Monday, December 27, 2004
YEREVAN, Armenia – Chief Rabbi of Armenia Gersh Meir Burshtein and other Jewish leaders in Yerevan met with Armenian Foreign Affairs Minister Vardan Oskanyan this week. While the Minister expressed his wish to create appropriate conditions for regular cooperation with the Jewish community, emphasizing his intentions to provide his support to the Jewish community in Armenia, the main focus of the discussion concerned anti-Semitic statements made by a number of top officials in Armenia.
“These statement haven’t received the support of the Armenian people, but nevertheless I consider it necessary to discuss the situation at the governmental level,” expressed Vardan Oskanyan. These offences included a statement comparing the Jewish community to a number of sects known for spreading anti-Jewish propaganda, a comment made by Granush Haratyan, the Head of the Department on National Minorities and Religion. These and other anti-Semitic statements, one of which suggested exiling Jews from Armenia, have been published in the country’s leading commercial and even state-sponsored newspapers.
“We want to live and work in Armenia, but these false statements printed in the mass media may result in negative attitudes towards Jews by Armenians. I am counting on a positive and resolute response from the Armenian Government regarding these anti-Semitic statements,” affirmed the Chief Rabbi of Armenia. Such offenses to the Jewish Diaspora in Armenia have also been aired on one of the national television channels ‘ALM’.
“I have always been proud to say that there is no anti-Semitism in Armenia,” stated Rimma Varjapetyan, the Chairman of the Jewish Community in Armenia. “However, we have been receiving a number of threatening calls as of recent, just as soon as the President of the ALM Channel, Tigran Karapetyan, joined Mrs. Haratyan in Jew-bashing. These anti-Semitic attitudes are unacceptable,” she declared solemnly. Such concerns were echoed by the meeting’s other participants, who are also afraid for the resultant security risks to the Jewish institutions they head.
The Minister promised to take measures to resolve the situation. “I understand your anxiety. There is actually no state anti-Semitism in Armenia, although some individuals propagandize it and may consider themselves to be anti-Semitists in order to be different”. The Minister expressed his desire to meet with Granush Haratyan to discuss her actions and to submit a report about this meeting and issue to the President of Armenia, Robert Kocharian.
At the end of the meeting, the Jewish leaders presented the Minister with a number of gifts as a symbol of friendship with the Jewish community. In addition to a music album by composer Willy Vainer, the Director of the ‘Menorah’ Jewish Cultural Center, who also attended the meeting, the Minister received a calendar for the upcoming year, the latest issues of the ‘Lechaim’ Magazine and the ‘Kohelet’ and ‘Magen David’ newspapers.
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