident who spoke at the meeting
Monday, the overriding priority is condemning the killings,
regardless of Turkey’s response.
The next day at his home, Mr. Mehr, the son of a Holocaust survivor,
voiced the anger many Jews and Armenians feel toward Abraham H.
Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director. `Abe Foxman,
like George W. Bush, is mumbling that it may not have been genocide,’
Mr. Mehr said. `Foxman talks about commissions of scholars who should
study this. That, to me, rang exactly like Ahmadinejad saying, `Let’s
have a committee to study the Holocaust.’ Give me a break.’
Jewish leaders have long sought to focus attention on the killings of
Armenians, starting with the American ambassador to Turkey in 1915,
Henry Morgenthau Sr., who wrote in a cable that the Turkish violence
against Armenians was `an effort to exterminate the race.’ Several
members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who voted for the
resolution, including a key sponsor, Representative Adam B. Schiff,
Democrat of California, are Jewish.
Several major Jewish groups, like the American Jewish Committee,
oppose the resolution, arguing that it is not the best way to
persuade the Turks to examine their past.
Mr. Foxman argues that Turkey is the only friend Israel has in the
Muslim world, and it has been hospitable to Jews since giving them
refuge after they were driven from Europe during the Inquisition.
`Israel’s relationship with Turkey is the second most important,
after its relationship with the United States,’ Mr. Foxman said. `All
this in a world that isolates Israel, and all this can’t simply be
waved away.’
Widespread attention to the Anti-Defamation League’s opposition to
the resolution came in July, when David Boyajian, an
Armenian-American resident of Newton, Mass., wrote to a local
newspaper saying that the town’s anti-bigotry program, known as No
Place for Hate, was tarnished because of its sponsorship by the
Anti-Defamation League.
He wrote that the A.D.L. `has made the Holocaust and its denial key
pieces’ of the program, `while at the same time hypocritically
working with Turkey to oppose recognition of the Armenian genocide of
1915-23.’
The news shocked most local Jews, many of whom have long been active
in campaigns against killings in Bosnia, Rwanda and, most recently,
Sudan. By mid-August, Watertown, Mass., had decided to end its
affiliation with the Anti-Defamation League’s program. On Aug. 17,
the board of the New England Anti-Defamation League passed a
resolution calling for the national organization to recognize the
Armenian genocide. Its regional director, Andrew Tarsy, was fired by
the national group the next day.
The clampdown on the local chapter infuriated many Jews in the Boston
area. Two members of the New England board resigned, although one has
since returned, and many local leaders criticized Mr. Foxman. Newton,
whose population is heavily Jewish, voted to sever ties with the
Anti-Defamation League unless it changed its position on the
resolution.
Mr. Foxman quickly rehired Mr. Tarsy and issued a statement intended
to heal what he said were dangerous rifts in the Boston Jewish
community at a time when Jewish unity was crucial. The statement did
not support the House resolution. The killings of Armenians, Mr.
Foxman wrote, were `tantamount to genocide.’
He added, `If the word genocide had existed then, they would have
called it genocide.’
Some Jews praised Mr. Foxman, whose reappraisal, they said, was
uncharacteristic. But other Jews and Armenians said he did not go far
enough.
`It denies the intentionality of genocide,’ said Joey Kurtzman,
executive editor of the online magazine Jewcy.com. Janet Tassel, a
congregant at Temple Isaiah in Lexington, said she did not like Mr.
Foxman but could not understand how Jews could be fighting over the
word genocide when Israeli and American interests are at stake.
`If this resolution goes through, it’s goodbye Charlie for Israel,
for U.S. troops in Iraq,’ Ms. Tassel said. `It will lead to more
anti-Semitism. I’m conflicted about what’s right.’
Dr. Porter, the genocide scholar, said the differing views among Jews
on the resolution stemmed in part from whether they saw Israel as
particularly vulnerable. `I see Israel as a strong nation,’ Dr.
Porter said, after speaking for cutting ties to the Anti-Defamation
League at the Lexington meeting. `Jews are strong. They don’t have to
be intimidated by politics.’
The complex of considerations weighed heavily on Rabbi Howard L.
Jaffe of Temple Isaiah, who after weeks of thought decided to back
the genocide resolution. `It’s very hard for me to support a position
that could be detrimental to Israel,’ he said. `But for me as a Jew,
I have to take seriously Jewish values, and they require us to do
what is right and righteous.’
At the Lexington meeting, nearly everyone praised the No Place for
Hate program, which has worked with hundreds of residents in the past
seven years.
Some Jewish residents pointed out that the local Anti-Defamation
League chapter took a stand for the resolution and should not be
punished for the national leadership’s policy; but Vicki Blier,
another member of Temple Isaiah, said in a phone interview that the
Anti-Defamation League had to be held accountable for its views.
`If this were an organization that were denying the Holocaust, would
they be allowed to do anything in town, even if what they are doing
is the most beneficial of programs?’ Ms. Blier said. `In my
experience, Jews are at the forefront in the recognition of
injustice. Jews have always stuck their neck out for others.’
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