91ST COMMEMORATION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE HELD AT HEBREW UNIVERSITY
By Amihai Zippor

Judeoscope.ca, Canada
May 4 2006

Jews, Armenians Both Feel Need For Israel To Be At Forefront Of
Recognition

(IHC News, 04 May 2006) The Hebrew University in Israel held its
commemoration of the Armenian genocide at its Givat Ram Campus
in Jerusalem on Wednesday 26 April 2006 with some 200 people in
attendance.

The annual event, organized by Armenian Studies Professor Michael
Stone, came two days after 24 April, the official day Armenians mark
the deportation and murder of 1.5 million of their people between
1915 and 1917 by the Ottoman Turks.

As in previous years, the commemoration of the genocide coincided
with the State of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, which pays
tribute to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War II.

The striking similarity in the history of both peoples is often
spoken about in Jewish and Armenian circles as both have experienced
tragic periods and ironically, when Hitler was asked how he planned
to get away with the systematic extermination of the Jews he answered,
“who remembers the Armenians?”

However, despite overwhelming documented evidence, the genocide,
to the dismay of many Armenians, is not recognized by much of the
international community, most notably the State of Israel.

“I feel pride that the Jewish community is interested and sympathizes
with the Armenian people and it makes me happy to be a citizen of
Israel whose people really do care about the genocide,” said Jerusalem
resident Serop Sahagian whose grandparents were survivors.

“But, I am very disappointed with the government’s policy. Israel
should have been the first nation to recognize the Armenian genocide
and now they are one of the last and that is very bad,” Sahagian said.

During the course of the evening, several of the Jewish and Armenian
speakers touched on this sensitive matter.

At one point, His Excellency Mr. Tsolag Momjian, Honorary Consul of
the Republic of Armenia read a letter he received the previous week
from Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada that was sent to the
Armenian community.

In it Harper stated Canada’s support for Armenians and their right to
have the genocide recognized by all nations. The declaration prompted
Mr. Momjian to say, “I read this tonight because I have a question
for the Prime Minister of Israel,” referring to the Jewish State’s
official silence on the issue.

Meanwhile, Keynote speaker Yossi Sarid, a former Education Minister in
the Israeli government who fought to have the genocide placed in the
Israeli curriculum, said there were two reasons for Israel’s silence.

The first, he explained was relations with Turkey.

“Who doesn’t think we should have relations with Turkey? They are
important? But, when you are talking about the murder of a nation,
all self-interests must be overlooked,” Sarid said.

“When we talk about the democratic State of Israel, Israel must be
the state, if necessary the only state, that says to all the people
of the world ‘we won’t make considerations because we know, we were
born out of genocide,” he added.

Sarid presented the second reason as a worry in the Jewish community
that recognizing any other genocide will take away from the enormity
of the Holocaust and said, “there is no greater educational mistake
than this.”

Also in attendance was the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, His
Beatitude Archbishop Torkom Manoogian who cited the Jewish US
Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, and his first hand
account of the genocide as it was happening.

“When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for deportations of
the Armenian people, they were merely giving the death warrant to a
whole race,” the Archbishop read, “they understood this and in their
conversations with me they made no attempt to hide the fact.”

The concluding remarks were given by distinguished Fulbright Scholar,
Professor Abraham Terian who warmly thanked Jewish people for their
efforts to help stop the denial of the Armenian people’s tragedy.

“We Armenians whether here in Jerusalem, in the US or wherever we
are in the world are so truly grateful to our Jewish brothers and
sisters who so conscientiously stand by us as we decry genocide and
perpetrators of inhumanity,” Terian said.

Born in Jaffe near Tel Aviv but currently the Academic Dean of a small
Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, the professor returned
to the topic of the commonality that exists between Jews and Armenians.

“We have so much in common that we speak the same language, our Jewish
brothers and sisters have theirs and we Armenians have ours but beneath
it all there is a subtext that is existentially the same,” said Terian.

“Who should know genocide or holocaust any better than people that
have experienced it and we of all people should be foremost in decrying
what is generally called genocide, something that needs no explanation
or definition anymore,” he said.

He explained that Armenians understand why at the official level,
Israeli leaders are slow to acknowledge the genocide but believe,
just as many Israeli scholars believe, that Israel it strong enough
to tell Turkey:

“In all matters of political expediency, whatever the mutual interests
are politically, all is fine. But, when it comes to denial of the
Armenian genocide, somehow it goes against the grain of Jewish
conscience after what happened to the Jewish people in their recent
past.”

Professor Terian added that for Armenians, just as for Jews, the
psychology of denial in 2006 is sometimes what hurts most. Still,
Jews and Armenians can form a concerted voice because they “understand
each other as to how it feels when they encounter those who deny the
veracity of the Armenian genocide or the Jewish Holocaust.”

Today, Turkey is a strategic ally for Israel and the United States
and while every US president has voiced support for recognizing the
genocide, none have taken that important step.

While Turkey continues to blatantly deny the atrocity ever took place,
the US and Israel are not willing to step forward and condemn the
deniers as they do when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls
the Holocaust “a myth.”

However, there is renewed optimism that Turkey may soon come clean
with its past.

Turkish intellectuals are beginning to openly write about the genocide
and a milestone was achieved in March when for the first time, Henry
Morgenthau’s personal chronicle of his service as the US ambassador
and witness to the massacres was published in Turkey.

