addition, dozens of other Armenians across Europe
who protected or saved Jewish lives are honored at
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

However, those warm feelings are not universal,
cautioned Ilya Dorfman, a software entrepreneur
in his early 50s who lived in Moscow, Toronto, San
Francisco and New York before deciding to return to
his native Armenia. “Sometimes, I speak with young
people here, and they have the idea that Jews are
always against Armenians. But it never translates into
hatred against the Jews,” he said. “It’s certainly not
anything like the antisemitism I felt when I lived in
Russia or even Ukraine after independence.”
Much of the ill will that exists between Armenia
and Israel stems from Israel’s extensive military
support of oil-rich Azerbaijan, with which Armenia has
fought numerous wars over the Nagorno Karabakh
region claimed by both former Soviet states. Fighting
raged from 1988 to 1994, claiming the lives of 16,000
Azerbaijanis and 4,000 Armenians.

The long-simmering confl ict exploded into war again
in late 2020. Azerbaijan — led by President Ilham Aliyev
and heavily aided by Turkey and Israel — eventually
recaptured the 20% of its territory it had lost to Armenia
in 1994. (Azerbaijan’s forces included soldiers from that
country’s Jewish population of about 8,000.) Last fall,
renewed border skirmishes between the two countries
left nearly 300 people dead on both sides, with
predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan and largely Christian
Armenia trading accusations of genocide and human-
rights atrocities.

“The fact is that Israel supplied weapons to this
criminal gangster Aliyev and his brainwashed elite.

He gave medals to soldiers who cut off the heads of
Armenian and Yazidi soldiers,” said Dorfman. “You
wouldn’t believe how many letters we wrote from the
Jewish community here exposing what really happened.

But in Israel, this is not a very popular subject.”
(Azerbaijan “categorically denies” it has committed
human rights abuses against Armenian soldiers or civilians
and says that Armenia has committed war crimes, including
during its recent shelling of Ganja, a border town.)
Rabbi Gershon Burshteyn, spiritual leader of
the Mordechay Navi Jewish Religious Center of
Armenia, seen outside the center he leads
Artiom Chernamorian, the founder of a nonprofi t
group called Nairi Union of Armenians in Petach Tikvah,
Israel, said he’s disgusted with offi cial Israeli policy
towards the country of his birth, as well as Israel’s
alliance with Azerbaijan. “Israel has so much money for
NGOs around the world, but not even one shekel to
support the Jewish community of Armenia. It’s a shame,”
said Chernamorian, who made aliyah 20 years ago.

Armenians also deeply resent the fact that Israel
refuses to offi cially recognize the Ottoman slaughter
of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as a genocide, for
fear of off ending Turkey, with which it re-established
diplomatic relations last year after a long hiatus. At the
entrance to Yerevan’s Armenian Genocide Memorial
Complex, visitors are greeted with a quote from Adolf
Hitler, who, one week before his 1939 invasion of
Poland, said: “Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?”
‘That was not the right decision’
One man working hard to improve Israeli-Armenian
relations is Achot Chakhmouradian. Since 2013, he
has been Israel’s honorary consul in Yerevan. His
offi ce, on the second fl oor of his family-owned auto
dealership, is decorated with framed certifi cates in
Hebrew and Armenian, along with his pet python,
which he keeps in an enormous glass tank.

“Our two countries have so much in common,” said
Chakhmouradian, who’s not Jewish. “Both are landlocked
and surrounded by Muslim countries. And we are both
ancient people with modern tragedies: the Armenian
genocide of 1915 and the Holocaust. As a consequence,
we have large communities abroad, but the Armenian
diaspora is even bigger than the Jewish one.”
Chakhmouradian said that in 2018, following a change
of government in Armenia, his country fi nally decided to
open an embassy in Tel Aviv, and relations fl ourished,
with high-level visits and an active interparliamentary
friendship group. But two years later, when war broke
out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the ambassador
was recalled in protest over Israel’s weapons sales to
the Baku government.

People walk past the Holocaust memorial in
Yerevan, which is inscribed in Hebrew and
Armenian: “To be or to forget: Remember the
victims of the Shoah.”
“In my opinion, that was not the right decision,” he
said. “Israel is not the only country selling weapons. For
example, Russia is a much bigger ally of Armenia, and
they were also selling weapons to both sides.”
Chakhmouradian said nearly 180,000 Israelis visited
Georgia in 2019 before the pandemic hit; that same
year, Armenia received barely 5,000 tourists. While
there are more Israelis with ties to Georgia than
Armenia, Chakhmouradian said he was optimistic that
the number of tourists to Armenia could increase
dramatically with direct fl ights from Tel Aviv to Yerevan
— a fl ying time of less than two-and-a-half hours.

Things may be looking up. In April, Israeli President
Isaac Herzog met Arman Akopian, Armenia’s new
ambassador to Israel, who presented his credentials
and signed the offi cial guest book in unusually fl uent
Hebrew. The two men discussed the 1,700-year-old
history of the Armenian community in Israel and
affi nities between their people.

In addition, Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent mobilization
of reserves to fi ght that war has led tens of thousands
of Russian citizens to immigrate to Armenia, one of
the only places where they can still travel easily.

That includes at least 450 Jews who have taken up
residence in Yerevan, according to Rabbi Burshteyn
— dramatically boosting the size of the local Jewish
community, even if only temporarily.

And on Oct. 6, Azerbaijan’s Aliyev met informally
with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, marking the
fi rst top-level talks between the Turkish and Armenian
leaders in decades. That followed Erdoğan’s recent
rapprochement with Israel and the resumption of
diplomatic ties between them.

“There’s a huge Armenian presence in the Old City
of Jerusalem, and many Armenians want to visit Israel
on pilgrimage. But nobody wants to lose a whole
day traveling,” said Chakhmouradian. “If there were
direct fl ights, I’m sure some of these tourists could
also become businessmen or potential investors. The
potential is enormous.” ■
Rimma Varzhapetyan, chair of the Armenian
Jewish community, at her offi ce in Yerevan,
Armenia JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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