The status of Armenian Christians in post-independence Israel: the first decade

ABSTRACT

Literature on the status of the Armenian population during the State of Israel's first decade is virtually nil; a scholarly investigation regarding why Armenians were not drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), when other small, non-Arab and/or non-Muslim minorities were, has not yet been written. While recognizing the paucity of available documentation, this article will seek to address both of these issues/questions in light of what sources are publicly available as well as in light of the author's own previous research into minority recruitment policies in post-independence Israel. This article will argue that while the Armenians appeared to fit nearly all of the IDF’s criteria for minority recruitment, an Armenian presence in the army ultimately would have provided few tangible advantages to the state from both a domestic and regional perspective. However, due to their non-Arab and non-Muslim identity, the Armenian population was treated as a ‘special minority’ and possessed certain unique privileges denied to other minorities in Israel. This was particularly noticeable in Haifa. However, in other ways, Armenians were treated by state authorities in a very similar manner to the far larger and more distrusted Arab population.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Yehoshua Palmon, Arab Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, to the Foreign Ministry, United States Division, the Kirya (HQ), 9 Feb. 1950, ISA 17103/38/G.

2. Yehoshua Palmon, Arab Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, to the Foreign Ministry, ‘Return of Armenians’, 1 Mar. 1950, ISA 17103/38/G.

3. Randall S. Geller, Non-Jews and the Israeli Army, 1948–1958 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books, forthcoming – contract signed Mar. 2016).

4. Ibid – see chapter 8, ‘The Rise and Demise of the Christian Arab Unit’.

5. The topic of non-Arab and/or non-Muslim recruitment by the Israel Defense Forces has been explored by Gabriel Ben-Dor, Alon Peled, Ronald Krebs, Laila Parsons, Shimon Avivi, Hillel Cohen, among others (as well as myself). See, for example, Gabriel Ben-Dor, The Druzes in Israel A Political Study: Political Innovation and Integration in a Middle Eastern Community (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1979); Alon Peled, A Question of Loyalty: Military Manpower in Multiethnic States (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1998); Laila Parsons, The Druze Between Palestine and Israel 1947–49 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000); Ronald R. Krebs, Fighting for Rights: Military Service and the Politics of Citizenship (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2006); Shimon Avivi, Copper Plate: Israeli Policy Toward the Druze, 1948–1967 (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 2007) (Hebrew); Hillel Cohen, Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs, 1948–1967 (Berkeley, Los Angles, London: University of California Press, 2010); Randall S. Geller, ‘Non-Jewish Minorities and the Question of Military Service in the Israel Defense Forces, 1948–1958’ (Doctoral dissertation, Brandeis University, May 2011).

6. Maike Lehmann, ‘A Different Kind of Brothers: Exclusion and Partial Integration After Repatriation to a Soviet ‘Homeland’, Ab Imperio, Vol.3 (Mar. 2012), p.179.

7. Many Armenians, like Greek Orthodox, associated communism with the Soviet Union; its Russian orthodox imperial predecessor had already made deep inroads into Middle Eastern Christian orthodox communities due to their shared faith.

8. Goo–hyoung Kahng, ‘Zionism, Israel, and the Soviet Union: A Study in the Rise and Fall of Brief Soviet Israeli Friendship from 1945 to 1955’, Global Economic Review Vol.27, No.4 (Winter 1998), p.100.

9. See Bedross Der Matossian, ‘The Armenians of Palestine 1918–1948’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.41, No.1 (Autumn 2011), p.24. It may be noted that Matossian did not consult Israeli archives for his article, however. Yair Auron has written two books dealing with the yishuv's and subsequently Israel's unwillingness to recognize the Armenian genocide; despite the great importance of such work, the experience of Armenian settlement and life as citizens of Israel is not part of his focus. See Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000, 2009); Yair Auron, The Banality of Denial: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2003, 2009).