That book was first published in November 1918.

Finally, all the speakers on the evening, including Professor Terian,
reiterated that the magnitude of the Holocaust far surpasses any
genocide in the 20th century till today and that there was no intention
of drawing parallels as it was unique in human history.

However, Armenians say they expect the Israeli government not to wait
for the right time to officially acknowledge the genocide just for
acknowledgment’s sake.

In the words of Professor Terian, “if there is any country that should
be leading the way, Israel should be at the forefront of telling the
Turks how it is.”

CT JEWS SAY ‘NEVER AGAIN’ AS THEY ATTEND D.C. RALLY FOR DARFUR
By Stacey Dresner

Connecticut Jewish Ledger, CT
May 4 2006

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Just days after Yom HaShoah, the annual
commemoration of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust,
hundreds of Connecticut Jews made their way to Washington, D.C. to
protest another genocide – the one occurring now in Darfur, Sudan.

These participants were among tens of thousands who made their way to
the nation’s capital last Sunday to participate in the “Save Darfur:
Rally to Stop Genocide” on the National Mall near the United States
Capitol.

A large percentage of the rally participants were from the Jewish
community.

Toting signs saying, “Never again, again” and “Not on our watch,”
Jews representing Hillel groups and days schools, JCCs, synagogues
and Hadassah chapters, all came from around the country to attend
the rally, organized by the Save Darfur Coalition.

Even Sudanese participants noticed a disproportionate Jewish presence
at the rally and in relief efforts in general. “The people in Darfur
know very well and welcome the support of the American Jewish
community,” said Iessa Dahia, a Darfuri now living in Portland,
Maine. “They know the Jewish community has been through that in the
Holocaust. The Jewish community has said we cannot allow this to
happen again. That’s why they are here more than any other community.”

The rally’s speakers included Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel,
Ruth Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Services,
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism, Sen. Barak Obama, D-Ill., the Rev. Al Sharpton, and
actor George Clooney. Some of the most poignant speakers were Sudanese
representatives like Simon Deng, who recently walked from New York
City to Washington to call attention to the situation in his homeland.

Many of those attending the rally from Connecticut were members of
the state’s Jewish community, which has spoken out strongly against
the genocide occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. In the past
three years, more than 400,000 people have been killed and more
than 2.5 million have been displaced due to actions by the Sudan
government-backed Arab militias against Black Africans in the Darfur
region.

Famine and disease are now endemic in the region, where refugees
subsist in makeshift displaced persons camps. Officials in Chad
nervously monitor the conflict, which they worry will spill over to
their country.

“I think it is critical that we all went to the rally because we
had to draw attention to an incredibly serious genocide that is
taking place in Darfur,” said Dr. Milton Wallach, chair of the Jewish
Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater New
Haven. “It is incumbent upon us as Jews, remembering our own history,
to not forget what we went through and that the slogan, ‘Never Again’
has to have real meaning…By going down we were making a statement
that never again should this happen, and not only should it end in
Darfur, but it should never start in other places.”

Speaking out

Buses headed for the D.C. rally took off as early as 4 a.m. that
morning from synagogues from around Connecticut, including Emanuel
Synagogue in West Hartford, Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden,
and Temple Israel in Westport.

Rabbi Herbert Brockman of Mishkan Israel took 60 people on his bus –
congregation members, six members of the nearby First Presbyterian
Church, and a dozen members of Mishkan Israel’s confirmation class.

Before the rally the group went to tour the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum.

“We connected the two,” Brockman said. “Having been through the
experience of genocide – in fact the word having been created because
of that experience…it was very important as Jews that we speak out
against the first genocide of the 21st century.”

Thirty-eight people went on Emanuel Synagogue bus – both members of
the congregation and some students from the University of Hartford.

“Our local effort was truly grass-roots. Our members came forward
and said, ‘We want to run a bus.’ Louise Rosenberg and Jamie Zeff,
members of B’Yadeynu, our social action committee, organized the bus
and got the word out,” said Rabbi David Small of the Emanuel Synagogue.

In all, four buses left for the rally from the Hartford area, two
busloads left from the JCC of New Haven for the rally, and around
40 members of the greater Hartford Jewish community, as well as
other members of the Connecticut Coalition to Save Darfur, a group
of secular and non-secular organizations from across the state, flew
out from Bradley International Airport to participate in the rally.

Robert Yass, chair of the JCRC of the Jewish Federation of Greater
Hartford, flew down to Washington to be a part of the rally.

“I was impressed by the number of people willing to come down and
express their concern about people different from themselves,” Yass
said. “I think it always helps when we can express concern about
an issue beyond what might be considered ‘our issues’ as a Jewish
advocacy organization. And I think it is important to engage with the
wider community and supportive of issues when we have a common agenda.”

The Hebrew High School of New England sent its own bus to the rally,
filled with 45 students, and a bus sponsored by Young Judea New England
picked up a number of local teens on their way to the nation’s capital.

“I feel a big sense of responsibility, not only as a Jew, but as
a person. I feel like everybody has a responsibility to help out
if there is a mass genocide going on,” said Carly Abrabanel, 16,
of Springfield, Mass., a junior at Hebrew High School of New England.

This was the first rally Abrabanel had ever attended, and she came
back inspired to do more. She is now selling wrist bands to benefit
Save Darfur.

