Peter Balakian: importance of ethical memory is defining part of Jewish intellectual tradition

PanARMENIAN.Net - On October 19, Tablet Magazine published an article by Prof. Peter Balakian on the importance of Israel's recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Asbarez.com reports.

In the article, titled "State of Denial: It's time for Israel to rethink its rejection of the Armenian Genocide," Balakian notes the irony of the collusion between Turkey and Israeli and Jewish diasporan groups in genocide denial.

Balakian writes:

"Given this long-standing record of Jewish engagement and intellectual achievement concerning the Armenian Genocide, and the deep ties between the two cultures-it would seem an organic thing for Israel to finally say: The game is over. The truth of history, the meaning of genocide, the importance of ethical memory is a defining part of Jewish intellectual tradition and identity. And, in the Armenian case, the two genocidal histories commingle in deep and historical ways…"

"The Israeli government could recognize the Armenian Genocide by honoring the words of the great founding genocide scholar Lemkin - a Holocaust survivor who lost 49 members of his own family to the Nazis. In August 1950, Lemkin wrote to a colleague: 'Let us not forget that the heat of this month is less unbearable to us than the heat of the ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau and more lenient than the murderous heat in the desert of Aleppo which burned to death the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Christian Armenian victims of genocide in 1915.'"