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By Rabbi Carl M. Perkins

“Do Not Forget!”
Parashat Ki Tetze
August 25, 2007

The book was the novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, by Franz Werfel. Though based on a true story, the book is a work of fiction. In it Franz Werfel tells about a group of Armenians who, in 1915, had been pursued by Turks and who took refuge in the mountain fortress at Musa Dagh. In the novel, they hold out for forty days until finally they are rescued, at great peril, by French and British rescue ships.

Why, in a course on the holocaust, did we read Franz Werfel’s “Forty Days”? The reason is that already in the 1930’s, the manner in which the Turks treated the Armenians could have been—and was—seen as a model for what might happen to the Jews. After all, the Jews were being isolated, they were being described and treated as irremediably “other,” and they were being marked for deportation. In the case of the Armenians, those deportations were accompanied by murder. It seems clear that, in his work, Franz Werfel was telegraphing concern about the same fate befalling the Jews.

Needless to say, the work was condemned by the Nazis. Werfel himself fled Austria for France, and ended up in this country, where he died in 1945.

What in fact happened to the Armenians? Was it “genocide”?

In order to answer that question, we need to know what the word means. The way in which the word “genocide” came into being is a story in and of itself. The word, which was later defined to be “the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, religious or national group,” was coined in 1943 by a Polish Jew by the name of Raphael Lemnick as part of his heroic effort to galvanize international efforts to condemn acts of barbarism such as the deportations and massacres of Armenians in 1915. Ten years earlier, around the time that Franz Werfel wrote his book, Lemnick was already urging the condemnation of the phenomenon. The Turkish attempts to annihilate the Armenians during World War I were clearly, for Lemnick as well as Werfel, the historical experience which led them to condemn what we would today call genocide.

Acknowledging these massacres as acts of genocide has been, however, resisted by Turkey from the very beginning. The U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire while these massacres were taking place was a German-born Jew named Henry Morgenthau Sr. Already in January and February of 1915 he began receiving reports of atrocities against the Armenians. America wasn’t to enter World War I until 1917, so at this stage, the U.S. was still “neutral”—a word that would hinder its ability and willingness to address the atrocities effectively. Ottoman rulers assured Morgenthau that this was simply “mob violence” that would soon be contained. By July, though, Morgenthau was convinced that this was not true. He cabled Washington and described what was happening in these words.

Persecution of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, whole-sale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction and destitution on them. These measures …are purely arbitrary and directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place.

“There seems,” Morgenthau warned Washington, “a systematic plan to crush the Armenian race.”

Ottoman rulers were incensed with Morganthau. Once, when he presented eyewitness reports of slaughter, the Ottoman Interior Minister, Mehmad Talaat snapped, “Why are you so interested in the Armenians anyway? You are a Jew, these people are Christians …. What have you to complain of? Why can’t you let us do with these Christians as we please?” Morganthau replied, “You don’t seem to realize that I am not here as a Jew, but as the American Ambassador …. I do not appeal to you in the name of any race or religion but merely as a human being.”

The massacres continued. A New York Times correspondent noted that “unless Turkey is beaten to its knees very speedily there will soon be no more Christians in the Ottoman Empire.” By July, the paper’s headlines began warning of the danger of the Armenians’ “extinction.” Meanwhile, the Turks continued to deny that massacres were taking place or, if they were, that they were the work of the government and, if they were, that they were justified responses to Armenian agitation.

After 26 months in Constantinople, during which more than 1 million Armenians had been killed, Morgenthau left in early 1916. “My failure to stop the destruction of the Armenians,” he recalled, “had made Turkey for me a place of horror.”

As a factual matter, it seems obvious that the Turkish efforts to isolate, deport, and murder the Armenians constituted genocide. Why then is this at all controversial here in this country today, ninety years later?

The answer may be that Turkey is a significant, influential nation in a critical region of the world, whereas the Armenians are fairly powerless.