“I thought the rally was really amazing,” she said. “It was incredible
that there were so many people working toward the same cause.”

‘A feeling of unity’

Much of the work done to organize rally-goers in Connecticut was
done by members of the Connecticut Coalition to Save Darfur, which
counts as its members the Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Western
Connecticut Jewish Community Relations Councils, the Connecticut
Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation
Association of Connecticut the Archdiocese of Hartford’s Office of
Black Catholic Ministries, the Waterbury NAACP, and the Episcopal
Archdiocese. Representatives from each of these groups attended
the rally.

“I thought the rally was extremely well-planned,” said Robert Fishman,
executive director of JFACT. “It was the combination of music, the
atmosphere, certainly the wide-range of speakers, but also the people
in the crowd. There was a delegation of Sudanese students with their
own signs. There were lots of different clergy from Sikhs to Armenian
Catholics to Protestants, Evangelicals, and rabbis.

“I am just glad to have gone,” Fishman said. “I think it is something
we will remember. I am just hopeful we made a difference.”

Lauri Lowell, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of
the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, was struck by the number
of clergy at the rally.

“It was a very spiritual event,” she said. “There was lots of prayer
at the beginning. I think there was a sense that we were asking G-d’s
blessing for this and that what is going on in Darfur is not only
an outrage to the greater community but to G-d as well. There was a
beautiful feeling of unity.”

Rabbi Eric Polokoff of Congregation B’nai Israel in Southbury, who
has been active in the Darfur issue, attended the rally with his wife,
his 13-year-old daughter Ariel, and other members of his congregation.

“I think that there was a sense at the rally that you were around
other people who had come out to Washington and really cared about
this. You could feel this empathy and compassion. The absolute rallying
cry was ‘Never again,’ and how it somehow now has to actually mean
“Never again.'”

–Rachel Silverman and David Silverman of the JTA contributed to
this report.

SOCHI’S ARMENIAN DIASPORA WEEPS
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer

The Moscow Times, Russia
May 4 2006

Pavel Yeremyan, left, Vram Cholokyan, center, and an unidentified
man lamenting the crash Thursday near Sochi.

SOCHI — Pavel Yeremyan had been drinking and smoking cheap Yava
cigarettes for hours.

“This is a terrible tragedy for us,” Yeremyan, a subsistence farmer,
said Thursday of the Armenian airliner that went down a day earlier
off the coast of this Black Sea town.

The crash killed all 113 people on board and has left the local
Armenian community stunned. With 125,000 ethnic Armenians in Sochi,
out of a total of 400,000 people, the community is one of the largest
in the country.

In Yeremyan’s village of Baranovka, like many of the 20 mostly
Armenian villages in the hills above Sochi, you don’t have to look
far to find people who knew someone, or knew someone who knew someone,
on the late-night flight from Yerevan.

“The young woman who lived in that house was on the plane,” said
Yeremyan’s friend, 69-year-old Vram Cholokyan, who wheezed as he
pointed to a two-story, white concrete house. “She was about 22 and
had a young child. I saw them walking around here just before Easter.”

Both Yeremyan and Cholokyan have lived in the village their entire
lives. Their families came here in the early part of the last century
to flee the Turks. Today, they live off the fruits and vegetables
they grow on small plots of land. Whatever they don’t eat is sold at
market, Cholokyan explained in a raspy, almost inaudible voice.

Grach Makeyan, deputy head of the Sochi branch of the Union of
Armenians in Russia, said only 26 of those who died in the plane
crash were permanent Sochi Armenians. Most of the victims, he said,
were among the seasonal workers who come to Sochi from Armenia for
the vacation season, which lasts until November.

“But we’re all Armenians, even if we’re not relatives,” Makeyan said
in his office at the Kamelia Hotel. “There aren’t that many of us, so
almost everybody knows somebody who died, even if indirectly through
friends or neighbors. We are all in mourning. This will be a very,
very difficult time.”

A priest from Sochi’s Holy Cross Armenian Church, known to all
simply as Father Komitas, said all the Armenians in the community
felt personally affected by the crash.

“Around 70 of the victims were citizens of Armenia and didn’t have
relatives here,” Father Komitas, 38, said Thursday in his cramped
office decorated with his own sculptures and drawings. “But this
terrible tragedy is all of ours.”

Makeyan noted that a close friend of his had invited several of the
people on Wednesday’s flight for a birthday celebration.

“Genocide, the war in Karabakh, the earthquake, and now this,”
Makeyan said. “Every time we get our heads just above the water,
something like this happens. But we will stick together. Armenians
are the people most capable of enduring tragedy after tragedy.”

Because of their heavy smoking and poor diet, Armenian men tend to
age rapidly. Many in their thirties look twenty years older.

Lev Dashchyan, 28, a cab driver from Sochi’s Adler district, home to
about 80,000 ethnic Armenians, said war, natural disaster — and now
the plane crash — had exacerbated local Armenians’ plight.

“My father-in-law’s friend lost his wife and children in the
earthquake,” Dashchyan said, referring to the 1998 Spitak disaster.

“They never even found the bodies. Then he remarried, and his new wife
and child died in the plane crash. He has suffered a lot. He’s 55,
but looks like he’s 70.”

