tuesday 4 02 14, volume # 9, issue # 17

RAG MAMOUL an ADL PUBLICATION

Official Organ of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party

New Archives Enhance Armenian Jerusalem Website Project

By: ARTHUR HAGOPIAN

Tuesday, 4 February 2014 Volume # 9, Issue # 17

RAG MAMOUL receives material from around the world and in many languages. Our Liberal principles advocate ‘Freedom of

speech’ as a mainstay of our beliefs; consequently the subjects and ideas presented will not necessarily reflect our point of view.

All published material is reviewed, however, we rely on the kind understanding of our audience when grammatical and spelling

mistakes are missed. And in some rare cases, correction of submitted material is purposely not addressed, if it changes the implied

context of the author.

The Armenian Jerusalem website project, which has been set up

with the objective of chronicling and preserving the culture, history

and traditions of the Armenians of Jerusalem, is being enhanced in

the wake of new archival material contributed by friends around the

world.

The new material casts an intriguing light on the vicissitudes of

members of this Jerusalem clan, and comes as a timely update to

the existing records.

Catching up with modern social networking trends in its quest to

reach a wider audience, the project has now created a Facebook

page located at:

(https://www.facebook.com/armenian.jerusalem)

and is on Twitter at

(https://twitter.com/HagopianArthur).

(https://www.facebook.com/armenian.jerusalem)

and is on Twitter at

(https://twitter.com/HagopianArthur)

Although the project is primarily of interest to Armenians, it

welcomes non-Armenians - whether scholars, researchers or mere

visitors - who are eager to learn more about the contribution of this

clan of hardy survivors who have helped make Jerusalem the

centre of the world.

Acutely sensitive to Jerusalem's unique character and the various

conflicts raging around it, the project's Facebook administrators

unequivocally stress that its basic tenet is research and

scholarship, with absolutely no divergence into political or other

controversy.

Armenian Quarter Jerusalem

https://www.facebook.com/armenian.jerusalem

https://twitter.com/HagopianArthur

https://www.facebook.com/armenian.jerusalem

https://twitter.com/HagopianArthur

"Our whole aim is to portray the glory of Jerusalem and the vital

role Armenians have played in the evolution of its history," they

say.

Among the latest archival revelations, from a source in the

United States, is the story of the Armenian mason, Kevork

Nercessian, who arrived in Palestine, then under Ottoman rule,

probably in the 1850's, from the town of Marash in Armenia (it

is currently in Turkish hands), seeking business opportunities in

the land of milk and honey. He owned a large tract of land in

Safad in the Galilee, and eventually became mayor of the city.

He later sold his property to the British who converted it into a

hospital.

One of his descendants is the renowned Emeritus Professor of

Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Haig

Khatchadourian, a very close relative of the

composer/conductor Ohan Dourian.

Information from a source in Brazil reveals that another

member of the Khatchadourian clan, named Eli or Elias, who is

said to have spoken 15 languages, became an Ambassador in

Palestine.

Armenians are scattered all over the world, the greater part

refugees or descendants of refugees fleeing Turkish pogroms

which culminated in the 1915 genocide, and spawned a mass

exodus.

Thousands of children were orphaned, hundreds dying along

the way from disease or malnutrition. One and a half million

Armenians had perished.

Among the survivors was a 4-year-old girl who was sent to a

Christian Approach Mission for schooling after her parents died.

The mother had tried to save her 11-year-old son by changing

the date of his birth so he could enter the priesthood but he

ended up in an unknown destination, perhaps Lebanon.

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HEADLINE SUBHEAD. SUBHEAD.

SUBHEAD. SUBHEAD.


Haig Khatchadourian

Ohan Dourian

Haig Krikorian


Another rootless family, the father drowned in the

Mediterranean, trekked to Jordan in a stumbling caravan of

bedraggled refugees. In Amman, the two little grand-daughters

were forced to stack street tiles in order to earn a living, while

the grandmother, who had become so exhausted along the

road, she had wanted to just lie down and go to sleep, suckled

the babies of strangers for a pittance.

The paucity of documented chronicles has made the task of

trying to unearth the variegated story of the Armenians of

Jerusalem extremely difficult.

"Our major source of information, apart from official 'domar's

[records of births, marriages and deaths] maintained by the

Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, remains anecdotal," the

project administrators concede.

"The 'domar's we have accessed go back to only 1840," they

note, adding more ancient documents exist in the Armenian

Patriarchate, but access to those is problematic at the moment.

"At the moment, we have neither the manpower nor the means

to unearth those archives and delve into them. It's a mammoth

undertaking and would require years of work. Look how long it

took one researcher, Haig Krikorian, to complete his omnibus

tracking back the "Lives and Times" of the Armenian patriarchs

of Jerusalem: eight years. We will just have to wait for more

opportune times."

Archival photo of a Jerusalem

Armenian family

Vahakn Dadrian

"Another factor complicating access and preservation of anecdotal data is the that the major

repositories of such information, the elders of the community who are best equipped to regale

us with their tales, are passing away at an alarming rate, one after another, taking a large,

irreplaceable chunk of our story with them."

Among the most recent Armenian losses is Araksi Kaplanian, who had been living in Australia.

Her husband, Kevork, a community leader, was instrumental in founding the leading Armenian

youth club in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Armenian Benevolent Club (JABU).


Earlier, Arshalooys Zakarian, a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge about her

compatriots, and a lifelong teacher and educator with a son who became editor of a major

US publication, had passed away.

Haig Khatchadourian's brother Khatcho and his cousin Ohan Dourian were other

irreplaceable losses.

Perhaps, future researchers will fare better, now that the Armenian Patriarchate has

begun computerizing its records, an initiative taken by the late Patriarch Torkom

Manoogian, who wanted to unequivocally reinforce the place of Armenian Jerusalem on

the map of the world.

Jerusalem has always been a battlefield for the nations, and seems likely to remain so

until those nations beat their swords into plowshares and their weapons into pruning forks,

and not learn war any more.

The relentless battles over Jerusalem have taken a heavy toll on the city's population, but

in recent times, it is the year 1948 when the first major confrontation between the Semitic

cousins, the Arabs and the Jews, took place, that stands out as seminal for the

Armenians. Even before the hounds of war were let loose, the Armenian community had

seen its numbers shrink drastically in the wake of an unprecedented return of large

numbers, back to their homeland in Armenia.

Death and devastation followed soon after as Arab and Jew lobbed missiles at each other

across the Walls of the hallowed city, several landing in the lap of the Armenians, and

claiming dire casualties.

But although the numbers may never again reach the magical figure of 25,000 just before

the epochal year 1948, Armenian Jerusalem is here to stay.

For even if only two Armenians remain to hobble among the cobblestones of its alleys,

"see if they will not create a new Armenia."

Wherever they meet anywhere in the world. But particularly in Jerusalem, "zahrat ul

mada'en," "yerushalaym shel zahav."

Sydney, Australia

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RAG MAMOUL an ADL PUPLICATION

Official Organ of the

Armenian Democratic Liberal Party

Editor in Chief

ASSADOUR DEOVLETIAN

Editorial Staff

ALINE BALIAN (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

HAGOP CHAMKERTENIAN (Sydney, Australia)

DIANA DER GARABEDIAN (Buenos Aires, Argentine)

SEVAG HAGOPIAN (Beirut, Lebanon)

GACIA JEGHALIAN (Cairo, Egypt)

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tuesday 4 02 14, volume # 9, issue # 17

Documents

armenians of jerusalem

jerusalem clan

armenian quarter jerusalem

glory of jerusalem

new material

armenian mason

published material

wake of new archival