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Jewish Advocate , MA

JCRC JOINS BATTLE FOR GENOCIDE RECOGNITION

By Ted Siefer
Thursday April 27 2006

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom ReillyLocal Jewish groups back teaching the Armenian genocide in public schools

The Jewish Community Relations Council has firmly allied itself with the Armenian community in its fight against a lawsuit challenging the way the Armenian genocide is taught in Massachusetts public schools.

Coinciding with the anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide in 1915, a rally organized by kNOw Genocide, a coalition of several cultural and religious groups, including JCRC, was held last week in front of the State House. Among the speakers at the event were Lt. Governor Kerry Healy and Attorney General Tom Reilly, both gubernatorial candidates, and Congressman Ed Markey.

"We have to defend the right of the Department of Education to teach what happened to the Armenians. This is not about free speech. It's about facing truth," Reilly told the crowd. The attorney general's office is defending the Department of Education in the lawsuit brought by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.

About 1.5 million Armenians were killed during World War I by Turkish forces; Turkey has long contended that the deaths were the unintended consequences of war, not a deliberate campaign against Armenians.

The Turkish association's lawsuit charges the Department of Education with violating academic freedom and free speech by removing from its curriculum guide materials that presented the Turkish point of view on the genocide.

Lawyer and academic freedom advocate Harvey Silverglate is representing the Turkish Association. "I believe that in the long run the Jewish organizations, as well as the Armenian organizations and all other organizations currently on the 'censor the contra-genocide views' bandwagon, will be sorry that they have contributed to the institutionalization of ethnic group censorship in matters of education," he said.

JCRC Executive Director Nancy Kaufman rejected this argument. "I think it's bogus. Does this mean we should let the KKK teach in schools because they want to share their view of slavery?" she said.

"What if someone had wanted to make room for a Holocaust denier in a textbook? We in the Jewish community have to be sensitive to genocide, whether the Rwandan, Jewish or right now in Sudan."

This point was emphasized by speakers at last week's rally, which prompted a contingent of pro-Palestinian activists to shout: "Stop the Zionist invasion of Sudan."

The Armenian genocide is widely recognized by scholars. Last year, the International Association of Genocide Scholars sent a letter to the Turkish president urging the country to reexamine its version of the catastrophe.

A bill introduced earlier this month in the House (H.R. 193) and Senate (S. 164) would include language recognizing the Armenian genocide as part of a commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the U.S.'s adoption of the Genocide Convention. The U.S. does not officially recognize the Armenian genocide.

A documentary titled "The Armenian Genocide," narrated by Julianna Margulies, was screened on Capitol Hill shortly before the bills were introduced. The documentary aired on PBS this month.

There are many significant connections between the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, according to Adam Strom. His organization, Facing History and Ourselves, provides curriculum materials for teaching about historical atrocities, including the Armenian genocide.

Strom pointed out that Hitler cited the world's indifference to the Armenian genocide as he laid the groundwork for the Holocaust.

"Hitler said: 'Who today still speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?'" Strom noted.

Jews have long played an important role in calling for recognition of the atrocity and justice for its victims, Strom said. He pointed to the role of Rafael Lemkin, who defined the term "genocide" in a treatise on the subject that would become a cornerstone of human rights law.

"He lobbied for years to find a way to outlaw what happened to the Armenians. He asked his law professor, 'Why can't they put these guys on trial, why is it not against the law to murder a million people but it is to kill just one?'" said Strom.

Strom also pointed to the role of Henry Morgenthau, the Jewish U.S.

ambassador to Turkey during World War I who railed against the anti-Armenian campaign.

Morgenthau is revered in Armenia, according to David Sacks, a Boston doctor who helped set up a women's clinic in the newly independent republic in the 1990s.

Sacks said that in his time spent in Armenia, he found many qualities of the people familiar. "Their love of family and culture ... reminded me of our people," he said.

"We need to honor their pain and suffering and we need to remind the world that there was more than one Holocaust," Sacks added.

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