Dashchyan belongs to the Hamshen Armenian community. His ancestors,
Makeyan said, fled across the Black Sea from Turkey to settle in
the Krasnodar region and Abkhazia in the early 19th century. Hamshen
Armenians comprise most of Sochi’s Armenian population; while they
speak an old dialect featuring many Turkish words, they are close to
other Armenians.

Komitas looking at a photo album.

“Sometimes we have a difficult time understanding each other because of
our different dialects,” Karina Mardvitskaya, 37, a Hamshen Armenian
and a florist, said of her friend, non-Hamshen Armenian Violeta
Muratyan, who tends the bar at an outdoor cafe on Kurortny Prospekt,
Sochi’s main drag.

Mardvitskaya, a Sochi native, and Muratyan, who came to Sochi from
Stavropol three years ago to find work, said Wednesday evening that
they had been frantically calling friends to find out if anyone they
knew had been killed in the plane crash.

“I was on the phone all day,” Muratyan said. “Everyone was calling
trying to figure out who had heard what. Luckily, no one close to me
was on the plane.”

But Muratyan said a young Armenian woman who frequented the cafe had
apparently died in the crash.

“Some customers came in today and told me she was on the plane,”
Muratyan said. “I remember her face clearly. She must have been
around 21.”

Other Armenians spent the better part of Thursday finding out that
people who had been a part of their lives for years were now gone.

Flipping through a photo album, Father Komitas turned to a group
picture of several of his congregants, pointing to a middle-aged
blonde woman.

“She came to church regularly,” he said of the woman, who had been
on the flight. “It’s important now that we find the bodies so they
can be put to rest, hopefully in Armenia, in their homeland.”

KEAN BACKS STEM-CELL RESEARCH ON AN ‘INTIMATE’ TRIP TO ISRAEL
by Gil Hoffman
NJJN Israel Correspondent

New Jersey Jewish News, NJ
May 4 2006

JERUSALEM – State Sen. Tom Kean Jr., who is running for the Republican
nomination for the United States Senate, expressed support for
controversial embryonic stem-cell research on a visit to Hadassah
Hospital in Jerusalem last week.

Kean, visiting Hadassah at the culmination of a weeklong trip to
Israel, told hospital officials that he supports such research and
reported about problems obtaining approval for state initiatives in
New Jersey. He also spoke to Hadassah director-general Professor
Shlomo Mor-Yosef about the hospital’s collaboration with Robert
Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick in preparing for
mega-terrorist attacks.

Mor-Yosef said the hospital’s stem-cell research had cured mice
with Parkinson’s disease and that testing on monkeys and then humans
would soon follow. He said Hadassah was an international pioneer in
stem-cell research and had even secured funding for the research from
the U.S. government.

Kean was visiting Israel for the first time on what he termed an
educational visit. He was following in the footsteps of his father,
former NJ Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who visited Israel three times. The
younger Kean viewed a plaque at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum
honoring his grandfather, Robert Winthrop Kean, one of the earliest
members of Congress to warn the United States about the impending
Holocaust.

The visit’s first day coincided with Holocaust Memorial Day,
during which a two-minute siren sounded nationwide to memorialize
the victims. As Kean approached the luggage carousel at Ben-Gurion
International Airport, the siren went off, and Kean joined Israelis
standing in painful reflection.

“The most moving experience on the trip for me was seeing everyone
stop and pray during the siren,” Kean told NJJN in an interview at
his Jerusalem hotel. “It was extraordinarily memorable for me to
experience Holocaust Day so intimately, to be part of such a special
moment in time and then go to Yad Vashem that afternoon.”

Kean came with a delegation of NJ Republican pro-Israel activists,
including Short Hills publisher Steven Klinghoffer; Livingston
resident and Corporation for Public Broadcasting chair Cheyl Halpern;
Lakewood attorney Sean Gertner and his wife, Marla; and Johnson &
Johnson company group chair Gerald Ostrov of East Brunswick.

Also along were Teaneck attorney Martin Fineberg; Mark Levenson,
president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Clifton-Passaic, and his
daughter, Hadassah; and Justin Richards, an assistant to the senator.

Kean, hoping to unseat Sen. Robert Menendez in November, said he came
to Israel to get a feel for its terrain and geography.

“Starting next year in the U.S. Senate, I will be very involved with
issues that relate to Israel and the Mideast in a direct fashion,”
Kean said. “I have been a strong supporter of Israel throughout my
career. I am glad I got to meet with many Israelis, from members
of parliament to ordinary citizens. Coming with people who have had
strong and varied experiences with Israel was also an important part
of the trip.”

When Menendez came to Israel last year, as a member of the House
International Relations Committee, he led the last congressional
mission that met with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before his
career-ending stroke.

When Kean visited the Knesset, the highest-ranking official he met was
Meir Sheetrit of the Kadima Party, who was Education and Transportation
minister at the time and was named Construction and Housing minister
on Monday. He also met former Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom of Likud
and Labor Member of Knesset Colette Avital.

Kean met with victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks and with
Jews who had been evacuated from Gaza Strip settlements. He toured a
military base outside the Gaza Strip with IDF commanders and viewed
land where Israeli settlements stood until recently and that is now
being used by Palestinians to fire rockets at the southern Israeli
city of Ashkelon.

