Israel’s Chief Rabbi Remembers Armenian Genocide Victims
22, November 2005
Armenia Liberty
By Anna Saghabalian
Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger referred to the 1915-1918 massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide and prayed for its estimated 1.5 million victims at the end of a two-day visit to Armenia on Tuesday.
[...]
“I would definitely use the term genocide,” he told reporters at the Tsitsernakabert memorial. “The photographs and documents that we saw at the Genocide Museum say it all. And the tears that we barely held back as walked through the museum were not contrived.”
“Nobody can feel the pain of the Armenians more deeply than we Jews,” he added.
[...]
Metzger stressed at Tsitsernakabert that religion is strictly separated from the state in Israel, implying that his view on the Armenian genocide should not be associated with the Israeli government’s position on the subject. The Jewish state refuses to recognize the 1915 mass killings as genocide, anxious not to alienate Turkey with which it maintains close political and security ties.
But a growing number of Israeli politicians and especially scholars are calling for a change in this policy. Among them is Yuri Stern, a member of the Israeli parliament who accompanied Metzger on the Armenia trip. He drew parallels between the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust.
“Hitler’s remark that the world didn’t care about the Armenian tragedy was not accidental,” Stern said. “For those assassins who exterminated one third of our people, the fact that the world was silent when Armenians were being killed was a sort of license to kill Jews. We know this and must not place political expediency above everything else.”
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
Armenia Liberty
By Anna Saghabalian
Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger referred to the 1915-1918 massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide and prayed for its estimated 1.5 million victims at the end of a two-day visit to Armenia on Tuesday.
[...]
“I would definitely use the term genocide,” he told reporters at the Tsitsernakabert memorial. “The photographs and documents that we saw at the Genocide Museum say it all. And the tears that we barely held back as walked through the museum were not contrived.”
“Nobody can feel the pain of the Armenians more deeply than we Jews,” he added.
[...]
Metzger stressed at Tsitsernakabert that religion is strictly separated from the state in Israel, implying that his view on the Armenian genocide should not be associated with the Israeli government’s position on the subject. The Jewish state refuses to recognize the 1915 mass killings as genocide, anxious not to alienate Turkey with which it maintains close political and security ties.
But a growing number of Israeli politicians and especially scholars are calling for a change in this policy. Among them is Yuri Stern, a member of the Israeli parliament who accompanied Metzger on the Armenia trip. He drew parallels between the Armenian genocide and the Jewish Holocaust.
“Hitler’s remark that the world didn’t care about the Armenian tragedy was not accidental,” Stern said. “For those assassins who exterminated one third of our people, the fact that the world was silent when Armenians were being killed was a sort of license to kill Jews. We know this and must not place political expediency above everything else.”
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 3:56 AM
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