BELMONT, Mass. — A special program in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the 1988 Armenian earthquake will take place on Thursday, December 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Nahigian Hall, First Armenian Church, 380 Concord Ave., Belmont.
John and Michele Simourian
The program, “The 1988 Armenian Earthquake and the Transformation of Diasporan/Homeland Relations,” will be moderated by retired Boston Globe reporter Stephen Kurkjian, and will include John A. Simourian, Michele Simourian, Dr. Hayk Demoyan (on video), Dr. Carolann Najarian, and Elaine Kasparian.
The event is sponsored by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)/ Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Lecture Series on Contemporary Armenian Issues and the First Armenian Church.
The devastating earthquake that struck Soviet Armenia on December 7, 1988, caused massive devastation and death especially in the cities of Spitak, Leninakan (now Gyumri), and Kirovakan (now Vanadzor). As many as 50,000 people were killed and well over 100,000 were injured. The earthquake prompted a massive international humanitarian response which included historic contributions from the worldwide Armenian Diaspora.
Stephen Kurkjian
In a recent article published in the AMAA News and in the Armenian Mirror-Spectator, multiple Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Kurkjian told the story of how Watertown native John Simourian led an effort to bring dialysis equipment to Armenia, relating also the work of Dr. Carolann Najarian, the Armenian Milk Fund, and other individuals and organizations who rapidly mobilized to save lives. The rescue effort, Kurkjian makes clear, had a transformative effect on the relationship between the Armenian diaspora and the then Soviet republic, creating bonds and relationships that continue to flourish today.
This event is free and open to the public. A reception with refreshments will take place after the program.
For more information about this program, contact NAASR at hq@naasr.org.
NEWTON, Mass. — The Boston Chapter of the Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief (SOAR) hosted a fall fundraising event on Saturday, November 17, at Bloomingdale’s in Chestnut Hill. This was an exciting opportunity to meet world renowned artist and designer Michael Aram in an intimate setting where he spoke briefly about his work and inspiration. An award-winning artist and designer who has supported SOAR previously, Aram is best known for his metal craftsmanship and whose works reflect both nature and his Armenian heritage. Mr. Aram is well known in the Armenian community for his Noah’s Ark Sculpture given as a gift from Armenia to the Vatican where it is permanently housed.
At the brunch, Boston SOAR President Talin Bekelian shared the news that renovations at the Kharberd Orphanage in Armenia have been completed with funds previously raised by the Boston Chapter. (Coincidentally, Kharberd was the home of Aram’s grandfather.) Brunch was provided by Bloomingdale’s and dessert pastries were meticulously prepared and donated by KaterArt. After brunch, Michael escorted the attendees to the first floor to browse through the section of the store where his wares are displayed. Aram answered questions and offered insightful interpretations, and signed pieces of his works.
All funds raised from this event will be used for future Boston SOAR sponsored projects in Armenia. To learn more about SOAR, visit: http://soar-us.org.
GLENDALE — An altercation on the Herbert Hoover High School campus in Glendale in October incited decades-old racial and cultural strife among Armenians and other ethnic groups, reflecting on the larger issue of racism across the country.
The consequences surpassed those involved in the fight, forcing the Board of Education to cancel the infamous “Battle for the Victory Bell” amid reports of threats, noting the safety of students as their priority. The cancellation of the annual football game, held between rivals Glendale High School and Hoover High School, upset parents and students alike who staged a walk-out amid frustrations with the Glendale Unified School District due to a lack of answers and clarity about the brawl that occurred among ethnically diverse students on October 3, 2018 — a fight that quickly went viral.
“We are looking into ties to integrate a transition program,” said Board of Education President Greg Krikorian, regarding the influx of immigrants into the school district. He noted that the incident became a bigger issue than it should have because proper measures were not taken at the outset.
“Our district made the mistake of not getting in front of it,” said Krikorian, who assured that the Board of Education will continue to come up with solutions as they meet with parents in the school district, which he describes as “civil and calm” conversations.
While Hoover High School and the Glendale Unified School District led a thorough investigation, details of the fight remain murky, the only constant being the agreement that the incident stemmed from a misunderstanding among different cultural groups on campus. The Glendale Unified School District stated that the initial cause was a verbal argument between two students, one of whom was offended when the other used profanity in front of a girl. Rumors, however, began swirling that the fight originated when a student spat on another with special needs, misinformation that the Glendale Unified School District said was “repeatedly proven false by site administrators and later by the district.”
In light of the incident and all of the surrounding controversy, the Board of Education has taken the stance of “communication, not confrontation” with an effort to find “common ground and common purpose” within the larger Glendale community.
“Fear, prejudice, faulty assumptions and stereotyping have fueled animosity between various segments of our community,” said Krikorian, asserting that disciplinary action took place and multiple student suspensions occurred.
For Board of Education member Shant Sahakian, the conflict harked back to his days as a student at Hoover High School and the tension he witnessed there as an Armenian-American with a diverse group of friends, including Armenians and Latinos.
“It is incumbent on us as Armenian-Americans leaders to extend our hands to the broader community,” said Sahakian, who also serves as Glendale’s Arts and Culture Commissioner. “People in leadership can create opportunities for relationship building and we have a responsibility to build those bridges.”
A lifelong resident of Glendale, Sahakian identifies as both an American and an immigrant, giving him further perspective into last month’s incident.
“We need an open and honest dialogue on racism in our schools and community so we can learn from this and move forward together,” said Sahakian, who said that the fight brought to the forefront past issues, including the violence between the Armenian and Latino gangs and the subsequent murder of Raul Aguirre in front of the school in the year 2000, an event he refers to as “traumatizing” for both the Armenians and Latinos. “This incident brings back painful memories without closure for our entire community.”
Aguirre, a model student who was a senior at Hoover High School, was not involved in any gang activity and was merely trying to break up the fight. That tragic brawl, too, began with ethnic slurs and taunting.
“We have to work to break down racial barriers and heal a divided community,” said Sahakian.
Shant Sahakian
The Glendale Unified School District concluded its investigation in November and took the proper measures for disciplinarian action and resolution recommendations, although Sahakian says the work of resolving disparities among groups is ongoing.
“The incident stemmed between students who felt equally justified in their actions,” said Sahakian, who noted that because of the changing cycle of students every four years, integration remains a challenge.
“Our student population, staff and leadership cycle and change over the years,” said Sahakian. “We have to serve our constituents’ evolving needs to maintain a strong school district.”
He concedes there are “gaps” and it’s an “ongoing process” to identify and solve those issues. “The work is ongoing and mutually dependent upon our community and our schools.”
He remarks that it’s important to move quickly to dispel rumors and the circulation of misinformation, pointing out the importance of conveying accurate facts to the community in a timely manner.
As the next step, the Board of Education has set up mediations, workshops and additional security on campus. Restorative circles with a facilitator to encourage dialogue have also been organized so students can learn about one another and move forward in a more positive direction. The Board of Education notes that this is an important way to hold one another accountable.
“We believe in restoring and supporting our students,” said Sahakian. “The future of our community depends on every student receiving a high-quality education in a safe environment.”
While students are ready to close the chapter, the greater community, which remembers the pinnacle of gang violence among Armenians and Latinos in Glendale and the surrounding areas, are not as ready end the discussion.
Those feelings were shared by disgruntled parents and students at a Board of Education meeting in Glendale on Monday, November 5, providing a forum for those in the community to speak their minds.
Safety, Bullying Are Concerns
Contesting the Glendale Unified School District’s statement and investigation, Hoover High School senior and football player Jaiden Forster stated that the fight stemmed from members of the football team defending a special-needs student they allege was being bullied by an Armenian student.
“I witnessed the bullying so the district and its members will not continue to tell the community of Glendale that it never happened because I watched it,” said Forster, who confronted the student because of his actions. “He started to yell because he did not understand English so I communicated with his friend, who acted as the interpreter.”
Administration stepped in and the conflict was resolved, according to Forster. He insisted that he was not part of the fight on October 3, which started before he arrived.
“The cause of the brawl was much more than bullying,” concluded Forster. “It was racially motivated.”
Senior Guillermo Corrales, another member of the football team, noted his unhappiness at his season ending early due to the conflict and the “failure” of the District to understand and interpret the events leading up to the fight.
“We saw something that we felt we had to stand up for and we stood for it proudly,” said Corrales. “It hurts me that I know if I stand up for something that I don’t feel is right, that I’ll be the one who gets punished the most.”
Parents expressed disappointment at the Board of Education’s silence after the incident and for the cancellation of the “Battle for the Victory Bell,” requesting that the historic game be rescheduled.
“As a parent of a Hoover High senior who is the football team captain, I watched all of them work so hard for three years in anticipation of their final homecoming game and to watch it being taken away from them has been devastating,” said Teresa Alvarez.
A Glendale resident for almost two decades, parent Kipp Tribble said he is fearful for the safety of his two daughters and took the Board of Education to task.
“There is a bubble of intolerance that has been in our Glendale schools for years,” said Tribble. “The answer that it was a misunderstanding between kids points to an effort to dismiss an ugly topic.”
Tribble remarked that after the fight, social media was filled with threats of gun violence at Hoover High School.
“This is not a misunderstanding, this is hate speech,” said Tribble, who expressed his dissatisfaction that no meeting was offered to parents of Hoover High School students as rumors continued to grow.
“These constant changing facts make us all lose trust,” said Tribble. “All of us have a sickening fear of tragedies from the past repeating themselves at our schools and these mistakes must be fixed now.”
Laury Kelly, whose daughter is a senior at Hoover High School, of which she is an alumna, said she has experience working with immigrant communities and as a parent is frustrated and angry.
“Which rumors are we supposed to believe and which aren’t we supposed to believe?” asked Kelly. “Hoover is a microcosm of our society as a whole and racism, sexism and bigotry exists so we cannot just sweep this under the rug.”
Hoover High School PTA President Ibet Acevedo remarked that the community’s school, students and families can work together in an effective manner, while stressing the importance of inclusivity.
“I’m huge advocate for parent involvement, communications, fairness, helping where there is a need, building on relationships, building bridges, acknowledging when there is a problem and moving forward with solution-based options,” said Acevedo. “As a PTA we are ready to do that and holding the District accountable for their continued partnership, clear communication and transparency.”
Repeated attempts to contact Armenian students and parents for this article were not successful.
The Board of Education listened to parents and students and responded in an appropriate manner, acknowledging that racism played a role and that work has to be done moving forward.
“Everybody ran to their corners after this incident,” said Sahakian in his statement. “Armenians ran to defend Armenians, Latinos ran to defend Latinos and African-Americans ran to defend African-Americans and everyone stopped listening to each other.”
Sahakian said that while the Board of Education can’t take care of the racial issues across the country, as educational leaders, it is their job to resolve these issues on an ongoing basis in the Glendale Unified School District and the importance of working together as a community.
“This is an issue much bigger than our individual homes, individual communities and individual schools,” said Sahakian. “We need to all come together to break down those barriers.”
“I have a very vivid memory that was very difficult to handle as a student at Hoover when we lost a student in front of our campus,” said Sahakian. “And we all need to make sure that never happens again in this community and that is a collective responsibility.”
WATERTOWN — The last issue of the Armenian Mirror-Spectator before its annual winter break will be that of December 22. It will recommence with the issue of January 5, 2019. The Mirror offices will be closed starting December 24, and reopen on January 2.
TENAFLY, N.J. — Longtime member of the Tekeyan Cultural Association and an active member of the community Yeghishe Hajakian died on November 28.