As Kean looked out over Gaza, he saw black smoke emanating from Deir
El-Balah, south of Gaza City. He later found out it was the result
of what the Israeli army said was an Israeli aircraft attack on two
cars packed with rockets. Israel said the attack killed one Islamic
Jihad militant and critically wounded another.

“Seeing this made it very real and enabled me to understand with a
real perspective the threats Israeli citizens live with each and every
day of their lives,” Kean said. “I felt it was imperative for me to
come to Israel so that as a U.S. senator I will have that real-life
experience.”

Kean said he had always supported foreign aid allocations and he is
sure he would continue in the Senate.

In Jerusalem’s Old City, Kean toured the Western Wall tunnels, visited
Christian holy sites, and met the Armenian Christian patriarch of
Jerusalem. He also visited several communities that have partnered
with United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, including the Sha’ar
Hanegev Regional Council and Kibbutz Erez outside the Gaza Strip,
the Gush Etzion bloc of West Bank settlements, and the low-income
Ramat Eliyahu neighborhood of Rishon Letzion. Klinghoffer is a former
president of UJC MetroWest, although organizers emphasized the trip
was privately sponsored and not an official mission of any federation.

In Rishon, Kean met with people involved with Project Atzmaut, UJC
MetroWest’s pioneering program to help improve the lives of Ethiopian
immigrants. Perhaps the saddest part of the trip was a meeting with
American immigrants Seth and Sherri Mandell, whose young son Koby was
murdered by terrorists near their home in the West Bank community of
Tekoa in 2001.

The Israel activists who accompanied Kean on the trip said that during
the visit with the Mandells, they watched his facial expressions and
saw that he was deeply moved. They said they were glad that he proved
himself able to relate to people on a human level and not merely as
a politician.

“He is a real mensch,” Klinghoffer said. “This guy is the real deal.

He came with the right background, and having this personal experience
reinforces the senses and the feelings that he already had. I’ve
dealt with many candidates and elected officials. Tom stands out in
the way he relates to Israel.”

Ostrov said he was glad to expose the senator to Hadassah Hospital,
where he and his wife are major donors.

“I have been impressed with him the whole trip,” Ostrov said. “He’s
gotten a knowledge base that he can use to govern. He has asked good
questions that show that he understands.”

Kean faces Bergen County financial data analyst John Ginty in the June
Republican primary. A Quinnipiac University poll last week predicted
that Kean would win the primary by a landslide but it found that he
trailed Menendez by six points.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

BODIES, FLIGHT RECORDERS SOUGHT IN BLACK SEA
By Mike Eckel / The Associated Press
Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters

The Moscow Times, Russia
May 4 2006

Relatives grieving at an identification procedure at a Sochi morgue
Thursday.

SOCHI — Searchers combed the waters off the resort city of Sochi on
Thursday, looking for bodies and a flight recorder from an Armenian
passenger jet that slammed into the Black Sea in bad weather and
ripped apart, killing all 113 people on board.

Anguished relatives and friends gathered at a central hotel and at a
city morgue, where many stared ashen-faced at grotesquely disfigured
faces and bodies appearing in coroners’ photographs.

Transportation Minister Igor Levitin said just 28 bodies had been
identified so far, out of a total of 53 recovered.

Levitin told reporters that searchers had located a large part of
the plane’s fuselage that was emitting a radio signal believed to be
from a flight recorder. But he said the piece of debris lay in some
680 meters of water and that authorities did not have the equipment
to raise the wreckage.

“We will turn to other countries that have experience in raising
objects from the depths,” he said.

The Airbus A320 plunged into the sea in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday
in heavy rain and poor visibility as it was approaching the airport
in Adler, about 20 kilometers south of Sochi. Searchers found wreckage
spread over a wide area about 6 kilometers offshore.

“We are not considering any working theory until we get a better
understanding of the events that took place, and that will require
deciphering the black boxes,” Levitin said earlier.

Prosecutors dismissed the possibility of terrorism, and other officials
pointed to the rough weather or pilot error as the likely cause.

The head of the Georgian air control agency, which covered 90 percent
of the Armavia jet’s final flight, said the crew had begun to return
to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, because of weather conditions around
Sochi but that when it was over the Georgian city of Kutaisi, Russian
air controllers announced the weather at Adler airport had improved.

“And since they had enough fuel, the pilot decided to fly back to
Adler,” agency chief Georgy Karbelashvili said.

Interfax, citing a source in the Russian commission investigating
the disaster, said there was information indicating the crew was
informed just 5 to 6 kilometers from the runway, when the plane was
at an altitude of 300 meters, that landing was “not recommended.” The
source said the plane was turning back when it hit the water.

In televised comments, President Vladimir Putin told Prosecutor General
Vladimir Ustinov to work fast to determine the cause of the crash,
but acknowledged that it would be difficult without flight recorders.

At a Sochi morgue, grim-faced relatives — mostly men — peered at
a nearly 2-meter-high wooden board in the courtyard holding coroner
photographs, some showing barely recognizable corpses and faces.

Forensic authorities emerged from the building periodically, asking
if anyone had recognized a person in the photographs.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

JEWISH COMMUNITY ASSISTS FAMILY OF PLANE CRASH VICTIM

Federation of Jewish Communitites of CIS, Russia
May 4 2006

SOCHI, Russia – Last night, an A-320 airplane routed to fly from the
Armenian capital of Yerevan to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi
ended up crashing in the sea just 500 meters off the coast. Upon
arriving at the accident site, the Russian search and rescue team
discovered that all of the 105 passengers and 8 crew members have died.

