Jewish Community of Armenia
The Jewish Community of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի հրեական համայնք) is Armenia's oldest and largest Jewish non-governmental organization. It serves as a community center for Jewish holidays and cultural events and owns Armenia's only Jewish newspaper, Magen David.
History[edit]
The Jewish Community of Armenia was founded in 1991 by a group of activists including Gershon Burstein and William Weiner. Since 1996, it has been headed by Rima Varzhapetyan-Feller. It is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and represents the communal interests of Armenia's Jewish citizens and residents in the Council for National Minorities.[1][2][3]
In the 2000s, the community installed a monument commemorating the victims of both the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide in Yerevan.[4]
Armenia's only medieval Jewish cemetery in Yeghegis, previously abandoned for centuries, was cleaned up by the community and has since then become a tourist destination.[5]
Publications[edit]
The Jewish Community of Armenia owns and operates the only Jewish newspaper in Armenia, Magen David. It is published monthly and contains articles in three languages: Russian, Armenian and Hebrew. Paper copies are distributed free of charge at the community's Yerevan office, and online copies can be accessed on the organization's website.[6]
Members of the community have also coauthored and published several multilingual books on the history of Armenian Jewry, including Jews in Armenia: The Middle Ages (2009) and The Jews of Noah's Land (2020).[7]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Varzhapetyan R. (2020). The Jews of Noah's Land. Yerevan: VMV-Print.
- ^ "Armenia". World Jewish Congress.
- ^ "Jewish Community of Armenia. EAJC Affiliate". Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.
- ^ Danielyan E. (2 February 2006). "Who continues to destruct the Holocaust monument in Yerevan?". HyeTert.
- ^ "Searching for Traces of Jews in Medieval Armenia: A Field Trip to the Jewish Cemetery of Yeghegis". JewsEast. 2019.
- ^ "Архив газеты Маген Давид". Jewish Community of Armenia.
- ^ Евстратов А. (1 August 2020). "Как живут евреи на Земле Ноя?". Армянский музей Москвы.