10. Due to the existence of documentation on Armenian communities in Jerusalem, Haifa and Sheikh Bureik, this article will primarily focus on the Armenians of these communities and their interactions with state officials in their urban as well as non-urban environments. The distinction between urban and non-urban environments is important because in the mixed cities of Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Lod, Ramle and Jerusalem, non-Jewish minorities, particularly Arabs, were not subject to Military Government rule, whereas they were in non-urban environments. Armenians lived in all of the aforementioned cities with the exception of Acre, and consequently they too were exempt from Military Government rule.

11. Laurie Haytayan, ‘Armenian Christians in Jerusalem: 1700 Years of Peaceful Presence’, Politics and Religion Vol.2, No.5 (2011), p.184.

12. Karen Armstrong, One City, Three Faiths (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 316, cited in Laurie Haytayan, ‘Armenian Christians in Jerusalem: 1700 Years of Peaceful Presence’, Politics and Religion Vol.2, No.5 (2011), p.185

13. Bedross Der Matossian, ‘The Armenians of Palestine 1918–1948’, Journal of Palestine Studies Vol.41, No.1 (Autumn 2011), pp.25–6.

14. Ibid, 30. The Homenetmen Sports Club, with branches all over the Near East, was particularly active in facilitating the integration of Armenians into their host societies while promoting Armenian unity.

15. Yehoshua Palmon, Arab Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, to the Foreign Ministry, United States Division, the Kirya (HQ), 9 Feb. 1950, ISA 17103/38/G.

16. ‘Armenian Weapons Fixers who Helped Arabs During the Days of the Disturbances’. Undated, probably mid-1940s, HA 105/195.

17. Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

18. ‘Non-Arabs Forced to Boycott Jews’, The Palestine Post, 10 Feb. 1948.

19. ‘Draft Statute for the International City of Jerusalem’, The Palestine Post, 19 Mar. 1948.

20. Unlike Jews, too, Armenians were not isolated in one corner of the Old City; considerable if smaller numbers of Armenians lived in the more hostile Muslim and Christian Quarters in addition to the Armenian Quarter (see Matossian, pp.35–7), and this may have contributed to some Jews harbouring suspicions towards all non-Jewish inhabitants of the Old City during a time of siege and war.

21. Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

22. After the war, Armenians emphasized to their Israeli interlocutors that they tried hard to maintain neutrality in 1948 so as not to risk the lives of their brethren in the Arab world. See Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67. However, no evidence has thus far come to light indicating that Armenians participated on the Jewish side during the hostilities of 1947–1948.

23. ‘Armenians and their Position Regarding the Events.’ 7 Jan. 1948, HA 105/195. Such actions may have been the result of the fact that a minority of Armenians lived among Arabs – particularly Armenian Catholics – and under assault from the Arab side, in retaliation Jews may not have distinguished between Arabs and Armenians. But the report did not argue that point, and in any case the firing and stealing appear to have been directed at the neutral Armenian Quarter, rather than the Muslim or Christian Quarters.

24. ‘Armenians and their Position Regarding the Events’. 7 Jan 1948, HA 105/195.

25. Ibid. Such help may have been conditional on ceasing all shelling emanating from the Jewish Quarter. But this was apparently no easy task; a Haganah report, the following day, indicated that armed Arabs from Hebron had established a position on the edge of the Armenian Quarter, and were waiting for the right time to attack the Jewish Quarter. (See ‘An Arab Position in the Armenian Quarter’, 8 Jan. 1948, HA 105/195).

26. ‘Armenians and their Position Regarding the Events’. 7 Jan. 1948, HA 105/195. Such help may have been conditional on ceasing all shelling emanating from the Jewish Quarter. But this was apparently no easy task; a Haganah report the following day indicated that armed Arabs from Hebron had established a position on the edge of the Armenian Quarter, and were waiting for the right time to attack the Jewish Quarter. (See ‘An Arab Position in the Armenian Quarter’, 8 Jan. 1948, HA 105/195). The uncertainty of changing positions in areas outside the Jewish Quarter appears to have contributed to a sense of fear, siege, and hostility toward all areas outside of Jewish control in the small and walled-in space of the Old City.