Rabbi Arie Edelkopf, the Chief Rabbi of Sochi and a Chabad Lubavitch
emissary, arrived to the site together with the rescue team. He
discovered that one Jewish person, who happens to be a citizen of
Armenia, was among the passengers to die on this tragic day. “With
the help of the rescue team, we will find the remains of this person
in order to bury him in accordance with Jewish national traditions,”
said Rabbi Edelkopf in reaction to this tragedy and the local Jewish
community’s response.

The Chief Rabbi of Armenia, Rabbi Gersh Burshtein, has already been
in contact with the family of the Jew whose life ended with this
airplane accident. He informed them about the carrying out of the
search for their loved-one at the accident site and promised to
provide the family every assistance possible.

Because of the catastrophe, Armenia and Russia have declared May,
5th the day of national mourning.

Both the Jewish communities of Armenia and the Jewish community
of Russia send their condolences to the families of this terrible
accident.
From: Baghdasarian

ARMENOUHIE NAZIKIAN, 96, BENEFACTRESS FOR ARMENIAN CAUSES

Pasadena Independent, CA
Arcadia Weekly, CA
May 4 2006

Aram and Armenouhie Nazikian’s memory lives on setting an example
for others to follow. God bless their souls.

In 1985, Mrs. Armenouhie Nazikian read an article in the newspaper
about the difficulties the newly formed Western Region of the Armenian
Relief Society (ARS WR) was having regarding funding for an ARS WR
headquarters. This was the first of several serendipitous moments in
the life of Armenouhie Nazikian.

She had just lost her husband Aram and wanted to do something special
in his name. The rest is history. Her call to the Regional Executive
led to a contribution of $50,000. This generous donation became the
down payment of the ARS Aram and Armenouhie Nazikian Home. The ARS WR
celebrated the opening of the Center on December 4, 1988. Four days
later, the world was shocked by the Armenian Earthquake. The Home
became the center for donations and relief efforts from the Western
United States.

The ARS-WR was saddened that this kind unassuming woman recently was
laid to rest at Rose Hills. Members from the ARS-WR attended the
modest funeral where her nephew, Robert Sarkis Lion presented the
ARS-WR with a large framed wedding picture of Aram and Armenouhie
Nazikian. Nazikian was born April 18, 1910, in Sebastia (Sivas),
one of the Armenian provinces in the Ottoman Empire, to Azniv and
Hagop Samuelian. After surviving the genocide, she married Aram
Nazikian and lived in South America, New York, San Diego and finally
settled in Montebello, California. Her last years were spent at the
Ararat Home. Armenouhie Nazikian is survived by her nephew, Robert
Sarkis Lion (Aslan) and his wife, Maria; her grandnephew, Charlie and
grandniece, Michelle Poladian; who just gave birth to Jasmine Liona
Poladian. Coincidentally, Armenouhie was born in 1910, the year ARS
was born and she was buried on what would have been her 96th birthday,
which was also the date for the burial of her husband, Aram.

IN AFTERMATH OF PLANE CRASH, GRIEF AND SPECULATION ABOUND
Compiled By Rachel Thorner

New York Times
May 4 2006

A summary of the top stories in the Russian newspapers appears Monday
through Friday.

The crash of an Armenian airliner in southern Russia, which killed
all 113 aboard, led the newspapers. The airliner, an Airbus 320
belonging to Armavia airline, crashed into the Black Sea as it flew
to the resort city of Sochi from Armenia’s capital of Yerevan.

Vremya Novostei reported that by Wednesday night, rescue workers had
found 47 bodies and continued to search for the others as relatives
waited anxiously for news.

A team of experts has been assigned to investigate the the crash. “We
are considering two versions-technical problems and a mistake by
the pilot,” Izvestia quoted the prosecutor general in Krasnodar, the
region’s capital, Sergei Yeremin, as saying. A colleague of the crew,
whom it did not name, said that they could not “imagine that these
people who knew the route like the back of their hands could make
a mistake.”

Kommersant reported that investigators suggested that the crewmembers’
“moral state” had been affected by the fact that they had to turn
back to Yerevan because of a storm, and that this might have caused
them to falter. Vremya Novostei reported that reason for the crash
would likely never be established conclusively.

Vremya Novostei led with a photograph of distraught relatives. Many
sat around an airport television, with their heads in their hands,
consoling one another. The airports in Sochi and Yerevan have provided
medical and emotional support to family members and friends.

“Many of them needed our help,” an airport nurse told Izvestia after
being called to work at 4 A.M. “But I understand that it is impossible
to console them right now.”

IZVESTIA

GEORGIA TO WITHDRAW FROM ALLIANCE: President Mikheil Saakashvili of
Georgia announced his intention to resign from the Commonwealth of
Independent States, a loose political and economic alliance of former
Soviet republics. “Georgia does not get anything from the C.I.S.

except humiliation,” he said, in the latest manifestation of a
deepening rift between Russia and Georgia.

KADYROV GIVES INTERVIEW: Ramzan Kadyrov, the prime minister of
Chechnya, said in an interview that it was his duty either to “jail
or destroy” Shamil Basayev, the notorious Chechen rebel leader who
has carried out some of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Russia.

