We are the most effective way to get your press release into the hands of reporters and news producers. Check out our client list.



CJCUC Stands with the Armenian Community of Jerusalem in Remembering the Armenian Genocide

Contact: CJCUC Media Division 516-882-3220

NEW YORK, May 7, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- We, the officers of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding in Israel (CJCUC), stand in solidarity with the Armenian community of Jerusalem and the Armenian people everywhere. We acknowledge, remember and pay public homage to the horrific genocide that took the lives of 1.5 million Armenians living in Turkey 100 years ago. This tragedy is not a matter of "interpretation," but of demonstrable and irrefutable fact.

The Armenian genocide is officially recognized by more than 26 countries around the world and most states of the United States of America. Pope Francis, too, has recently added his voice to those who cry out publicly against the horror of this genocide.

We urge the State of Israel to officially recognize the mass killings of so many Armenians as the genocide that it was. There is no political justification for turning a blind eye to this national tragedy.

Jews have a unique responsibility to remember and acknowledge this tragedy. Our experience of the Nazi genocide that took the lives of 6 million of our people occurred only 70 years ago. And it is tied to the Armenian genocide that occurred only 30 years before: The Nazis embarked on the Final Solution because they knew that the world stood idly by during the Armenian genocide.

We stand together in pain with the Armenians. We experienced the same suffering as did the Armenian people, and they have experienced the same suffering as the Jewish people. We have no right to demand that the world remember the genocide of our people, if we remain blind and mute to the similar fate that befell the Armenian people between 1913-1915.

We must take to heart our sacred pledge of "never again." If we wish to prevent genocides in the present and the future—to our people and to others—we must be vigilant in remembering and acknowledging the genocides of the past. We must not let the world forget.

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin, Chancellor, CJCUC
David Nekrutman, Executive Director, CJCUC
Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn, Academic Director, CJCUC