Increasingly anguished and angry posts by many genocide watchers are being published these days about the ominous threat of a major genocide by starvation and embargo of the Armenian population in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabach).  The following are two such posts by the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, the first by Israel W. Charny where he goes so far as to accuse rabbis who are cooperating with the Azeris with being “accessories to murder,” and the second is a moving joint statement by Charny together with Rabbi Avidan Freedman, an orthodox rabbi. –Ed.

To the European Rabbinical Conference Due in Azerbaijan,

The colloquial meaning of the perfectly nice phrase in Hebrew, am haaretz equals people of the land) is: a vulgar, boorish, bumpkin, ignoramus, uneducated person. Shockingly that’s what you European rabbis who have signed a disgraceful, uninformed and callous statement deserve to be called.

The issue is one of a life or death matter and leaves no room for saccharine courtesy or understanding.

You are asked by life to make a judgment about the impending deaths of over 100,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabach at the hands of Azerbaijan—which in violation of international calls and its own past pledge has sealed entry into the area causing starvation and death because food and medicines can’t reach them.

RABBIS, where do you stand? Can there be even a moment of doubt? As human beings and as Jewish spiritual leaders do you have any question as to whether the Armenians should be left to die?

The issue on which you stake your vicious disrespect of Armenians’ lives is that they have dared to call the unfolding event a holocaust, and you claim they are stealing our word. Even if they were, would that justify your rabbinical indifference to their remaining alive?

In any case, they have not stolen the word.  It is a word for the world to use –and has been used by the world for centuries before our tragic Holocaust. In the Encyclopedia of Genocide which I edited there is a major statement written by me together with Armenian historian, Rouben Paul Adalian and genocide scholar and rabbi, Steven L Jacobs where we conclude that “the word (holocaust) belongs historically to all people’s suffering, and certainly that it not“become a basis for excluding the suffering of any other people.”

We brought examples of use of “holocaust’ to describe genocidal events long before the WW11 destruction, e.g. (handful of examples from many more), the New York Times in 1909 about “Another Armenian Holocaust” in the city of Adana; Arnold Toynbee on the “Armenian Holocaust”; and even earlier such as in destruction of Jews in the Crusades, or the destruction of 1300 worshippers in a church by Louis V11 in 1833 according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

I am not naïve about  the possible wisdom of speaking with “enemies” in our troubled world in order to seek peace, but Judaism has long taught us there are boundaries beyond which we dare not corrupt our faith and values.  If as I understand it you are going to  hold a rabbinical conference in Azerbaijan, you need to commit the occasion to a firm and uncompromising call on the government to end the embargo of the Armenian population and cooperate in building the safety of their lives. If you do not fight for such a position, you are liable before the tribunals of history, including our own Jewish history, for being rabbis who were accessories to murder.

Prof. Israel W. Charny, Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide Jerusalem, Past Co-Founder and President International Association Genocide Scholars