VREMYA NOVOSTEI

RICE URGES CHANGES BY RUSSIA: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said at a news conference that although Russian-American relations
were mutually beneficial, Russia needed to shift its stance on several
issues. Ms. Rice cited Russia’s position on Iran and the Middle East,
and its reaction to former Soviet republics that form alliances with
the United States, among other things. Her comments were followed up
today in a speech given by Vice President Dick Cheney, who sharply
criticized Russia for what he said was backsliding on human rights;
Mr Cheney also suggested that Moscow is interfering with democratic
movements among its neighbors.

KOMMERSANT

RUSSIAN ROLE IN SERBIA DISPUTE: The European Union ended talks with
Serbia on normalizing relations after the country refused to turn
over the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Ratko Mladic
– its leading war crimes suspect – to the International Criminal
Tribunal. The paper suggested the conflict could entangle Russia
because it is harboring another Bosnian Serb, Dragan Zelenovich,
who is also wanted by the Tribunal for war crimes.

MEETING WITH JAPAN COAST GUARD: The head of Japan’s Coast Guard,
Hiroki Ishikawa, is to meet with Russian security service officials to
discuss environmental-protection projects, the preservation of marine
biological resources, and joint efforts against contraband goods.

ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA

CLAIMS OF PROGRESS ON PIRACY: The paper reported that Russia is
clamping down on the pirating of intellectual property, one of the
major impediments to its entry into the World Trade Organization.

“America refuses to also recognize the positive changes in our
country,” the paper said.

MOSKOVSKAYA PRAVDA

INSIDE THE KREMLIN: A new television film, to be shown on May 10,
explores the mysteries of the Kremlin, showing chambers that, the
article says, some politicians do not have access to. The film is
named after the garden just outside the Kremlin, Alexander Garden.

APPEALS COURT QUASHES DINK VERDICT

BÝA, Turkey
May 4 2006

Court of Appeals overrules verdict deferring 6 months jail term for
bilingual Armenian Turkish Agos newspaper editor Hrank Dink.

Journalist-writer may be retried on charges of insulting Turkish
identity.

BÝA (Ankara) – The Court of Appeals has quashed a verdict deferring
a 6 months jail sentence for Hrant Dink, editor of the bilingual
Armenian Turkish “Agos” newspaper convicted originally for “insulting
Turkish identity”.

The 9th Department of the Appeals Court on Wednesday cited
“procedural deficiencies” in the original sentence as reason to
overrule the verdict, pointing out that Dink’s remarks “The poisoned
blood that will spill from Turks will be replaced by noble blood of
the Armenians who will create Armenia” constituted the offence of
“insulting Turkish identity”.

The decision said Dink’s remarks did not fall under the scope of the
freedom of expression as defined by the European Convention on Human
Rights and disagreed with the Court of Appeals Chief Prosecutor’s
previous evaluation that a local court verdict against Dink should
be overruled on grounds that the physical and moral conditions of an
offence had not taken place.

The court also found a procedural flaw in the Sisli 2nd Court of
First Instance trial of Dink where lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz and his
colleagues were not accepted by the court as complainants as they were
not directly affected by the offence. It also cited these individuals
being paid representation fees as part of its decision to overrule
the verdict.

Following this decision the case file is to be submitted to the Court
of Appeals Chief Prosecutor’s office. If the Chief Prosecutor’s Office
does not appeal against the decision, the case will be re-sent to a
local court where Dink is to be retried. If the decision is appealed,
the case file will then be submitted for a decision to the General
Commission of the Council of State.

–Boundary_(ID_Jz2AzFbbLiSd2N7Wrzkr0w)–

BOOK: A SYRIAN JOURNEY

The source of the speech is:
Alarab online, UK
May 4 2006

“A Syrian journey” is new book about Syria co-authored by the diplomat
Dnayneshwar Mulay and his wife, the economic expert Sadhna Shanker. The
book is launched in attendance of HE Dr. Saad Allah Agha Qalla,
Minister of Tourism, and HE Ambassador of India in Damascus.

The book falls into six chapters, to include the experience of Mr. and
Mrs. Mulay in traveling and visiting the touristic, archaeological,
cultural and economic sites and their interaction with several
communities of the Syrian society all over Syria.

Mr. Ayman Abdel Nour delivered a speech in the occasion of launching
the book. Bellow is the transcript of his speech:

HE Dr. Saad Allah Agha Qalla, Minister of Tourism, HE Ambassador of
India, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m standing here today to talk about (Ahlan Wa Sahlan …A Syrian
journey) a book co-authored by the diplomat Dnayneshwar Mulay and his
wife,the economic expert Sadhna Shanker,. I’m standing here today to
talk about a book, whose co-authors’ main objective was not to come
up with a book for promoting Syria, attracting FDI’s into the country,
or a book to be used as a tourist guide.

However, the authors’ job was not to bring out such kind of books.

Moreover, they were not basically required to bring out such books.

But the feelings and sentiments implied in the book, the tales and
stories contained therein on Syria, the humanitarian attitudes
it mentions on the Syrians and the pictures it displays on the
archaeological sites, throw into the heart of the reader a message that
is much more important than all objectives that I previously mentioned.