He was born on February 4, 1940, in Beirut, Lebanon. He had two brothers, both deceased, and two sisters, one of whom lives in Kuwait and the other in Qatar.
He also is survived by many nieces and nephews.
He attended the AGBU Hovagimian Manougian Secondary School and graduated from Haigazian University in Beirut.
He left Beirut after college to teach English at Aramco in Saudi Arabia and shortly thereafter, met and married his wife, Maro Garoyan, in 1967. He had big dreams for his family in America and they arrived in New Jersey in 1969 with their baby daughter, Nina. He quickly found employment as an English teacher in a public high school for one year and then pursued his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.
He owned his own successful business until he changed careers and joined Prudential Financial in 1992 where he worked until his passing.
He was involved in a number of Armenian organizations, including the AGBU, Knights of Vartan and the Tekeyan Cultural Association, with the active participation in the Mher Megerdichian Theatrical Group.
He loved to write and contributed frequently to the Armenian press.
The Funeral was held on December 1 at St. Thomas Armenian Church. Tekeyan Central Board Secretary Hagop Vartivarian spoke at the memorial meal after the service.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be sent to the Tekeyan Cultural Association or St. Thomas Armenian Church.
NEW YORK — It was altogether appropriate that, a few days after Thanksgiving, New York’s St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral should ring with “spiritual gratitude” for the monumental “Armenia!” exhibit at the world famous Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The special “Evening Hour” (or Vespers) service on Tuesday, November 27, was a collaboration between the Met and the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, and attracted museum members, locals from the cathedral’s Midtown neighborhood, as well as faithful from the Armenian community.
The service was conceived as a glimpse into the religious environment that gave rise to the artworks on display at the Met exhibit.
Dr. Helen Evans with the Very Rev. Daniel Findikyan (Photo Credit: Albin Lohr-Jones)
It began with a majestic procession of more than a dozen priests and deacons, led by Diocesan Primate the Very Rev. Daniel Findikyan, to the joyous chant Oorakh Ler (“Rejoice, O holy church”) sung by the Cathedral Choir led by Khoren Mekanejian.
Among the guests attending were Bishop Anoushavan Tanielian and Dr. Helen Evans, who brought her students from Columbia University.
As the principal organizer and curator of the Met Museum exhibition, Dr. Evans traveled to many centers of Armenian art around the world to collect the items on display.
The “Song of the Hours” service, a treasury of mystical and moving psalms, prayers, rituals, and meditations — composed largely by renowned fathers of the Armenian Church — were chanted mainly in modern English during the service.
But as deacons with their censers filled the atmosphere with the aroma of incense, it was easy to imagine oneself worshipping in one of the medieval masterpieces of Armenian Church architecture — like the 7th-century St. Hripsime Church in Armenia, which inspired the design of St. Vartan Cathedral.
As explained in a beautifully prepared service booklet for the occasion, in earlier times the daily onset of darkness made people vulnerable to danger. In response, Armenian Christians would “pray at the setting of the sun, giving thanks to God for having led them peacefully through the day,” and asking for His guidance and protection through the coming night.
Providential and Sublime
In his inspiring welcoming message, the Primate paid tribute to this year’s 50th anniversary of St. Vartan Cathedral, and noted the spiritual connection of the church to the many artifacts displayed in the “Armenia!” exhibit.
“Perhaps it is providential that this sensational, once-in-a-lifetime exhibit should coincide with our golden anniversary year. That alone would justify our decision to conduct a solemn Vespers service, to thank God, and to thank everyone whose efforts brought so many priceless treasures of Armenian artistry to this city—where they have inspired thousands of people who otherwise might have no notion of the art created by the Armenian people,” he said with emphasis.
Findikyan referred to the exhibition’s 140 items of explicitly religious character, including illuminated manuscripts, early printed Bibles, sophisticated carved doors to a medieval monasteries, liturgical vestments, altar coverings, and bejeweled repositories. He called all of these works “expressions of the abiding faith of the Armenian people — the first nation in the world to formally embrace Christianity.”
The prayers and chants “transmitted to a community of faithful far removed from the place of their original compilation, are nonetheless in continuity with our ancestor’s faith and most sacred convictions,” Findikyan said in conclusion, as he thanked Dr. Helen Evans for her “exquisite and meticulous” work in curating the exhibition.
Following the Lord’s Prayer sung in Armenian, and recited in English, the crowd of some 200 people attended a reception in the Diocesan Center’s Haik and Alice Kavookjian Auditorium.
Bishop Anoushavan Tanielian called the prayer service “the crowning of the ‘Armenia!’ exhibition, where the entire focus was on Armenian culture and art.”
For Evans, the service was “exceptionally beautiful. It was wonderful to have the Armenian Church community do this for the Met Museum, and for our students from Columbia University.”
And for Nazli Onder, born in Diarbekir of Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish background, the evening vespers service was “impressive and deep.” A doctoral student at Leeds University in England, where she concentrates on the Armenian diaspora, said that the occasion marked her first visit to America’s magnificent cathedral of St. Vartan.
ORADELL, N.J. — Joe Assadourian is a hugger. He doesn’t offer a half-hearted greeting, but a tight embrace, holding on for a few seconds as if enveloping a long-lost friend. He hugs and talks to everyone, removing any barriers with strangers at first glance, bringing his street charm into an eclectic suburban coffee shop here in Northern New Jersey.
Perhaps it’s that genuine nature and heart-on-his-sleeve persona that made him popular on stage as he assumed 18 characters in his one-man show “The Bullpen,” which he wrote and performed in over the course of two years at the off-Broadway venue The Playroom Theater. The show, which earned accolades and was dubbed as “wildly funny” by the New York Times, is currently in the process of being filmed for a comedy special on cable television with producer Larry Meistrich (who was behind the Academy Award winning “Sling Blade”) at the helm.
“The Bullpen,” which focuses on a man’s arrest and arraignment as he awaits trial for a crime he claims he did not commit, incorporates a multitude of true-to-life characters surrounding the confined space inside the bullpen and the courtroom, is based on Assadourian’s personal experiences during his own arrest and subsequent trial in 2001. The play, which was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, hit the stage in July 2014, a few months after his release, and extended its run numerous times.
While “The Bullpen” was billed as a “jail show” by the media, Joe counters that claim, clarifying that it is about people. He gives heart to fully fleshed characters on stage, particularly the accused man who is convicted of a crime and how he is judged both by a jury and fellow prisoners.
Joe Assadourian (New York Times)
“I got a PhD in people,” said Joe. “I been around a lot of different kinds of people and I absorbed them if they were interesting.”
A natural born performer, Joe inadvertently prepared for his career early on, growing up in industrial Paterson, New Jersey, where he was surrounded by individuals of all races. He always made it a point to observe and listen to the many dialects around him, particularly the Middle Eastern, African-American and Spanish populations he was immersed in. He emerged as a class clown, inciting laughter among his classmates, but facing a reprimand by his teachers and parents.
“I used to get in trouble for the way I was in school,” said Joe who is now 40 years old. “But sometimes you can’t stop the energy that comes out because if there is some funny s***t going on, let’s laugh at it.”
As a teenager, Assadourian and his family moved to suburban Paramus, New Jersey, where he couldn’t shake off being entertainer, but didn’t take the craft seriously because he “didn’t know what to do or how to go about it.”
“A lot of people want to go into the industry,” said Assadourian. “Sure I thought about it but never took steps toward it.” His dreams, instead, revolved around becoming a baseball player.
Instead of developing his inherent charisma and talent, he started his own business in Fort Lee, NJ, after graduating from high school. He worked at the Palisades Grill during the day and at night crossed the bridge to go clubbing, a poster child of the New York City nightlife scene in the early aughts at venues such as the infamous Limelight.
When asked how it felt to create art during a challenging time in his life as a prisoner, his lighthearted and self-deprecating attitude kicks into gear.
“Is that the first mention of that today?” he asks with a smile. “You were holding onto that, weren’t you?”
He pauses for a moment.
“If I go there and do nothing, then the time was taken from me,” said Joe. “If I go there and better myself, then that’s my time that I’m taking back.”
A fateful night in downtown New York in 2001 changed the course of his life, putting a halt to his self-indulgent ways. After an altercation that became violent, Assadourian was charged with attempted murder, to which he plead not guilty; he was convicted of assault in the first degree, spending the next 12 years — and the chunk of his 20s and 30s — behind bars at the Otisville Correctional Facility in upstate New York. He reflects on the conviction as a turning point in his life.
“I didn’t get locked up,” said Assadourian with certainty. “I got rescued.”
If prison saved him from a potential life of crime, then the theatre workshop he enrolled in by writer and director Richard Hoehler at Otisville, gave his life its purpose. During his time in the penitentiary, Assadourian shifted his focus and began reading books while his street smarts kept him out of trouble as fellow inmates became entangled with gangs, like the notorious Bloods and the Crips. Partnering up with a fellow prisoner who became his friend, Joe started writing a play, though he had never seen one. The duo received back-to-back PEN Prison Writing Awards in 2002 for Heaven and in 2003 for Joey Shakespeare, a play that also became part of the New York Now reading series at The Public Theater, followed by a presentation by The Collective Theatre in Miami.
Assadourian felt ready to put pen to paper on his own and bring to life all the authentic characters who had seeped into his subconscious and whom he observed with a keen eye throughout his life, and particularly in prison, notating each detail carefully on a daily basis.
“Back then I used to walk around with a notebook in my pocket,” said Joe. “When I write anything, I pull out this book and see if there is anything applicable to what I’m working on.”
“The Bullpen” was the creation of Joe’s rich imagination and his stark reality as he seamlessly slips in and out of the 18 characters during the 65-minute non-stop performance, from a Latino to a Jamaican to an African-American, among many other vivid personalities, who were “inspired” by Assadourian’s time in prison.
“Don’t write the characters, become the characters,” he said. “That’s my motto because the audience is really smart.”
Although he wrote “The Bullpen” in two days, the editing and rewriting process, he says, “never stops.” Even during the show’s run, he continued to polish the script and change around a line or two in order to keep the material fresh. Released from prison a few days shy of his 36th birthday, he hit the ground running with rehearsals while securing a manager and agent, however nothing prepared him for his first live performance. On opening night of “The Bullpen,” Assadourian had trouble breathing before he stepped onto the stage.
“It was scary because I’ve never been in front of a crowd before and the first time I did it was in New York,” said Joe. “It felt like I was in freezing cold water that had gone into my lungs.” He remarked that all of his stage fright slipped away as soon as he delivered his first line, heeding the advice of one of his producers, who told him to remember that if the audience was any better, they would be the ones performing on stage.
The original run, which was supposed to last a month, ran on for almost two years, where day in and day out, Assadourian performed up to seven times a week. Although it was nerve wracking to perform in front of the public, he said he always appreciated the audience feedback, their energy, and the chance to connect with them after the show. Aside from the audience, critics also positively-reviewed “The Bullpen,” with the New York Times noting that it is an “extremely funny look at a particularly dreadful situation.”
After an initial successful run, he returned to the prison where he wrote the play, performing two shows for the inmates.
“I went there to do that for the guys,” said Assadourian, who returned a little over a year after his release. “You don’t want to leave there and be the same or worse so I really hope I inspired them.”
He also appreciated thinking on his feet and incorporating unscripted moments — like falling hard when he approached the stage — into the show and feeding off the laughter of the inmates.
“On stage if you make a mistake you have to keep going and make it part of the show because that is real acting,” said Joe. “It’s inorganic to be on a film set because you’re always waiting around on set and that’s less exciting than performing in the now in theater.” Assadourian understands why film stars return to the theater every year because it helps them sharpen their acting skills in front of a live audience, whereas filming becomes redundant and “even if it’s not stale coming out of my mouth, it’s stale in my head.”
