SOME ARMENIAN JEWS AFRAID AS COUNTRY TAKES IN HUNDREDS OF LEBANESE REFUGEES
By Yasha Levine
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, NY
Aug. 10, 2006
YEREVAN, Armenia, Aug. 10 (JTA) – Armenia’s Jewish community is bracing
for a possible wave of anti-Semitism as hundreds of Lebanese Armenians
taking refuge from the fighting in southern Lebanon stream into the
former Soviet republic.
Weeks after Israel began its retaliation against Hezbollah forces,
more than 500 Lebanese Armenians and Armenian nationals living in
Lebanon had arrived in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, on chartered
flights from Aleppo, Syria.
More are expected to arrive as the fighting continues and creeps
closer to the Armenian quarter in eastern Beirut.
"I’m really scared. I think that politically motivated anti-Semitism
is beginning to show itself," Inna Astvatsatryan, a contributor to
Magen David, the community’s newspaper, told JTA.
Astvatsatryan was vague about the details, but her fear is echoed by
many in Armenia’s tiny Jewish community, which numbers anywhere from
100 to several hundred.
The Israeli army is not targeting Beirut’s Armenian quarter, nor are
there reports of Armenians being killed by Israeli fire, but Lebanese
Armenians feel affected by Israel’s war on Hezbollah.
"People talk about the fact that they are only bombing south Beirut,
but they don’t realize that Beirut is a tiny city. If you’re bombing
one part, you’re bombing the entire city," said Shogher Margossian,
23, a Lebanese Armenian who flew to Yerevan from Beirut a few days
after the conflict broke out.
Lebanese Armenians have close ties with Lebanon, as harbored Armenian
refugees fleeing the Turkish massacre of Armenians in the early 20th
century. An estimated 80,000 ethnic Armenians live in a tight-knit
community in Beirut.
On the streets of Yerevan, Lebanese Armenians are unanimous: They do
not support Hezbollah’s military activity, but they consider Israel’s
offensive unwarranted and counterproductive.
Some local Jews fear that anti-Israeli sentiments the displaced
Lebanese Armenians are bringing with them may translate into
anti-Semitic views that remain long after the rockets stop falling.
Other than the defacement of a Holocaust memorial stone in Yerevan two
years ago in connection with the conviction of an extremist politician
for inciting ethnic hatred, Armenian Jews are hard pressed to remember
an anti-Semitic incident. Swastikas can be seen in graffiti around
Yerevan, but they hardly seem fresh or connected to Israel’s conflict
with Hezbollah.
Evgenia Kazaryan, editor of Magen David, is taking a wait-and-see
approach.
"I think that it is only a matter of time for the effects to be seen,"
she said.
According to Kazaryan, there have not been open cases of anti-Semitism
because the Israel-Hezbollah conflict is too fresh.
"Not enough time has passed for the impression the Lebanese Armenians
bring back with them to sink in," she said.
The worry has prompted Rimma Varzhapetyan, chairwoman of the Jewish
community of Armenia, to consider organizing an Armenian-Jewish
roundtable to discuss Israel’s political motivation behind its conflict
with Hezbollah, as well as Israel’s failure to officially recognize
the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks almost a century ago.
Suren Gregoryan, an Armenian journalist, supports Varzhapetyan’s idea
and believes disinformation and stereotypes about Jews flow into
Armenia from the Armenian Diaspora in Syria and Iran. He insists
there needs to be more freely available information in Armenia on
Israel and Jewish culture.
Rabbi Gersh-Meir Burshtein remains skeptical about the possibility
of anti-Semitism. Burshtein, who heads a small Chabad-sponsored
community center, school and synagogue, rejects the idea that the
Hezbollah-Israel conflict will cause a spike in anti-Semitic sentiment
in Armenia.
Unlike Jewish communities in Georgia and Azerbaijan, which have long
Jewish histories, Armenia’s current Jewish community is made up of
Jews who began settling in the country from elsewhere in the Soviet
Union during World War II.
Some came first as evacuees from the Nazi advance into Ukraine and,
as word spread of the absence of anti-Semitism in Armenia, many other
Jews came as professionals, Burshtein explains. He said he has walked
the streets of Yerevan in Chasidic garb for more than 10 years without
confronting bigotry.
Burshtein believes the fact that Israel does not recognize the Armenian
genocide is not as important to the Armenian population as some think:
Poverty, energy self-sufficiency and the possibility of conflict with
neighboring Azerbaijan are more pressing issues.
For her part, Margossian doubts that the conflict between Hezbollah
and Israel will affect Armenian Jews. She explained that her accounts
of life under Israeli bombing make little impression on local Armenians
because they have suffered so much: During the early 1990s, Azerbaijan
imposed an energy and trade blockade that forced Armenia’s population
to ration electricity and food.
Armenians do not feel sympathy for Lebanon because "most Armenians
think of Lebanon as a Muslim country," Margossian told JTA. "They view
the conflict as a war between Israel and a terrorist organization
in which civilian casualties are justified. And if Armenians viewed
Lebanon as a Christian country, things would be much different for
the Jews."