The book, like any other book, reflects the experience, maturity,
wisdom and style of its authors. A senior career diplomat, who has
published several books of prose and poetry in several languages,
and also an experienced photographer, who has held several solo
exhibitions of his photographs; and also his wife, an economic expert
and a senior officer of the Indian Ministry of Finance, both, Mr. and
Mrs. Mulay, make a harmonious couple with multidimensional experience
in several domains.

Their experience is coated with a subtle human sense, nobility of
character, tolerance, good manners and renunciation of the worldly
pleasures. Thus, what else could we expect from such a couple,
other than a creation that is soaring high in the realm of art and
literature.

The book, which falls in six chapters, depicts the practice and
experience of Mr. and Mrs. Mulay in traveling and visiting the tourist,
archaeological, cultural and economic sites and their interaction
with several communities of the Syrian society all over Syria. Their
expert-eyes have captured images and incidents that we view as ordinary
or natural. But they are not, in the perspective of such a couple,
who have come from another country.

The book starts with describing the mixed feelings of apprehension
and excitement when Syria was identified as Mr. Mulay’s next
destination. They had barely known about Syria when they landed
there. ‘Syria? Is it Sierra Leone or Siberia? Some have warned that
it might be the next target after Iraq. In their news-hungry BBC,
CNN dominated lives, Syria may not make news. And when it does, it is
mostly in the context of US sanctions and Arab-Israeli conflict. When
they had typed ‘Syria’ in the search columns, ‘a desert country’,
stretches of sand’ popped up on the net invariably. When they arrived
in Damascus, they were still under the impression that they were
coming to ‘the Great Syrian Desert’.

The authors conclude by saying that the years they have spent and
lived in Syria, and contrary to all stereotyped images, have unveiled
an enchanting mosaic for a magical landscape, ancient civilization,
stupendous ruins, soothing forests, imposing citadels, mystical
churches, biblical roads and warm hospitable and friendly people.

Ultimately, they come to the conclusion that Syria is a well-kept
secret treasure in the chaotic abyss of our contemporary commercial
world. It allows you to slow down from the pace of New York and
London and grows upon you silently the way civilizations have grown
upon each other from at least the last 5000 years here in Syria.

Syria is unbelievably safe and a tranquil peaceful place to live in,
with the snow, rains, heat, desert, magnificent rivers and seashores,
which offers a mind-boggling diversity.

The authors request anyone who is willing to see Syria and give
his judgment of it, to cross the barriers of his own prejudice and
be prepared to savor in Syria the way Ibn Jubair, the 12th century
Andalusian traveler, savored Damascus: “If paradise be on earth,
it is, without a doubt, Damascus.”

The first chapter sheds the light on simple-assistance incidents the
two authors have received from ordinary people in the street, which
generates in them a deep impression on the nobility and genuineness
of these people. They mention that the ‘smile’ and ‘Ahlan wa Sahlan’
mark spirit of the Syrian people, their history and their daily life.

The second chapter (Land and Its History) demonstrates the diversity
and tradition of Syria, starting with the coastal line through the
eastern desert. They also come to the mention of all civilizations
and peoples that had dwelled this part of the world, its history and
major incidents.

The third chapter talks about the Syrian cities and the competition
between Damascus and Aleppo, be it history-wise or economy-wise. The
authors talk of the capital, its smooth roads and close-to-earth
buildings (fewer tall buildings), and how it, from Qasyoon, lights up
like a crown in the evenings. All the mosque spires sparkle in green.

The buildings and illuminated signboards impart special flavor on
Damascus, which appears like a kaleidoscope, anyway you turn it you
have a different view or vision to offer.

Talking of Aleppo, they describe it as ‘a city that carries on-
it stands there as a proof and promise that life is all about
regeneration’. Talking about Quneitra, he describes how marriages
get solemnized in this remote part of the world, in the so-called
‘Shouting Valley’ on both sides of the Syrian borderline, which is
occupied by Israel. He says that the family whose child has gone
over, look on return as if they had attended a funeral, rather than a
wedding. Then they shift to Homs, which he calls, ‘the city of smiles’,
which gives rise to a host of Syrian jokes that bring a smile to many
faces. Moving to Der ez-Zor, he points out how the city was also home
to many of the Armenians fleeing the genocide of 1915 and how they
were welcomed with open arms.

In the fourth chapter, the authors talk about society and culture and
shed the light on the ethnic, sectarian and religious diversity, which
marks unity of the Syrian society, which is known for its tolerance,
respect of difference and pride in their own cultural heritage, which
substantiates the view that Syria is ‘the cradle of civilization.’ In
their description of the Syrian cuisine, they indicate that what we
know as ‘Kebab Hindi’ is known as ‘Kebab Shami’ in India.

The last chapter touches upon the Indo-Syrian relations and reviews
history of the Silk Road through Mahatma Gandhi, who had advocated
of rights of the Palestinian people. It also talks about the close
relation between Indira Gandhi and late President Hafez al-Assad
and that there are about 200 students from India studying theology
in Sayeeda Zenab, a Shiite Islamic shrine devoted to the great
granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad in Damascus. It also mentions that
3.5 million of followers of the Syrian Christian church live peacefully
in India.

I conclude by saying that the book, in its diversity, constitutes a
major contribution to the Syrian library and a book that is worthy to
be read. Also, it might be worthily recommended to use parts of the
book in the teaching syllabuses of the intermediate schools in Syria.