27. Dr Colbi, Christian Communities Division, the Ministry of Religion, to the Arab Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, ‘the Armenian Monastery on Mount Zion’, 21 June 1951, ISA 5805/14 G.

28. ‘Arab Sniping Positions Liquidated’, The Palestine Post, 19 May 1948.

29. ‘Chief Rabbis Appeal to Save Jerusalem’, The Palestine Post, 25 May 1948.

30. P.J. Vatikiotis, ‘The Siege of the Walled City of Jerusalem, 14 May–15 Dec. 1948’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.31, No.1 (Jan. 1995).

31. Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

32. A 1955 IDF report indicates that 5000 Armenians lived in Palestine prior to the 1948, most in Jerusalem, while only 800 remained in Israel after it. The others came under Jordanian sovereignty in Jerusalem. See Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67. Other reports emphasize that 900 Armenians remained in Israel and as many as 15,000 lived in Palestine before 1948, however.

33. Senior Vicar of the Armenian Patriarchate, Jaffa Convent (Monastery), to the Defense Minister, 25 May 1951, ISA 5805/14 G.

34. Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996), location 5238.

35. Dr Colbi, Christian Communities Division, the Ministry of Religion, to Herzog, the Foreign Ministry, Jerusalem, 13 Sep. 1953, ISA 5805/14 G.

36. Yehoshua Palmon, The Arab Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister, to the US Division, Foreign Ministry, 1 June 1950, ISA 17103/38/G.

37. Benny Morris, ‘Haifa's Arabs: Displacement and Concentration’, Middle East Journal, Vol.42, No.2 (Spring 1988), p.242. For a detailed description of the relocation of Haifa's Arabs after 1948, see Yfaat Weiss, A Confiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa's Lost Heritage (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

38. Morris, ‘Haifa's Arabs: Displacement and Concentration’, pp.243–4.

39. Nevertheless, within six years the Arab population of Haifa had more than doubled to more than 8000 people due to government-supported family reunification programs as well as Arab infiltration into the city. See Yossi Ben-Artzi, ‘Normalization Under Conflict? Spatial and Demographic Changes of Arabs in Haifa, 1948–92’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.32, No.4 (Oct. 1996), pp.283–4.

40. Y.N. Shai, Committee Head for the Permission of Entry and Settlement of Minorities, Interior Ministry, Jerusalem, to the Director of Immigration and Citizenship Services, Interior Ministry, Jerusalem, ‘The Return to Israel of Minorities who are of Non-Arab Origin’, 25 Nov. 1956, ISA 17103/38/G. As the committee specified that such minorities must be of non-Arab origin the Greeks probably emanated from within the church hierarchy, but this was not stated. Similarly, the Iranians were probably not Persian Shiis, but Bahai. In any case, their numbers would have been very small.

41. Y.N. Shai, Committee Head for the Permission of Entry and Settlement of Minorities, Interior Ministry, Jerusalem, to the Director of Immigration and Citizenship Services, Interior Ministry, Jerusalem, ‘The Return to Israel of Minorities who are of Non-Arab Origin’, 25 Nov. 1956, ISA 17103/38/G. Also see Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

42. Armenian Community Executive Committee, Haifa, to Moshe Shapira, Minister of Interior and Immigration, Tel Aviv, ‘Return of Armenians’, 17 May 1949, ISA 17103/38/G, and Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