Following the conclusion of “The Bullpen” at The Playroom Theater, Assadourian went on to star in the Amazon series “The Grind,” as well as assuming a role in the Showtime series “Billions,” and receiving his Screen Actors Guild membership. He remains committed to “The Bullpen,” and in addition to filming it for an upcoming comedy special, he continues to perform the show in exclusive appearances across the country, particularly at educational institutions, including Princeton, Rutgers and Baruch College. Writing is a steadfast portion of his daily life as he works on penning a television show.
“My mind won’t shut the f**k up,” said Assadourian. “Experience is everything.”
That experience is rooted in growing up in an Armenian household, shaping him as a person and as an artist.
“There’s a deep pride in me that I am Armenian,” said Assadourian. “I feel we have an obligation to ourselves and ancestors and while some people are letting it go, I can’t and I won’t.”
Acknowledging the parameters of any tight-knit ethnic community, he encourages Armenians to search for and excel at whatever it is he or she is passionate about.
“Do what you could possibly be great at, and I think we could all possibly be great at something, because it shouldn’t be work,” said Joe. “I’m fortunate I get to do what I do because if I went to work for someone else on a daily basis, I know I would be disappointed in myself.”
His craft and writing is inspired by “everyday people” and the likes of performers such as Eddie Murphy “who is great at every aspect, timing, delivery, mimicry and material.”
He hasn’t traveled to Armenia but yearns to journey there, saying it’s his “home.”
“Money is nothing, you can print that s**t” said Assadourian. “But land is priceless and nobody can give up that territory so that is on us to preserve.”
His grandparents were survivors of the Armenian Genocide and he is well-aware of their stories of survival. He recounts his grandfather’s determination to escape the massacres as a 15-year-old, gripping desperately onto a moving train, only to fall off and lose his hand. He eventually found refuge in Lebanon where he married his wife, also a genocide survivor, as they started a new life together.
As if feeling that suffering in his blood, Assadourian says that “pain builds you up over time” and serves as a drive to create.
“You get nothing from happiness except instant gratification,” said Assadourian. “These days kids are soft and they don’t know how to handle the smallest challenge.”
He draws a parallel to his grandparents, who at a young age had a completely different reality where they had to deal with gutting loss while also rebuilding their lives with virtually nothing. Parents to 11 boys, Assadourian’s father being one of them, they created a new Armenian family in Antelias, Lebanon, as his grandfather owned and operated a shoe store in the Armenian enclave of Bourdj Hammoud.
During the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s, Joe Assadourian’s parents immigrated to New Jersey, where he and his four siblings were born. His family history isn’t lost on him and perhaps he buried himself in humor to contrast the hardships of his ancestors.
“Ever since I was a kid, whether I knew it or not, I was performing so I have been training for this my whole life,” said Joe. “And to get paid to do what I love is the best thing in the world.”
He imparts words of wisdom as he looks forward to his own new beginnings.
“Confidence is more than half the battle,” said Joe. “You can have all the talent in the world but if you ain’t got no confidence, your talent won’t reach the ears or eyes of the audience.”
True to Hollywood form, Assadourian has rewritten the ending to his own story.
BOSTON — The annual K. George and Dr. Carolann S. Najarian Lecture on Human Rights, held at Faneuil Hall, this year addressed a human rights topic in the US, rather than the world, and the human rights were those of the incarcerated.
The program, held on November 14, featured two experts on the justice system from Texas, Cherise Fanno Burdeen and Marc A. Levin, who sat on a panel moderated by Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian.
Fanno Burdeen is the chief executive officer of the Pretrial Justice Institute and Levin is the vice president of criminal justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right on Crime.
Sheriff Peter Koutoujian
The two, along with Koutoujian, spoke about pretrial detention for those arrested and its systematic ties to issues of race and class.
Opening the program was Dr. Carolann Najarian, who recited several striking statistics: the US, she said, with 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population. In fact, she said, the country has the highest rate of incarceration in the developed world. Within the US, Oklahoma is the state with the highest rate of pretrial detention and Massachusetts the lowest. Panelist Levin noted later in the program that as well as Massachusetts is doing, Canada’s numbers are half that of the state.
Pretrial Detention
Koutoujian explained that lest the audience think that the panel is asking for lenience in sentencing, the discussion was about pretrial detention, meaning those that have been charged with a crime and are legally considered innocent of that crime, in the period before the adjudication of the case.
This talk addressed issues that are usually “put on the backburner” and affect people who are often disregarded because of their status, he noted.
“No one should be set aside in our society for their status,” he stressed.
“There is no partisanship to it. It protects our communities, protects human dignity and saves money also,” Koutoujian said.
Usually bail is set as a condition to return to face the charges after an arrest. Fanno Burdeen explained, “Bail is the contract between the court and someone. It says these are the conditions you must abide by to be released and then come back to court. Money bond is one of those elements. One of the things Mark and I have partnered on is that the majority of the people who will come to court and not get rearrested do not need to be in jail for months awaiting a trial, during which time if they had a job they would lose it,” have their housing destabilized and affect their families.
Cherise Fanno Burdeen
Said Fanno Burdeen, “Employment, stable housing and good connections with families [are] the very three things we disrupt” with pretrial detention.
“The most important thing in pretrial justice is constitutional rights: the presumption of innocence, equal protection and due process,” Levin added.
Comprehensive criminal justice reforms passed last year, Koutoujian noted. “However significant gaps in our system remain. Gaps into which people, disproportionately men of color, fall into and never climb back out of,” he said.
The numbers are stark reminders of what is going on in society today, he said, in terms of race.
“Pretrial services have long been a secondary consideration even in the criminal justice community,” he said. However, nearly 500,000 are held every day as part of pretrial detention.
More starkly, he said, according to the Pretrial Justice Institute which Fanno Burdeen leads, 65 percent of the US jail population is “awaiting a court charge.”
The two panelists agreed that money is the root of the problem for those remanded before trial.
Bail, set anywhere from $100 to $1 million, is often a reason for people to stay in jail as they cannot afford to pay it.
Texas Leading in Reforms
At the moment, Texas is “a state whose reforms in the last decades have earned it national recognition,” he said. The state, he added, “Stepped it up way more than most other states.”
In 2005, the president of a think tank, Texas Public Policy Foundation, asked Levin to take part in a study to see why the state of Texas was building so many prisons and still running out of room, “spending a fortune and not getting a commensurate public safety return on that investment.”
He started looking into what could be done differently.
Marc A. Levin
The turning point was in 2007, when another agency projected that another 17,000 prison beds would be needed by 2012. He said he and his group convinced then-governor Rick Perry to instead consider measures that would reduce the prison population in the first place rather than just build prisons. “We were able to craft a justice reinvestment plan, $241 million to expand those facilities,” and even closed eight prisons in addition to not building any new ones.
“In 2010 I had the idea for Right on Crime,” as interest increased across the country, Levin said. Newt Gingrich and Jeb Bush are supporters of this conservative approach to prison reform.
“The goal of our effort is to redefine what it means to be a conservative on criminal justice, take it back to constitutional rights and limited government,” he said.
In addition to political conservatives, many of the leaders in this effort have been religious leaders, believing in “redemption,” Levin said.
The panelists agreed that major opposition to reform comes from professional bond holders who make money on the backs of the poor or those who do not have enough money to pay for bail.
“I am having to go to a commercial bondsman and they will post on my behalf and I will give the bondsman 10 percent even if I am innocent,” Levin said.
Interestingly, the panel said that the only other country that has commercial bail in addition to the US is the Philippines.
The idea of making release based on financial status is an incorrect path, they argued. “The most significant finding is that most people released return on their own recognizance. And a lot of people should be dealt with police diversion [programs addressing issues those arrested are facing, such as drug programs]. How much money you have has nothing to do with whether you will commit another offense,” Levin said.
“Most people would have trouble coming up with $400 in cash. For the vast majority of people it is,” she said. “We’re paying $150 a day because you can’t pay $400.”
“It is stunning when you see some of these operations. Stunning to see how much money they are making off the backs of people who are too poor to get out of jail,” Koutoujian said.
There are no bail bondsmen in Massachusetts, the panel said.
“The number one thing we need to correct is making sure you don’t make a decision on the ability to pay but rather on public safety,” Levin said. There is a “very small category” of people who should be denied bail for a variety of reasons.
Violent people can be flagged. “There is a small segment of people to whom we can deny bail.”
“If you have someone that you determine is dangerous, he can be held without bail,” Koutoujian said.
Addressing Roots of Arrests
Drugs, mental health issues and homelessness are all contributing factors to arrests. Those, Levin said, should be addressed by means other than stays in jail before trial.
“We have prosecutors who say if they [those charged] get treatment for their issue, then we are not going to prosecute the case,” Levin said.
In addition, Levin said that research supported by the Arnold Foundation shows that when those arrested are detained for even short periods before trail, they will have higher rates of engaging in new criminal activity.
Fanno Burdeen added, that for those with mental illness or drug abuse problems, jail is “a very harsh environment. The smells, the noise, the sounds, just the environment of the jail are very damaging to people with mental illness.”
In pretrial, prisoners don’t get programming nor earned time. “You come out worse,” Koutoujian said.
Half the people arrested in Middlesex County have mental health or addiction problems, Koutoujian said.
The average length of pretrial stay is two months, but it can even last up to a year, or even years, pending trial, Fanno Burdeen said.
“Unlike some of the more complicated criminal justice reforms we try to negotiate with policymakers, the fix for these issues is relatively common sense and relatively simple,” she said.
Levin praised the recent federal criminal justice reform, titled The First Step, and signed by President Trump.
Another new development that Najarian spoke about was a collaboration between the Heritage Foundation and the Berklee School of Music to address inequity in criminal justice. Two students, Karen Yamaguchi and Brett Fairchild, sophomores at Berklee, performed an original song, Wake Up, about injustice in the justice system.
Koutoujian offered words of praise for the program. “This series and the Armenian Heritage Park Foundation assisting to putting it on, holds a very special place in my heart,” Koutoujian said, adding, “to Carolann and George, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, for making our world a better place. This series is very important for me because it is an opportunity for me to talk about larger, weighty issues affecting our society.”
The lecture program is endowed by George K. and Carolann S. Najarian, M.D. in honor of Dr. Najarian’s father, Avedis Albert Abrahamian.
The exterior of the Armenian Museum of America on opening night of the new gallery (photo: Aram Arkun)
WATERTOWN — The Armenian Museum of America inaugurated its redesigned main floor introductory gallery, called “Armenia: Art, Culture, Eternity,” during an evening reception on November 15. President Michele Kolligian and Executive Director Jennifer Liston Munson presented their vision for the museum and thanked all those who participated in the renovation work. Despite the snowstorm, the building was packed. Watertown Town Councilor Lisa Feltner was among the guests.
Berj Chekijian, director of finance and building operations of the museum and formerly its executive director, introduced Kolligian, who spoke briefly of the history of the museum and its founding visionaries, led by the late museum board chairman Haig Der Manuelian.
The collection, started in 1971, was moved 30 years ago from the First Armenian Church in Belmont, Mass. to the present location, and, Kolligian said, a new phase in the life of the museum began eight years ago. Vice President Robert P. Khederian of the museum’s board had met Estrellita Karsh, widow of the famous photographer Yousuf Karsh. She was willing to donate photographic prints from original negatives of her husband’s work to the museum, but insisted on changes in the approach used for displays. To this end, she introduced Kolligian and others to Keith Crippen, director of design of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, and to Jennifer Liston Munson.