* * * * * * * * * *

What has happened during the past two weeks here in the Boston area is very, very sad. First of all, it is sad that the ADL, which has done such wonderful work fighting anti-Semitism and racism and educating young people today concerning the dangers of intolerance and prejudice, has been so reticent to describe Turkish activities in the early 1900s as genocide. Two major reasons have been offered for that hesitation, both of which must be taken seriously. The first is concern over the Jewish community in Turkey. That’s not to be scoffed at. Turkey is far from a tolerant country toward minorities. To expect a nation whose rulers once deliberately exterminated Armenians to be generous toward Jews is unrealistic. The second is concern over the effect on Turkey’s relationship with Israel. That’s also not to be dismissed. Israel doesn’t have very many friends in the Arab world. It would be a shame for Israel’s unique, supportive relationship with Turkey to sour.

On the other hand, how can any Jewish organization, in particular the ADL, deny truth—even in the name of protecting Jewish interests? Leaving aside what implications one might draw from this willingness to overlook the truth, doesn’t it suggest that the ADL believes that where Jewish life is concerned, truth is sacrosanct, but not when Christian life is concerned? How can the ADL ever have been willing to be “complicit in a cover up” (in the words of the Boston Globe)—in essence, in the same camp as holocaust deniers?

It is sad to realize that this episode has weakened the ADL nationally and locally. One wonders about the glee with which some have condemned the ADL during this episode. To attack the ADL so vehemently—as if it were not vehemently opposed to intolerance in any form—makes one wish that the “No Place for Hate” program were indeed universal. It makes one wonder whether there isn’t a certain amount of latent anti-Semitism beneath the surface of some of the righteous indignation that’s being expressed.

The bottom line, though, is that, since the days when Henry Morgenthau served as the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and certainly since the days when Franz Werfel dramatized Armenian persecution and Raphael Lemnick sought world condemnation of such behavior, we Jews cannot deny that what the Turks did was not only “tantamount to genocide,” in the words of the most recent ADL clarification, but genocide itself. We cannot—we must not—deny the truth. I sympathize with the ADL’s reticence to use the word “genocide” and its desire to be “neutral” on the question of the Congressional resolution, but sometimes neutrality can be misinterpreted. Sometimes neutrality can even be evil. As the Talmud says, “shtikah k’hodayah dami,” “Silence can be akin to approval.”

As powerful as Turkey may be, and as powerless as the Armenians may be, we should not be silent in condemning what the Ottoman Turks did. Not because it will unify the Jews. Not because to fail to do so would make it morally questionable whether we have the right to condemn holocaust denial. Not because it’s good for the Jews to be on the “right” side in condemning genocide. Not even because we think it will be good for the Jews—for it may not be. Rather, pure and simple, we should do so because it’s the right thing to do.

Whenever I go to Watertown, whenever I see those posters commemorating the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks, I think I understand where they’re coming from.

We have just read Parashat Ki Tetzei (the portion from the Torah consisting of Deuteronomy 21:10—25:19). That portion concludes with the mitzvah (commandment) to remember what Amalek did to the Children of Israel when they left Egypt (Deuteronomy 25:17-19). In case we already have forgotten, the text tells us what Amalek did: they surprised the Israelites on the march and cut down the stragglers in their rear. The passage concludes with what seems like a paradox: on the one hand, we are to blot out the memory of the Amalekites; on the other hand, we are not to forget. How can we do both? One way to understand this is to say that in each generation, we have to remember to blot out the memory of these evildoers. In every generation, we have to remember what they did in order to condemn it. We can’t do that just once; we have to do it in every generation. Otherwise, the lesson will be lost.

Not only once; not only in the early 1900’s, not only during the lifetimes of Henry Morgenthau, or Raphael Lemnick, or Franz Werfel, but in every generation, Armenians have a duty to remember their Amalek. They have a duty not to forget that Amalek attacked the weak and defenseless among them. To expect Armenians to tolerate the complicity of the ADL in allowing Turkey to deny what has happened is absurd and unfair.

Our duty flows from the words of the Torah itself. The rabbis read the duty to restore lost property (stated in Deuteronomy chapter 22) very broadly. We have the duty to return anything that our fellow human beings have lost. The rabbis read the Hebrew words, “kol avedat achichah” (i.e., “all your fellow’s losses”) very broadly, and so should we. We have a historic opportunity to restore to the Armenian people something very intangible yet very significant that has been taken away from them: an acknowledgment of the nature of the crimes perpetrated against them. Picking up on the language of Deuteronomy 22: “hashev tishiveim”—We must surely return it to them. “Lo tuchal l’hitalem,”—We must not remain indifferent.