43. Ministry of Minorities, Haifa branch, to the Ministry of Minorities, the Kirya (Headquarters), 31 Aug. 1948, ISA 310/17/G.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Regarding a hotel forcibly taken over by 11 Jewish families, see Israeli Police, Haifa Regional Headquarters, to the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa, ‘Complaint – the Armenian Community’, 13 Jan. 1949, ISA 1321/34/G. Regarding a storeowner complaining of such behaviour, see Ministry of Minorities, Haifa branch, to the Custodian of Abandoned Property, Haifa County, 27 Jan. 1949. ISA 1321/34/G. Various other letters in the file complain of harassment or robbery by the Armenian community in Haifa. In at least one case, too, the state deviated from its own policy of extending preferential status to the Armenian population within the city and summarily relocated a small number of Armenians from the German Colony to Abbas Street, along with Arabs. See Yfaat Weiss, A Confiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa's Lost Heritage (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), p.119 (Google online version). However, Weiss’ otherwise fascinating and extremely useful work does not include an investigation into how or why Armenians received preferential status within Haifa.

Armenian Community Executive Committee to the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa, 21 Dec. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G.

Armenian Community Executive Committee to the Town Commander, Haifa, 6 Oct. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G.

See Zvi Zameret, The Melting Pot in Israel: The Commission of Inquiry Concerning Education in the Immigrant Camps During the Early Years of the State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002).

47. Armenian Community Executive Committee to the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa, 21 Dec. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G.

48. Armenian Community Executive Committee to the Town Commander, Haifa, 6 Oct. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G.

49. See Zameret, The Melting Pot in Israel, pp.16–17. For a description of immigrant conditions in a major city, see, for example, Martin Gilbert's description of new immigrants in Jerusalem in the mid-1950s. Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996), location 8134 (E-version).

50. Armenian Community POB, to Rabbi Fishman, Minister of Religious Affairs, 4 Apr. 1949, ISA 5805/13 G.

51. Reverend H.K. Moushien, Armenian Vicar, Haifa, to the Minister of Religions, HaKirya, 22 Oct. 1949, ISA 5805/13 G.

52. Armenian Community Executive Committee to the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa, 21 Dec. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G. State sanctioned requisitioning of Armenian property was not unknown either. The Custodian of Abandoned Property requisitioned various Armenian properties and turned them over to Jews, such as the Armenian sports club the Homenetmen on Khoury Street in Haifa. Occupying one floor of a multi-storey building, it was first taken over by the army in April 1948 and then declared part of a closed military zone. The Custodian of Abandoned Property subsequently rented out the building to the Israel Women's League without the consent of its Armenian owners. See Armenian Community Executive Committee to the Controller of Abandoned Property, Through the Ministry of Minorities, 7 Feb. 1949, ISA 1321/34/G, and Armenian General Athletic Union, Haifa, to the President, Executive Committee, Armenian Community, Haifa, 26 Jan. 1950, 5805/13 G.

53. Armenian Community Executive Committee, Haifa, to Moshe Shapira, Minister of Interior and Immigration, Tel Aviv, ‘Return of Armenians’, 17 May 1949, ISA 17103/38/G.

54. The Druze of Daliyat al-Carmel and Ussafiya on Mount Carmel were two of the few non-Jewish communities outside of the mixed cities that were not subject to Military Government rule from 1948 to 1966. By way of contrast, Druze in the Galilee were subject to Military Government rule even after Druze males were drafted beginning in 1956. See Randall S. Geller, Non-Jews in the Israeli Army, 1948–1958 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books, forthcoming).

55. Armenian Community Executive Committee, to the Minorities Office, Haifa, 14 Oct. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G,

56. HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, Ein Hayam, to the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa County, 26 Oct. 1948 ISA 1321/34/G,

57. Moshe Yitah, Director, the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa County, to the Armenian Community, 3 Nov. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G.