Crippen recognized the possibilities in the former bank building, Kolligian related, and he and Munson began designing. Simultaneously, almost $1 million was raised by the Armenian Museum’s board, with Khederian playing an important role in this. The Karsh gallery opened in September 2011. Kolligian said, “We were completely changed from what we were before, and it was a very proud moment, and that was the beginning.”
Michele Kolligian addressing the guests (photo: Aram Arkun)
Initially Munson became part of the museum on a part-time but significant basis, designing the Simourian Family Galleries and the Adel and Haig Der Manuelian Contemporary Galleries. At the beginning of this year, she became the executive director of the museum.
Kolligian soon called Munson to the podium. Munson explained that the main goal of her work was to bring joy into the building together with Armenian culture. She said, “I think you might have noticed that the party starts at the street now,” referring to the ability to see vivid images and glimpses of the gallery from outside the museum. Munson continued: “We are beginning a new phase of sharing and connecting with the public and with ourselves, and it is pretty exciting.”
She thanked Kolligian, the museum’s trustees, curators Gary and Susan Lind-Sinanian, Berj Chekijian, and many others, and noted that she has hired new staff. Aside from her mentor Crippen, Munson acknowledged the presence of Virginia Durruty, formerly her colleague at the MFA, as architectural consultant.
Munson said that her goal was “to articulate the key themes of Armenian culture through objects in our collection.” She said that future gallery renovations will included the topic of the Armenian Genocide, but, “in order to tell this story of unspeakable loss it is my feeling that we first need to show what was lost.”
Jennifer Liston Munson addressing the guests (photo: Aram Arkun)
She concluded with a quotation from former US Ambassador Michael Gfoeller, whose claims even the proudest Armenian could not surpass: “Armenia is not merely a small country in the Caucasus…it is one of the wellsprings of world civilization, on the same level as Mesopotamia. Egypt, Greece, and Italy. Whoever bakes or eats bread, makes or drinks wine, uses metal tools or jewelry, or wears clothing and shoes, is tied by invisible bonds of cultural inheritance to Armenia. In this sense we are all Armenians.”
Munson said the quote sums up the essence of what the newly renovated gallery and the museum is about.
Guests were then invited upstairs to listen to cellist Kate Kayaian, mingle and enjoy Armenian foods.
Earlier that day, Munson gave a more detailed explanation about the changes in the museum to several press representatives. She started with the physical structure, pointing out that the former bank building, started in 1969 and completed in 1970, is an example of the architectural style called brutalism. (Boston City Hall is the most famous example of this style.) The museum moved into this building in 1990.
The building was thought of as “dark and very ugly,” Munson said, and because it had not been renovated for a very long time, “kind of sleepy.” Consultant Durruty was particularly interested in ways of adapting brutalism, and so a new approach was taken to open up the building. As Munson put it, “you experience from the outside the inside, and from the inside the outside.” In other words, it became more accessible. Interior walls blocking windows were replaced by self-standing walls and the dark film on the windows was replaced with light and clear film with an ultraviolet filter. A glowing light panel was set on a timer for 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Munson thought that scenes from Sergei Parajanov film, “The Color of Pomegranates,” set amidst the ruins of Armenian architecture, offered a model, she said, to “use the existing architecture with its full open pattern almost as a metaphor for Armenian church architecture and for Armenian history…and animate it with the objects inside.”
The newly renovated gallery starts near the museum entrance with the Gfoeller quote mentioned above. A map places Armenia in the world today for visitors. A major decision was made to not try to tell the whole history of Armenia. Instead, Munson said, she would “try to introduce the important themes of Armenian culture through the objects in our collection.” Instead of replicating the most important pieces of Armenian art, she would use collection items that represent the important themes. She determined that these included antiquity, the language and the invention of an alphabet, the early adoption of Christianity, the textile tradition, Kütahya ceramics, metal work, Armenian international trade, genocide, and the continuum (post-Genocide Armenian life).
The device used to present these themes was a series of floating platforms. Table cases on the platforms reference the black color of obsidian in Armenia. Munson said that she and Durruty worked to integrate architecture and graphics with the objects, just as she used to do at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Each item was given its own custom mount and desiccants were placed underneath in the cases for preservation purposes, unlike earlier iterations of the museum displays.
The highlights of the museum collection include Armenian manuscripts, specialized collections of textiles and over 200 rugs, coins, Kütahya ceramics, reliquaries, a deep collection of metalwork and various personal objects of witness of Armenian survivors of the Armenian Genocide.
Chalk mold, c. 1895 (photo: Aram Arkun)
One example of an object of witness is a chalk mold. It is displayed separately as a symbol of survival and remembrance, Munson said. It turned powdered limestone into sticks of chalk and was owned by Krikor Ouzoumian. His life was spared during the 19th century Hamidian massacres when he offered to make chalk for the troops. He expanded his factory, creating a secret room with supplies where his family survived 1915.
Though ultimately he died, his wife leveraged the chalk production to exempt the family from deportation, and when they later came to the US, they only brought this single object with them. It was separated, with one half held by a brother and the other by a sister, but rejoined when donated.
Many items have been taken out of storage and displayed for the first time in the new installation. Furthermore, a family history case has been set up whose contents will be rotated every few months to highlight new items. At present, it showcases a white Greek orphanage dress there which belonged to Araxie Krikorian, with a photo of her wearing the dress while in the orphanage (though dated to 1915, the orphanage was only set up in 1923).
Family histories display with Araxie Krikorian’s post-Genocide orphan dress (photo: Aram Arkun)
Establishing the aesthetic and logic, or, as Munson said, “this way of talking about things,” has been the first major step in changing the museum. A model of the museum has been created for planning. It comes apart like a dollhouse, to allow thinking to be holistic.
Among what is coming in the future, aside from building repairs and further redesigned areas, including an articulate section on the Armenian Genocide upstairs, are audio guides and interactive displays. A khachkar or cross stone will be on display soon. The Smithsonian had commissioned a new one for its Folklife Festival this year which it sold at a very reasonable cost to the Armenian Museum. The museum will have a more visible external presence too, with the Watertown Planning Board having agreed to allow banners to be placed on the poles outside.
Grants are being sought for expanding in-depth research on the museum holdings and increasing the range of educational and artistic activities.
WORCESTER, Mass. — After the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Krikor Guerguerian, a priest and genocide survivor, traveled the world collecting evidence to document the atrocities. Taner Akçam, the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Professor in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, recently collaborated with Turkish experts and graduate students on a digital repository that makes Guerguerian’s vast collection of incriminating documents available to scholars worldwide.
The newly launched Krikor Guerguerian Archive (https://wordpress.clarku.edu/guerguerianarchive/) comprises thousands of original Ottoman documents and Guerguerian’s extensive, unpublished writings. It includes the long-missing handwritten memoirs of Naim Bey, an Ottoman bureaucrat stationed in Aleppo who actively participated in the deportation and massacres of Armenians; documents from the Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate containing first-hand information about the Armenian genocide; and critical papers from the Istanbul perpetrator trials held from 1919 to 1922 that were long assumed vanished.
Among the most noteworthy materials are ciphered telegrams that the Ottoman Interior Minister Talat Pasha, army commanders, and the chief of the government’s paramilitary sent to governors throughout the Empire. Some of these telegrams, written on government letterhead stamped with the official Ottoman seal, clearly outline the Ottoman government’s planning and execution of the genocide. These “killing orders,” considered the “smoking gun” of the Armenian Genocide, formed the basis of Akcam’s groundbreaking book Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide, released earlier this year.
Akçam was granted access to the unpublished collection in 2015 by Dr. Edmund Guerguerian, nephew of Fr. Guerguerian, and he has worked diligently to ensure that other scholars of the Armenian Genocide have access to these important documents. He engaged his doctoral candidates Ani Ohanian, Anna Aleksanyan and Burçin Gerçek, and former students Ümit Kurt, PhD ’16 and Emre Can Daglıoglu in an effort to create and launch the digital archive. The group collaborated with others in Paris and Istanbul to translate materials into English.
“Access to these materials has the potential to change scholarly and political discourse as well as to destroy Turkish denial,” wrote Akçam. “It is my duty to make this evidence accessible for the world to see.”
Funding for the creation of the Krikor Guerguerian Archive was provided by the Caloust Gulbenkian Foundation, the Jirair Nishanian Foundation, the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the Knights and Daughters of Vartan, and the Dadourian Foundation. Original materials included in the Guerguerian Archive were donated to the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont, Mass., where they will become part of NAASR’s Mardigian Library. Researchers will be able to access original materials included in the digital archive following the opening of the NAASR headquarters’ building in the fall of 2019.
For more information about the online archive call 508-793-8897.
The Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University is home to a unique doctoral program dedicated to research and scholarship about the Armenian Genocide. The Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair is the first-ever endowed professorship in modern Armenian history and Armenian Genocide studies.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — On Sunday, December 9 at 7 p.m., Zoravik (“in solidarity”), a Boston-based Armenian activist collective that promotes new avenues for political and grassroots organizing and project-based engagement for progressives, will feature a program on Armenian feminism. The program will take place at the Harvard Science Center, 110 Oxford St. , Cambridge, Room 110. It will feature Prof. Lerna Ekmekcioglu and Prof. Melissa Bilal.
Said the two scholars, “As Armenian women academics born in Istanbul we have long been involved in the feminist movement across continents. In this conversation with Zoravik and friends, we will share our research and personal experiences relating to Armenian women’s past and present struggle against all forms of injustice. Our latest project, ‘Feminism in Armenian: An Interpretive Anthology and Digital Archive,’ aims to end the ever-present invisibility of activist women in Armenian historiography and collective memory.”
Ekmekcioglu is McMillan-Stewart Associate Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she is also affiliated with the Women and Gender Studies Program. Ekmekcioglu majored in Sociology at Bogaziçi University, Istanbul and received her PhD at New York University’s joint program of History and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies. She held a one year Manoogian post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan’s Armenian Studies Program. Together with Melissa Bilal, Ekmekcioglu is the co-editor of the 2006 book in Turkish titled A Cry for Justice: Five Armenian Feminist Writers from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic (1862–1933). Her first monograph, Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey, came out from Stanford University Press in 2016. Currently she is collaborating with Melissa Bilal on a book and digital humanities project titled Feminism in Armenian: An Interpretive Anthology and Digital Archive which focuses on the life and works of 12 pioneering women intellectuals from 1860s to 1960s.
Bilal is Visiting Assistant Professor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University of Armenia. Previously, she was Dumanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Chicago, Visiting Scholar of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ordjanian Visiting Faculty of Armenian Studies at Columbia University, Visiting Lecturer of History at Bogaziçi University, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Orient-Institut Istanbul. Receiving her PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago Department of Music, she held a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship in Music at Columbia University. Bilal earned her BA and MA degrees in Sociology at Bogaziçi University. Bilal’s most recent publications include the article “Lullabies and the Memory of Pain: Armenian Women’s Remembrance of the Past in Turkey,” Dialectical Anthropology (Forthcoming 2018) and the CD project “Voice Signatures: Recordings of Russian Armenian POWs in German Camps, 1916-1918” (Berlin Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Forthcoming 2018).
Formed in the wake of the Velvet Revolution, Zoravik seeks to mobilize the political, cultural, and social institutions of the diaspora to support and encourage transformative efforts in Armenian communities worldwide.
WATERTOWN — On Monday, January 7, 2019 there will be a St. James Armenian Church Men’s Club dinner meeting at the St. James Charles Mosesian Cultural and Youth Center in Watertown. The speaker will be Jeanmarie Papelian, executive director of the Armenian Tree Project (ATP). She will present ATP’s strategy to use trees to transform a village in Armenia.
ATP was established 25 years ago, when Armenia was facing the challenges of newfound independence. It was a time of change and hope. The act of planting a tree was an expression of hope and an investment in the future. Today there’s a renewed opportunity to create an Armenia where doing things is possible. ATP is working to help create an Armenia that is clean and green, with a respect for people and planet. ATP is proud to stand out as the only non-profit organization dedicated to using trees as a means of improving the standard of living for the Armenian people and protecting the environment.
ATP Makes All This Happen:
250,000 trees planted annually
1,200+ planting sites across Armenia and Artsakh
4 state-of-the-art tree nurseries
80 full-time and 150 seasonal workers
250 schools in Armenia and 100 schools in diaspora using ATP’s environmental education curriculum
2 centers for environmental education, research and summer programs
This St James Men’s Club dinner meeting will begin with a social hour and mezza at 6:15 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. Mezza and Losh Kebab & Kheyma Dinner $16/person. Ladies are invited.
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Rev. Fr. Diran Avak Kahana Papazian died on November 21, 2018 at Manoogian Manor, at the age of 98.
The Service of Burial and Last Anointing took place on Wednesday, December 5 with the celebration of Badarak (Divine Liturgy). Following Badarak, the clergy and family proceeded to Woodlawn Cemetery for the interment. A hokejosh was held at St. John Armenian Church.
Born on February 12, 1920, to Aghasi and Teskhouhi Papazian in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire in what was then the city of Constantinople with the baptismal name Garabed, Der Diran lost his mother and father at a young age and was placed in an orphanage for a short time. His younger brother Khatchig had died three years earlier when he was one and a half years old. Garabed was baptized by the Patriarch of Constantinople at the age of 6. Soon after, he began his schooling at the Armenian Cathedral School in Istanbul where he learned Armenian (both kurapar, classical, and ashkharapar, coloquial), Turkish, and Hebrew. Over the course of his life, he would add Greek, English, Arabic, French, and Aramaic. In December 1934, at the age of 14, he left Istanbul to attend the Theological Seminary of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, graduating from the seminary in 1940.
After 1940, Fr. Diran found himself in Ramallah, Palestine, not being able to return to Turkey because of the outbreak of World War II. He began working at the British Consulate as a translator, hoping to come to the U.S. to continue his education. The chaos of war made it difficult for him to obtain a passport, and thus his travels to the United States were put on hold. Finally, in 1949 Fr. Diran moved to Lebanon, where he began to work for the Patriarchate of Cilicia. In 1950, he was admitted to the Theological Seminary of the Great House of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon, where he continued his studies. While studying in Lebanon, he authored his prize-winning lyrics for the official anthem of the Church Schools in the Middle East, which is still in use today. As world events by then had settled down, he now was able to apply successfully for a British passport.
At the invitation of Archbishop Tiran Nersoyan, then-Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church, Eastern, Garabed arrived in the United States in 1951 to pursue further theological studies, thereby fulfilling his long-held dream. He first attended the Philadelphia Divinity School, but later transferred to the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s of Divinity degree. He then enrolled at the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, where he earned Master’s degrees in Sacred Theology and Philosophy in 1956.
In 1957, he moved to Detroit, where he married the late Yeretzgin Rosalie Papazian, an active church worker and teacher in the public schools. On February 23, 1958, he was ordained as a priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church of Detroit by Archbishop Mampre Calfayan, then-Primate. He served at St. John’s Armenian Church in Detroit for 15 years. Over the sixty years of his priesthood, he would marry, baptize, and preside over the funerals for four generations of his parishioners.
In the early years of his pastorate, Fr. Diran also served as visiting pastor to the newly established midwestern parishes of Illinois. He also helped the mission parish of Cleveland in its efforts to build a church, and St. James in Evanston, IL, as well. He also temporarily served as pastor of St. James Church in Watertown, MA.
During his tenure as pastor of St. John’s, in addition to his involvement with the building of the current church edifice and cultural hall, Fr. Diran also was involved in the two historic pontifical visits of His Holiness Vasken I, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenian, and the visits of many other ecclesiastical dignitaries. In 1961, Fr. Diran organized a group for a pilgrimage to Holy Etchmiadzin, where His Holiness Vasken I presented him with a jewel-studded hand-cross, which had been specifically made for this occasion per His Holiness’ order
In January 1966, His Holiness Vasken I conferred upon Fr. Diran with a special Pontifical Encyclical, the religious distinction to wear a Pectoral Cross. Simultaneously, Archbishop Sion Manoogian, then-Primate of the Armenian Church Diocese, gave Fr. Diran the honor of wearing a Floral Cape.
In 1972-1985, Fr. Diran was assigned as pastor at St. Gregory of Narek Armenian Church in Cleveland, OH, where he had previously served as visiting pastor and an organizer for the building committee. While serving the Cleveland parish, he also acted as a visiting pastor of the mission church of St. Petersburg, FL.
In 1983, on the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, Fr. Diran was honored with the honorary ecclesiastical title of Archpriest with a special Pontifical Gontag issued by His Holiness Vasken I.
Fr. Diran’s next assignment was serving two parishes simultaneously in the New York metropolitan area: Holy Cross Armenian Church of Union City, NJ, and Holy Cross Armenian Church of New York, NY. He served these parishes from 1985 to 1988.
On January 1, 1989, he was invited by the parish of Sts. Joachim and Anne Armenian Church of Palos Heights, IL, to be its pastor. He served the parish until his retirement in January 1995, and made his permanent residence in Southfield, Mich. During his retirement years, he served as Pastor Emeritus at St. John’s Armenian Church in Southfield, MI. He also as a visiting pastor to Florida mission parishes along the state’s Gulf coast.
Fr. Diran’s wife, the late Yn. Rosalie Papazian, preceded him in death by 13 years. He leaves behind his two devoted adult children, Garo and Elise Papazian, his granddaughter Nicole and grandson Nishan Papazian, his brother-in-law Dr. Dennis and his wife Dr. Mary Papazian, as well as numerous nieces and nephews, cousins, friends, parishioners and admirers.
To send a loving message, visit Rev. Fr. Diran’s obituary at www.ekfh.net.
Arrangements were made by the Edward Korkoian Funeral Home and assisted by the Simon Javizian Funeral Directors Wessels and Wilk Funeral Home.
WASHINGTON — The former president of a Texas-based non-profit pleaded guilty on December 10 for his role in a scheme to conceal the fact that a 2013 Congressional trip to Azerbaijan was funded by the Azerbaijan government.
Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, US Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.
Kemal Oksuz, aka “Kevin Oksuz,” 49, and previously a resident of Arlington, Va., pleaded guilty to one count of devising a scheme to falsify, conceal and cover up material facts from the US House of Representatives Committee on Ethics. Oksuz will be sentenced on February 11, 2019 before US District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan for the District of Columbia.
According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, Oksuz lied on disclosure forms filed with the Ethics Committee prior to, and following, a privately sponsored Congressional trip to Azerbaijan. Oksuz falsely represented and certified on required disclosure forms that the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasions (TCAE), the Houston non-profit for which Oksuz was president, had not accepted funding for the Congressional trip from any outside sources. Oksuz admitted to, in truth, orchestrating a scheme to funnel money to fund the trip from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), the wholly state-owned national oil and gas company of Azerbaijan, and then concealed the true source of funding, which violated House travel regulations.
A five-count indictment was returned earlier this year in the US District Court for the District of Columbia and ordered unsealed in September. Oksuz was recently extradited from Armenia where he was detained by authorities, pursuant to a warrant that was issued for his arrest.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Marco Palmieri of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, Assistant US Attorney David Misler and Will Mackie of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. Assistance in the investigation was provided by Trial Attorney Amanda Vaughn of the Public Integrity Section, Assistant US Attorney Jonathan Hooks and former Assistant US Attorney Michelle Bradford of the District of Columbia. Trial Attorney Natalya T. Savransky of the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs handled the extradition request to Armenia. The Office of International Affairs, along with the US Department of State and cooperating Armenian authorities provided substantial assistance with the extradition.
WATERTOWN — The Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA) presented “Activism and Transition to Leadership in Armenia,” a lively panel discussion of the events of the Velvet Revolution in Armenia earlier in 2018, at the Armenian General Benevolent Union New England center in Watertown on the evening of December 6. The five speakers visiting from different parts of Armenia were all young activists in their early 20s. The event was cosponsored by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
Levon Chukaklyan, left, and Yuri Avagyan (photo: Aram Arkun)
The audience was first welcomed by Marc Mamigonian on behalf of NAASR and CYSCA Open World Program Director Alisa Stepanian on behalf of CYSCA. Dr. Anna Ohanyan, Richard B. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Stonehill College, served as moderator. Interpreter Ara Hakobyan facilitated communications for the panelists, with the exception of Astghik Isakhanyan, who spoke in English.
Ohanyan began by asking the panelists where they were during the 10 days the movement was building and how it felt to be a part of that movement.
Isakhanyan is from Goris, in the southern Armenian province of Syunik, and worked as project coordinator for the Rights Information Center, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), which works to help people know and protect their rights. In October 2016, the despotic governor of Syunik was dismissed, she said, so the atmosphere was somewhat freer than before. Isakhanyan said, “In the first days, in my region, and in the southern parts of Armenia, people didn’t believe that it would succeed, especially older people.” However, some young people went to Yerevan to join the movement when Nikol Pashinyan returned there on his march.
Isakhanyan said these young people were considered very courageous because in Goris, many people work for the government, at that time controlled by the Republican Party, and the latter spread the word that those who joined the movement, or their parents and family, would lose their jobs. Only when it became obvious that the movement would succeed if everybody joined in did around 80 people go out in public. Even writing on social media in favor of the movement could be dangerous. Isakhanyan’s NGO was one of the first to spread the news on its webpages and social media. They declared that they would not work for one week but instead organize a rally to demand the Republicans and Serzh Sargsyan to resign.
Amazingly, it was school children aged 7 who started the first rally. Isakhanyan said, “They ran out of the school and we saw that the police came with them and they were walking… They really were 7 years old… I was in my office and I heard some noises. We looked out and saw that children with their bags, really small ones, are running and screaming ‘Merzhir Serzhin’ (Reject Serzh) and some announcements like this. Then people were encouraged. It was a really, really very emotional moment, because all the older ones were really afraid but they were really for that. The children did not understand the fear, what is fear, or what to fear. They saw on the internet that in other cities that people went out, so they also went out.”
From left, Alla Yeremyan, Levon Chukaklyan, Yuri Avagyan, Ara Hakobyan, Garik Miskaryan, Astghik Isakhanyan and Anna Ohanyan (photo: David Medzorian)
This established a culture of rallying, so that when a principal was nominated for a school whom the people did not like, the people held a rally and said they do not like the decision that was made. This was real change, Isakhanyan said, for her region.
Garik Miskaryan, foreign affairs manager for the Restart Student Initiative, declared that by October 2017, university students were already fighting for changes on issues important to their lives, such as postponing obligatory military service for some exceptional students. The main people in this movement established the Restart Initiative on February 5, 2018. Their activity, focused on Yerevan State University (YSU), touched everything from issues like toilet paper to higher level budget questions.