58. Yehoshua Palmon to the Armenian Community Executive Committee, Haifa, 14 June 1949, ISA 17013/38/G.

59. Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

60. Ibid.

61. Armenian Community Executive Committee, to the Ministry of Minorities, Haifa, 30 Oct. 1948, ISA 1321/34/G.

62. Yehoshua Palmon, Office of the Prime Minister, to the Acting Committee of the Armenian Community, Haifa, ‘Below is a Summary of My Meeting with Representatives of Your Community in my Office on June 13 1949’, 14 June 1949, ISA 17103/38/G.

63. This topic is discussed in more depth in a forthcoming work by the author, entitled Non-Jewish Minorities and the Question of Military Service in the Israel Defense Forces, 1948–1958.

64. Yeghishe Derderian, Locum Tenens, Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, to the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr David Ben-Gurion, undated, ISA 5805/13 G.

65. Dr Colbi, Ministry of Religious Affairs Christian Communities Division, to the Foreign Ministry, 22 Feb. 1950, ISA 5805/13 G.

66. ‘The Armenian Population in Jaffa’, The Minorities Division of the Interior Ministry, Tel Aviv, 15 May 1955, ISA 14164/38/G.

67. Ibid.

68. Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

69. Ibid.

70. For more on the Vatican's opposition to Israeli control of West Jerusalem, see, for example, Uri Bialer, Cross on the Star of David: the Christian World in Israel's Foreign Policy, 1948–1967 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), especially chapter two.

71. Unsigned, ‘The Armenians in Israel’, 20 Mar. 1955, IDFA 637/56/67.

72. I expand on this topic considerably in a forthcoming book, Randall S. Geller, Non-Jews in the Israeli Army, 1948–1958 (Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books).

73. Simon Payaslian, ‘Diasporan Subalternities: the Armenian Community in Syria’, Diaspora: a Journal of Transnational Studies, Vol.16, No.2 (Spring/Fall 2007), p.108.

74. Payaslian, ‘Diasporan Subalternities’, pp.108–11.

75. Ibid, p.112.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid, p.113.

78. Ibid, pp.113–14.

79. Tsolin Nalbantian, ‘Going Beyond Overlooked Populations in Lebanese Historiography: the Armenian Case’, History Compass, Vol.11, No.10 (2013), p.823.

80. ‘Syrian Doctors Asked to Volunteer’, The Jerusalem Post, 1 Feb. 1948.

81. Indeed, Armenians have been completely overlooked in Lebanese historiography. See Nalbantian, ‘Going Beyond Overlooked Populations in Lebanese Historiography: the Armenian Case’, History Compass, Vol.11, No.10 (2013).

82. Ani Derderian-Aghajanian, ‘Armenians’ Dual Identity in Jordan’, International Education Studies, Vol.2, No.3 (Aug. 2009), p.36.

83. Eliz Sanasarian, Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.39.

84. H. Birsen Ors, ‘The Perception of the Army by Armenian Minorities Living in Turkey,’ Armed Forces and Society, Vol.36, No.4 (2010), pp.619, 625. Ors contends: ‘All Turkish citizens have the legal right to apply for officer status in the Turkish Army. But non-Muslim citizens are eliminated during the entrance exams for national security reasons.’ (p. 625). Soner Cagaptay writes, ‘not only ethnic Turks, but also other Muslims such as Kurds, Circassians, or Bosnians are regarded as Turks, while non-Muslims, especially Christians (including Armenians and Greeks) are not, even when they speak Turkish’. Soner Cagaptay, ‘Passage to Turkishness: Immigration and Religion in Modern Turkey’, in Citizenship and Ethnic Conflict: Challenging the Nation-State, Haldun Gulalp, ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 61.

85. Sener Akturk, ‘Persistence of the Islamic Millet as an Ottoman Legacy: Mono-Religious and Anti-ethnic Definition of Turkish Nationhood’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.45, No.6 (Nov. 2009), pp.898–9.

86. On the Circassians, see Randall S. Geller, ‘The Recruitment and Conscription of the Circassian Community into the Israel Defence Forces, 1948–1958’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.48, No.3 (May 2012), pp.387–99.