Prior to the April events of the Velvet Revolution, Miskaryan said that there were two groups struggling for this revolution: Nikol Pashinyan’s political faction and the Reject Serzh civil initiative, which turned into the main force moving the revolution forward. Miskaryan and Davit Petrosyan from the Restart Initiative participated in those meetings and were the first to greet Pashinyan on his return from Gyumri to Yerevan (on April 13). Before arriving in Freedom Square, Pashinyan and the whole group went to YSU, where, Miskaryan said, it became clear that the students were the main driving force of the revolution.
Miskaryan declared, “The revolution took place, in my opinion, on that day when the students, around 5,000 in number the first time, closed the intersection of Koryun and Aboyvan Streets and kept it closed for an entire day. There were clashes there. On Baghramyan Street in the evening, they shot on the students and three of our members got injured. The next day when I saw those injured comrades back on the streets, the next morning, I realized that something is possible and that changes are taking place. During those ten days we were basically on the streets.”
Yuri Avagyan, communications manager for the Restart Initiative and a third-year sociology graduate student, declared that the most impressive day for the students was that of the closing down of the Koryun/Abovyan intersection. The students joined the main mass of protestors, but, he said, were greater in number than those before them.
Avagyan explained that planning was very important for the movement’s success. There were various initiatives taking place, including that of Nikol Pashinyan, and some individuals participated in all of them. Meetings took place at the Ketiknots’ Café near the Opera and the intersection of Prospect and Baghramyan Avenue. Around 30 people were actively talking, including representatives of Reject Serzh, Nikol Pashinyan and members of his team, and the Restart Initiative group. Suren Sahakyan, who only later formed his own political party, proposed an obligatory strike. The protestors would block the streets in a decentralized manner.
Alisa Stepanian (photo: Aram Arkun)
On the night of April 15, Avagyan said, after Pashinyan’s speech, they decided to allocate duties. Whoever had a car would block one of the various main city streets, especially the bridges. The student faction undertook the heaviest responsibilities. They had to close down the streets in the morning, and the bold ones among them lay down to block the entrances of the subway cars. Avagyan said, “I never imagined the situation would lead to Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation because there were truly very few of us showing up there and everybody was deriding us greatly. In a word, in the morning the following picture materialized: we with the students collected at the SAS supermarket and, in turn, using dumpsters and benches closed the street and went on. We were 10-15 people in all. Cars couldn’t travel there. It is true that we made the city very dirty but in the end something happened. As many as expected of the students came out while the picture of the city was that Yerevan was completely paralyzed.”
They repeated the same actions again and again. The next day, April 17, they came to the same place, at the supermarket, and the police were waiting for them. Probably, Avagyan guessed, there was a secret police agent in their ranks who had revealed their plans. Arrests began. Avagyan showed a brief video clip showing the students resisting arrest. Avagyan and the others were kept at the Masis police precinct for nine hours.
Miskaryan interjected that Avagyan neglected to mention that the day prior to being arrested, Avagyan was shot upon three times, and once he was hit in “a very inappropriate spot.”
Levon Chukaklyan, cofounder of the Restart Student Initiative and third year political science post-graduate at YSU, spoke about his personal story since the other panelists had given information about the revolution. He said that in October 2017, when the students were working to postpone the drafting into the army of exceptional students, they did a hunger strike for the first time. His family was threatened and punished as a result. His brother was fired from his job and the secret police telephoned to threaten his mother. All his family and friends asked him to stop his protest activities and when Pashinyan began his march from Gyumri to Yerevan, his mother and others begged him not to join. He said, “However, as always I did just the opposite again.” He and his friends joined Pashinyan’s group. When his mother, worried, called after hearing of the shootings on April 16, Chukaklyan said, she only told him to be careful. He understood that by this point she and his family and friends were convinced there was no point to try to hold him back. Perhaps more significantly, he stressed, “I understood that among them too the belief arose that already was with me — that slowly we were able to spread in our surroundings that perhaps this time things would change.”
He related that during the revolution, one of the main principles was to maintain civil disobedience without violence, which hopefully would lead the police to understand that the protestors were not enemies but friends. When one of his hotheaded friends, named Mihran, was struck by the police with a club, Chukaklyan noticed to his surprise that even he merely raised his hands, understanding that it was necessary to attempt to keep the peace.
Anna Ohanyan (photo: Aram Arkun)
Chukaklyan is originally from Armavir, a town and region in the west of Armenia. He said that when we saw the Yerevan roads were closed down, he understood they had to do the same in his hometown, so, 13 young women and 4 young men ran around the streets of Armavir, with the police following them. At first the local residents said new Yerevan fashions were being introduced, but in a few days, even the older grandmothers and grandfathers came outside to sit on the streets in their chairs to block traffic, and the police could not do anything.
He concluded, “It is at that time that you become aware of how important each citizen’s responsibility is to do what is necessary for civil society, so that they can educate people to be able to do their civic obligations. The direction in which the country moves forward and toward what future depends on each step.” Change comes from each small step taken by individuals.
Alla Yeremyan is also from Syunik Province in southern Armenia, but from a different city called Sisian, where she is manager of the Basen Hotel and also teaches students with disabilities and doing leadership training for NGOs. She was in Sisian during the revolution, and said, “To tell the truth, in the beginning I had some fears about the success of the revolution.” She recalled the fate of the 2015 Electric Yerevan struggle, but as time went on became more optimistic. Mobilizing in Sisian was difficult, she said, for several reasons: first the majority of Sisian’s youth were already in Yerevan participating in the demonstrations there. In Sisian though there was no direct actions there was an atmosphere of fear, as they feared that they or their parents could lose their jobs in retaliation. Consequently, only five or six youths did not fear going out and demonstrating, but everybody followed the events on television and social media and slowly the spirit of the revolution reached Sisian too.
As in Goris, it seemed the children took the initiative. Yeremyan related: “One morning, we all went to work and an unusual thing happened. All the students from the fourth to the eleventh grades declared a strike. They made placards stating ‘Reject Serzh’ and ‘I am the owner of my country.’” Yeremyan worked at Vaghatin’s middle school, 11 kilometers from Sisian. The students walked with their banners to Sisian, and the teachers followed them, but in their cars.
When they arrived at Sisian they saw that everyone had gone on strike. Rumors about closing the Sisian medical center had inspired them even more to struggle, so everyone from the medical centers and schools had taken to the streets. They closed a bridge and some youth with their cares closed the main highway connecting Yerevan to Meghri. The following day, April 23, Serzh Sargsyan resigned as prime minister.
After this first round of answers, Ohanyan asked what the activists did in order to bring people out to join the demonstrations and address their fears. Secondly, what role does activism and civil society have in making this transition stick and making the changes permanent.
Avagyan replied that it was a little easier for Restart to encourage people because its members were already involved in different processes and Davit Petrosyan was very well known among the students. Thus, when they saw people who in the past worked for just goals, he said, “they felt they could trust these people.” He said that in Armenia, it is important as a leader to show that you do not fear and have strong will.
Last year, for example, when For the Sake of the Development of Knowledge Initiative, the predecessor group to the Restart Initiative, was invited by the then prime minister Karen Karapetyan to negotiate, the group forced Karapetyan to agree to have everything recorded without cuts so it could be shown on television. The students were so confident that they could interrupt the prime minister. Minister of Defense Vigen Sargsyan got upset and left. The group also published its telephone numbers to show its sincerity and independence to the public.
Miskaryan followed up by declaring that the decentralized nature of the movement was very important. The principle of closing down the streets was announced and beyond that, individuals took over, he said. The students who had an opportunity to be outside of Armenia and see other societies were more open in mentality and were the first to close the streets down.
Then, he said, “When 18-year-old girls take to the street, that doubled the number of people in the street. When at home they tell the girl once, twice, don’t go, but the girl still went to the street, the father and mother themselves were forced to go to the street.” When the young women then would lie down before buses, this got televised and many more people were inspired.
The arrests of the main leaders like Nikol Pashinyan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Sasun Mikayelyan on April 22 did not change anything. People still went out to close the streets, because civil society, explained Miskaryan, was now the driving force of this movement.
Miskaryan concluded by noting that the Restart Initiative has not changed its approach or activities. Both before and after the revolution it remained active in the field of civil society, unlike many others.
Chuchaklyan gave another example of how they got people involved. He said, “if we had a lack of freedom inside the university, and that atmosphere dominated there, then we could right next to it establish a different atmosphere of freedom.” They held events at the park or garden next to the university. Students looked while passing and became interested in their demands. Similarly, during the revolution, people saw others waging struggles or activities on the street or through the internet, and this interested them.
He said that many people of the civil movements have now entered politics but the Restart Initiative works to integrate new students in order to replace them. He said, “We have kept our ideas and activities in spheres that have great need for solutions.” Meanwhile, as far as the revolution in general goes, he said that it must be institutionalized.
Ohanyan asked Yeremyan and Isakhanyan how challenges in the provinces are different from those in Yerevan. Yeremyan said that it is hard to mobilize people in far away regions. The NGO at which she volunteers tries to develop Sisian not only economically but through programs to involve the youth and women. They held leadership classes for the youth during the summer to explain what they can change in society to make it more suitable to their own needs. They also have various economic programs promoting craftwork and tourism. In November a tourism information center was opened in Sisian.
Isakhanyan said that she has been involved in civil society organizations for five years. A long process is necessary after the revolution. She said, “I will consider the revolution as implemented when the mindset of the people will be really changed.” When bribery no longer will be relied on, and elections will be transparent.
Ohanyan also asked about the role of the diaspora in supporting civil society initiatives. Isakhanyan said, “If you care, we really get encouraged that there are people outside of Armenian who consider Armenia their home and care what is happening there.” Collaboration with Armenian civil society organizations and visiting are important. She said, “We feel a lot of respect here [in Boston]. People recognize where Armenia is and it is thanks to you. You make us really proud that we are Armenian. Thank you.”
Avagyan said that there were many cases when diasporan contributions have not yielded the expected results. Aid, he said, should not be short term, and the question is proper policy or strategy, and how to implement the strategy. Restart attempts to work in this manner, he said. He gave one example.
In the past, student bodies were formed as appendages of the Republican Party and took students to Tsaghkatsor’s resort areas and spent 9 ½ million tram. Restart instead announced grants for 100,000 tram, and got three people doing research projects and mastering specific issues. These new members became so skillful that this was considered a great success. He stressed, “In our country, the only resources are human resources.”
Chukaklyan said that there is a widespread skepticism in Armenia concerning grants being given through various countries or foundations. He said, “I think the diaspora can take the place of these countries or international organizations, so that with our own [i.e. Armenian] means we can help the human level of quality and progress.”
During the question and answer session with the audience, when asked to elaborate on any changes that have taken place at the university level, Avagyan declared that this was “the most painful point…nothing changed in education. The leadership and management of universities remain the same corrupt people as before, from the rectors to the governing council.” He said that his group was awaiting the completion of the revolution and afterwards will begin presenting its harder requests. First will be the removal of the old corrupt leadership, and second will be the change of the professors. He explained that “with us, the university is a very conservative body, unlike in developed countries.”
As to whether their broader political demands will be fulfilled, Avagyan replied that it was always possible that if civil society could not be sustained, the Kocharyan system would come back to power. He said that it is still actively working in the field, and Kocharyan has numerous media resources, so activism must continue too.
Miskaryan exclaimed that the iron is hot, so it is time to mold it. This is an important period for building and creating. Success will depend on the efforts of everyone.
To an audience question of how to move conservative Armenian society toward freedom on issues like women’s rights, Isakhanyan responded that already changes have taken place since women stood outside next to their husbands, sons and friends in the revolution, and there are many women’s names now on the list of candidates for deputies in the parliamentary election. There is now a woman appointed as mayor of Echmiadzin city, which could not have been imagined ten years ago. A recent law requires that murder or family violence directed against women will be considered criminal cases.
Yeremyan said that we will reach the desired result only when women themselves are knowledgeable about their rights and demand them.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA) hosted a delegation of young activists from Armenia in late November to early December, sponsored by the Open World exchange program of the US Congress. Five young professionals involved in the Velvet Revolution and a facilitator took part in a whirlwind week of meetings and site visits in the Boston area on topics covering activism, transition to leadership, civic participation, and the US legislative process. The group consisted of three young men, students at Yerevan State University, who founded the Restart Initiative in early 2018, and two young ladies – one from Sisian involved in children’s education, and one from Goris who works for the Rights Initiative Center NGO.
The group met with federal, state and municipal legislative/administrative heads, and NGO leaders and their organizations. Highlights included a meeting with Mayor Marc McGovern of Cambridge, MA. The delegates commented that this would not really be possible in Armenia, to sit down and have a conversation with a city mayor. Another highlight was the panel discussion in which the young adults from Armenia were the panelists. They shared their experiences of their America trip, as well as the current realities in Armenia, including post-Velvet Revolution situations and their future plans upon their return. The group also met with staff from Congresswoman Katherine Clark’s office, as well as State Representative Jonathan Hecht, Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, and local Watertown town officials.
Other meetings included a session with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Pioneer Institute, Common Cause, Amnesty International, Campus Compact, and the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
CYSCA project manager Alisa Stepanian commented, “It was a privilege to host these young activist leaders from Armenia. We are indeed encouraged that several of the professionals whom they met expressed interest in working with the delegates on various projects and continuing their dialogue on activism and transition to leadership.”
This group was sponsored by Open World, the only federal legislative exchange program working with all the post-Soviet republics. It brings groups of young professionals on different topics to the United States. During their stay, groups are immersed in a week of activities and meetings on their respective themes. CYSCA was very proud to host this wonderful, passionate group and looks forward to continued opportunities.
CYSCA was formed in 1987 as a nonprofit corporation by a group of concerned citizens of Cambridge. In the 30 years which have followed, many citizen exchanges and training programs have taken place. In the past 20 years alone, CYSCA has hosted over 20 professional groups from Armenia on a variety of themes, such as entrepreneurship, social work, education, theater management, university administration, museum management, aviation, NGO management, and public health, as well as ten youth exchanges, school partnerships, and school aid in Armenia. For more information, visit www.cambridgeyerevan.org .
LOS ANGELES — University of Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith participated Friday, December 7, at a special event at the United Nations marking the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the international law that defined genocide and held perpetrators accountable.
At the event, which commemorated the UN General Assembly’s passage of the Genocide Convention on December 9 of 1948, Smith discussed the role of technology in the prevention of genocide.
“The question before us today is how we use technology to uphold the values that are enshrined in the convention,” Smith said in his prepared remarks. “For certain it does not begin with high-performance computing and end with artificial intelligence. It begins with story, and ends in empathy.”
The observance, which included remarks from UN Secretary General António Guterres, also featured a demonstration of the Institute’s Dimensions in Testimony interactive biography that enables people to ask questions and instantly receive pre-recorded responses from Holocaust survivors.
Survivors featured in the presentation were Pinchas Gutter, who was the only member of his family to survive the Majdanek concentration camp in Germany, and Eva Schloss, the last living relative of Anne Frank.
In response to a question from the audience about how to promote tolerance, Gutter’s pre-recording said: “Accept ‘my culture is this, your culture is that.’ Your prayers to God — you do it this way, I do it my way. I say Psalms, you read the Koran. Why can’t we live together? And in some places people do live together quite reasonably and tolerate each other. Why can’t the whole world do that?”
The demo was followed by an appearance from the real Pinchas Gutter, who after receiving a standing ovation from the crowd, participated in a Q-and-A with Adama Dieng, the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide. Gutter said he agreed to participate for one main reason: to help make the hate stop.
“When I see today things which kind of remind me of what happened in the times of the five years that I spent under Nazi rule, I mean it breaks my heart,” said Gutter, an 86-year-old resident of Toronto.
The purpose of the UN event was to raise awareness of the Genocide Convention and its role in combating and preventing genocide, to commemorate and honor its victims, and to reiterate the responsibility of each individual nation state to protect its citizens.
In his welcoming remarks, Guterres talked about the progress the world has made in the 70 years since the conventions were adopted. But he also listed places where genocide occurred since its adoption and urged the 45 countries that still haven’t signed on to do so.
“My generation believed that after the Holocaust, we would never see genocide again,” he said. “We were wrong. Modernity does not protect us from genocide. The digital age does not protect us from genocide. Nothing but our actions, based on our values and principles, can protect us from genocide.”
Guterres also lamented how, 70 after the Genocide Convention was adopted, “people are still being killed, raped, their homes torched, their lands confiscated, just because of who they are.” He cited how the Yezidi people in Iraq were brutalized by the “violent extremists of Daesh” – also known as the Islamic State, or ISIS – and mentioned the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, “who have been systematically killed, tortured, raped and burnt alive, victims of what has rightly been called ethnic cleansing.”
During his keynote remarks, Dieng — who served several terms as registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi — warned that while technology can be used to deter violence, it can also be used to incite it.
“Social media and the increasing access to the internet allows us to communicate instantly and globally, to share in real time what is happening to bring to the world attention issues of concern,” he said. “However, it has also been used as a tool to spread hate, including incitement of violence that has, in some instances, led to actual violence targeting populations or individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or other forms of identity.”
The event also included a panel of experts that included Smith and two others — Alison Smale, the UN’s under-secretary general for global communication; and Agnès Callamard, director of Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression — for a discussion on the goal of preventing genocide for the next 70 years.
Smale, a former journalist for the New York Times, discussed the UN’s use of new and traditional media when promoting universal values and fighting racism.
“On this day, when we commemorate the victims of the crime of genocide, and advocate for the prevention of this crime, it is important to remember that genocide usually starts with hate speech,” Smale said. “Words matter.”
Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, noted that before the genocide that unfolded in 2017 against the Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, Facebook had been repeatedly warned that its platform was being used to spread hate and propaganda.
“Social media companies cannot just be relying on third-party notification and reporting,” she said. “They must develop their own capacities to analyze and respond.”
Smith said technology can be a powerful tool in service of genocide prevention, but only when its use is coupled with humane values.
“When we have bad values and excellent technology, terrible things can happen,” he said. “And when we have humane values and excellent technology, remarkably good things can happen.”
Smith listed several core values that are essential to preventing genocide. They include creating inclusive, respectful societies (“genocide is not mass killing,” he said, “it is exclusion taken to its logical conclusion”); instilling empathy in students and leaders alike; and developing trust.
“Genocide is a phenomenon of fear, expressed in violence,” Smith said. “The more we fear the less we trust, the more likely we are to harm. Narrative can build trust. Articulating respect is the first step to trust, without fear.”
Post Cammander George W. Haroutunian presents a placque to Mrs. Anne Herosian, widow of past Post Commander Edward Herosian. (David Medzorian photo)
By Jack Medzorian, Past Commander
WATERTOWN — On November 24, the Cpl. Paul S. Marsoubian Post 41 American Veterans (AmVets) held its annual member appreciation banquet at the Oakley Country Club, in Watertown. Over 60 persons were present, including guests from the family of Past Commander Edward Herosian, represented by his widow, Ann Herosian and their children.
AmVets Post 41 was formed 66 years ago, the brainchild of Kasper Bejoian who recruited a group of 11 founders, including himself, to unite Armenian veterans of World War II. It continued with veterans of subsequent wars, notably, Korea and Vietnam. The Post grew rapidly and within one year it formed a women’s auxiliary, comprised of female veterans, and female members of veterans’ families. Overall membership since inception reached approximately 450 veterans, most of whom have passed on.
The main objective of the Post was to unite Armenian veterans who fought together to build together and serve the needs of their veteran brothers and the community. Its membership achievement included Lincoln Jelallian who became Massachusetts State Commander, and Berge Avadanian, who became National AmVets Commander.
In the 1960s, the Post moved to a new building, custom-built by Past Commander Edward Herosian, on Grove Street, in Watertown. In 2015, as the membership dwindled, the Post sold the building, thanks to a major effort led by Herosian, who was serving a second term as Post Commander at the time. The Post then made an agreement with the AGBU New England District to use its building on Mt. Auburn Street, Watertown, for its offices and monthly meetings.
Two Post 41 members enjoying the music (photo: David Medzorian)
The membership decided to utilize the funds from the sale of the building to establish an endowment fund mainly to provide scholarships, first and foremost, to families of Post members present and deceased. This program began in 2017 and has continued since. At the same time the Endowment Fund was placed with the AGBU to earn income, which together with the principal, funds scholarships.
Commander George W. Haroutunian, in his welcoming speech, paid tribute to Past Commander Edward Herosian and the outstanding effort he made during his final years to sell the building. He then called upon his widow, Ann Herosian, and her family to come to the podium to receive a plaque honoring Edward Herosian. Their son, Glenn Herosian, spoke about his dad’s military service in WWII and dedication to the Post. He recalled the period when his father was building the new Post headquarters and how he had helped his dad at that time on the site
Commander George W. Haroutunian addressing guests at Member Appreciation Banquet for the Cpl. Paul S. Marsoubian Post 41 AMVETS held at Oakley Country Club in Belmont on November 24th. (David Medzorian photo)
Post Donations
Following the presentation George Haroutunian reviewed the major donations made by the Post over the past 2-3 years, which included:
Armenian Nursing and Rehabilitation Home, donation of Hoyer lifts to assist bedridden residents.
Donation to Heritage Park Foundation Endowment Fund. A plaque on the site includes the name of the Post.
Scholarships since 2017 totaling $173,500 for 88 students, and ongoing as presented by Scholarship Committee Chairman Harold Partamian.
Donation to the new building fund of the National Association of Armenian Studies and Research with plaque placed at the location of ancient manuscripts.
Support of Armenia Tree Project: Bench with a plaque and trees planted at the Bash-Abaran battle site where General Dro is buried, near Gyumri, Armenia.
AGBU New England Headquarters.
Donation to the Muratsan Children’s Cancer Center in Yerevan
Donation of funds to support needy MA AMVETS veterans.
Holiday meal on Army Day January 28, 2018 for Armenia’s frontline soldiers.
Finalization of Endowment Agreement with AGBU
Establish web site and uploading veteran’s interviews to go on line Jan 2019
Conversion of Post to “Armenian American Veterans of Greater Boston.”
Past Commander and Trustee Jack Medzorian praised Commander George Haroutunian for his exemplary efforts in leading the Post during the past few years, especially after the death of Past Commander Edward Herosian.
Following a full course meal, members and guests danced to the tunes of Leon Janikian and his band and enjoyed the company of veteran brothers and families. The event was ably organized by the co-chairs, First Vice Commander Edward Der Kazarian and Walter Nahabedian.
NEW YORK — The Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) announced that on December 3, Prof. Robert Hewsen, a noted Armenologist, had died. He was 84.
Hewsen was a Professor Emeritus of History at Rowan University in New Jersey. He was the president of the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) (1988-89). He was well known for his translation of the seventh-century Ashkharatsoyts (Geography) of Anania of Shirak. He was also the author of the monumental work Armenia: A Historical Atlas (University of Chicago Press. 2001).
Hewsen was born Robert H. Hewsenian in New York City in 1934 to Armenian-American parents. He spent seven years in Europe with the US Air Force and studying. He received his BA in history from the University of Maryland and his PhD from Georgetown University in 1967. The same year he joined the history department of Rowan University, where he taught Byzantine and Russian history for more than 30 years. After retiring from Rowan University in July 1999, Hewsen lectured at University of Chicago, Columbia University, California State University, Fresno and University of California, Los Angeles.
Hewsen is also the co-founder and president of the Society for the Study of Caucasia.
Hewsen wrote a multitude of books and articles on the history of the Caucasus, especially Armenia. His most recent publication is Armenia: A Historical Atlas (University of Chicago Press, 2001). The book received wide critical acclaim. In his review Michael E. Stone wrote: “Robert Hewsen has prepared an opus magnum that has no rival in Armenian studies. This pioneering and largely definitive work is the best atlas of Armenia ever prepared.”
Merrill D. Peterson wrote that it “may itself be considered a monument of American scholarship.” Charles King wrote that the book is an “outstanding achievement not only as a geographical reference but also as a guide to the demographic and political history of the entire Caucasus.” Adam T. Smith wrote of the Atlas as “an important milestone in the development of Armenian studies.”
GLENDALE — Ardashes “Ardy” Kassakhian has played a steady role in Glendale municipal governance and local politics for several decades. He now is in his fourth four-year term as Glendale City Clerk, and the motto on his website, appropriately, is “helping you navigate through city government.” He is the highest vote receiver among elected officials in Glendale.
Kassakhian was one of those fortunate people who became interested in their future professions at a young age. In fact, he said that his interest in public service goes back to his parents and grandparents. His mother, Loussik Kassakhian, whose family lived in Greece, was a public school teacher who only recently retired, while his father Dr. Garabed Kassakhian was an environmental chemist dedicated, according to his son, to insuring that there is clean air, water and soil on this earth. His grandparents and his parents were very involved in the cultural institutions of Jerusalem and Lebanon, including in the Armenian General Benevolent Union and the Ramgavar or Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, of whom one grandfather was a prominent leader. In addition, a great-grandfather was friends with the noted poet and activist Vahan Tekeyan.
Kassakhian personally began to become engaged in politics while in college. As a child, he moved a lot with his family, from Boston, where he was born, to Canada, to New Jersey, to Armenia and finally to Glendale. In all these places his parents were involved in local Armenian communities, and helped establish the Armenian church in Ottawa, Canada. Kassakhian remembers driving to New York as a child through the tunnels to go to the Armenian cathedral.
Despite all this, he did not really feel engaged, he said, until senior year at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He had become involved with the Armenian Student Association there and studied Armenian history, among other things. While he was president of the student association, in 1997, the Turkish government tried to establish a chair of Turkish and Ottoman studies at UCLA, as Prof. Stanford Shaw was about to retire.’
Ardashes Kassakhian
The problem, Kassakhian and others realized, was that the Turkish government would retain influence over the chair and thus a foothold in American academia. Consequently, he and other student activists protested, wrote to the newspapers and were quoted in some articles, and got members of congress involved. Ultimately, through the work of Prof. Richard Hovannisian and others, the UCLA History Department narrowly voted to relinquish the Turkish money and end the proposed relationship.
Kassakhian recalled, “That opened my eyes to how no one can avoid having politics touch them in some way or form.” Even today, he likes to quote Pericles (while noting that he too has partial Greek heritage), who said, “Just because you are not interested in politics does not mean that politics won’t take an interest in you.” The UCLA incident led him to an internship in Washington, DC with the Armenian Assembly of America at Rep. Frank Pallone’s office. He further studied and raised awareness of similar infiltration efforts of American academia by foreign governments.
More significantly, he said, he saw that the number of Armenians in the ranks of the hordes of interns who descend upon Washington every year and from whom policymakers and leaders of the US emerge, was minuscule. Kassakhian said, “We talk about defending Hayasdan, taking up arms, singing the patriotic songs of these heroic battles of the past, but the realization came to me that the real battles here are fought in the halls of power at state legislatures, and in the nation’s halls.” Kassakhian did a second internship the next year with a different congressman and went back again to Washington to become the Armenian Assembly’s internship coordinator.
A Community Awakening
In 2000, back in California, Kassakhian joined the public relations firm of Stoorza, Ziegaus and Metzger, which specialized in government relations and public affairs, but in 2002, he was hired as Government Relations Director for the Armenian National Committee (ANC) of America Western Region and in 2003 became its Executive Director, remaining in this post until 2004.
Switching from the Armenian Assembly to the ANC, Kassakhian said, did not matter that much. He made an analogy with Armenian food. Every group of Armenians, from diverse countries like Iran or Lebanon, has types of food in which it is considered superior, he explained. You go to the restaurants of each group for its specialties. In the same way, the Armenian Assembly internship program, he added, offered what he sought, to be working in Congress, whereas the ANC only at the time offered internships at its own office.
When Kassakhian came back to the West Coast, he said, the ANC was active and the Assembly had no presence. Consequently, he said, “As an Armenian-American who wants to be involved today, if you here on the West Coast want to be where the fight is, the fight is being fought here by the people who are in the ANCA. You have to look past the other differences which divides us and look more to what binds us. You can call me a mercenary, or whatever it may be, but I am an Armenian.”
In this period, there was a new political awakening in the Armenian community, which had candidates running for office and trying to get elected with Armenian votes for the first time. Kassakhian said he became involved in several of those campaigns. By then Rafi Manoukian had been elected to the Glendale City Council in 1999 in this manner. Kassakhian worked on Paul Krekorian’s State Assembly campaign in 2000, and eventually decided himself in 2004 to run for city clerk.
He explained that the main reason was because the city clerk, aside from being a custodian of records, was in charge of running elections. He said, “I remember the difficulties we had before with previous city clerks in trying to acquire materials translated to Armenian that would help the pubic understand the voting process.” Many recently naturalized Armenian citizens did not have sufficient master of English to be active participants in this process. However, Armenians were told that the cost of translating materials into Armenian was too great, while the Armenians were not considered a protected class under the Federal Voting Rights Act like Latinos or Asians.
Instead, various Armenian candidates running for office, like Rafi Manoukian, Paul Krekorian or Kassakhian himself, had to register thousands of voters themselves. Kassakhian said, “In large part, though, the lion’s share of the credit goes to groups like the Armenian National Committee.”
City Clerk
In the broader sphere of his work as city clerk, Kassakhian said that his office was able to raise the number of voters in Glendale to the highest numbers it has been in at least the last 50 years. He has attempted to provide easier access to government by taking advantage of advances in technology. Digitalization has made access to public records easier. Council meetings can be viewed on line. Kassakhian said that he avoids cutting edge technology because he wants to be sure that it will be a lasting format before adopting it in his office. He gave the example of laser discs which quickly were replaced by DVDs as what might happen if changes adopted too rapidly.
His efforts in the broader American sphere, he said, can be characterized as follows: “I have worked to make sure that Americans and Glendale resident stakeholders know how their government works and why it sometimes doesn’t work — because there is a friction that has been designed into our American system of government; and lastly, what they are capable of doing as citizens to make government work the way they want it to. That means voting, coming to council meetings and participating, writing letters, and how to contact and access their elected officials.”
Simultaneously, he said, “I am a servant also to my community, the Armenian community. I have helped it in particular by creating opportunities for Armenian Americans who are interested in learning. I am very generous with my time for Armenian causes, and individuals who are interested in learning about government who happen to be Armenian.”
Ardashes Kassakhian, wife Courtney, and their child
He said that dozens of Armenian-American interns and others have participated in programs established in city hall. For example, the majority of the high school students who benefit from the student city hall ambassador program, by virtue of Glendale demographics, tend to be Armenian.
Kassakhian gave an example of how having Armenians in city affairs helps bring more Armenians into involvement in the political process. In the last election, he said that there were some votes that they could not tally because the signatures on the envelopes did not match those on the original affidavits. At first glance, this might appear to be voter fraud, but it turns out that sometimes it is voter error.
He said that a trilingual letter was prepared, in Armenian, English and Spanish, for these individuals asking them to come to city hall to resolve this discrepancy. Most people ignored it but afterwards a team of Armenian-speaking youth were hired on a temporary basis to go to people’s homes to check their signatures. At that point they sometimes found out husband and wife signed each other’s envelopes by mistake, or the new immigrant originally signed his name in Farsi or Armenian but now is comfortable using English so there is a difference.
Ardashes Kassakhian with local citizens
This allowed reregistering a number of people with their new signatures so that in the future their votes will count.
In his “free time,” Kassakhian keeps in contact with Pallone, and the Armenian Caucus has asked him to be master of ceremonies for the Capitol Hill Armenian Genocide service several times. His past connections with both the Assembly and the ANC no doubt were useful for this.
He was also able to take a trip as Glendale city clerk to Armenia as part of a California state delegation in September of this year to encourage investment in technology in Armenia. He and the delegation met with the mayor of Glendale’s sister city of Ghapan there and offered his knowledge and experience to ministers or deputies in charge of local municipalities. He also told various individuals within the Armenian government that Glendale would be happy to facilitate their visiting to observe its municipal elections. He said, “I know the meetings were positive, but unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with timing. We are hoping that we can do something in the near future.”
While Kassakhian has good working relations with the rest of the city government, he notes that he only has five fulltime staff at present, reduced from a number over 10, due to budget cuts and attrition. While sustainable, ideally he would need seven individuals to function well. He hopes, he said, that if the city’s financial footing improves over the next few years, staff can be added.
Kassakhian has some suggestions for the Glendale city government. He said he believes the city council should be expanded from its current five seats to seven because of the growth in the size of the city’s population. It would give an opportunity for greater diversity of representation in the decision-making process. He also thought it would help further the general understanding of the public concerning how government works. Kassakhian used religious terminology, which perhaps indicates how seriously he believes in his work, when he said, “Each council member almost becomes a missionary or an apostle. He goes out there in the community and spreads the knowledge of the mystery that goes on here in the council chambers every Tuesday.”
Though there is a movement in California for election to municipal councils by district (as in Pasadena), he prefers at-large elections for council members because that can allow for greater diversity (for example, by gender). However, he would like to expand it. He said, “My ideal election voting system is a cumulative voting model, rather than district. If there are three seats up you get three votes. You can give all three of your votes to your one candidate of choice, or spread them around among three candidates,” or split it between two candidates.
He also is interested in broader electoral reforms. He worked with State Sen. Anthony Portantino in introducing a California state senate bill, SB25, which recently became law, to reverse the ballot order for elections, at least in Los Angeles County, on a trial basis. The problem is that when local races are at the very end of a long ballot, Kassakhian said, “your eyes have glazed over, your interest has sort of waned, and good luck if you fill out that ballot completely.” In the past, cities had stand-alone elections, but a state law forced their consolidation with county elections to ensure higher voter participation rates. To improve this situation, Kassakhian came up with the idea of having the local races first, and Portantino introduced it as legislation. The 2020 election will show if this approach will help.
Kassakhian noted that though he is a registered Democrat, and has his opinions, his and for that matter all local offices are nonpartisans, and that regardless of a person’s political ideology, he can still do whatever work is assigned to him.
Kassakhian ran unsuccessfully for California State Assembly in 2016. When asked the obligatory question of whether he had any plans for further runs for office outside of the city clerk position, the short version of his answer was simply, “desnank [we shall see].”
Meanwhile, his message for Armenians remains the same: “Being a small diasporan nation with more Armenians living in practically every corner of the world outside of Armenia, it is important for us to know how the world works, how politics works, how government works…and what we as citizens of our respective nations can do to make government work in ways that can benefit us as communities living in those places, as well as to help preserve our heritage and culture.”
