“There is no clause in our legislation stating that the person selling
books about ethnic minorities is subject to the law. Legally, there are
no suspicions on the book store. There can be suspicions on the author
and publisher,” said chief administrator of the Religion and Ethnic
Minorities department of the government of the RA Hranush Kharatyan.
“168 hours” weekly had asked her if there was any legality for leader
of Jews Burstein to appeal to the Nork-Marash police department in
blaming “Bookinist” book store for selling anti-Jewish literature. Mrs.
Kharatyan also said that nobody from the scientific field had done any
anti-Jewish analysis, despite the fact that everyone has the right to
express himself. As for Armenian authors, according to H. Kharatyan:
“Romen Yepiskoposyan’s work has philosophical world outlooks. There are
some phenomena that are observed through the understandings of Jewish
or Armenian systems. Vartges Mikayelyan has announced that it appears
Burstein has not read his book, because it refers not to the 18th, but
rather the events taken place in the 20th century. A quick announcement
may manifest itself poorly.”
The “Bookinist” book store primarily sells Russian literature published
in and imported from Russia. We also got acquainted with the literature
about Jews, which was not that much. The authors were not only Russian.
There were books in that index where the authors said good things about
Jews. For example, Paul Johnson’s “Well-known History of Jews”/Moscow,
VECHE 2003/, Shapiro Michael’s “100 Popular Jews”/VECHE/, S.M.
Dubanov’s “Short history of Jews” and others. By this we can conclude
that the owner of the “Bookinist” has had no problems with selling
anti-Jew or anti-Semitic literature. He has only been doing business,
which Burstein does not agree with. There is not that much literature
published about Jews in the book store. It is difficult to find one
country in the world where Jewish literature is not sold. Based on
this, all Jews can blame all countries in anti-Semitism and
nationalism. “There are negative qualifications for all nations in the
world. There is literature like this for Armenians too. This is a
cultural phenomenon. Even Armenian scientific literature analyzed and
printed that. We should not see any ethnic qualifications in all of
this. To start a legal process means to give a status to something
which, in my opinion, does not exist at all,” says Mrs. Kharatyan. In
general, the Jewish minority has not had any serious problems in
Armenia. The governmental structures involved with ethnic and religious
minorities have not received any complaints from the Jews. They live in
Armenia the same way Armenians live. Rabbi leader of the Jews in
Armenia Hersh Meir Burstein agrees to this. However, in his opinion,
there are some forces in Armenia who are creating problems for Jews.
This is his opinion and he is not going into further details. In
contrast to Burstein, President of the Jewish community Rima
Varzhapetyan connects that with the statements made by Armen Avetisyan
(President of the “Armenian Aryan Union”) and Tigran Karapetyan (owner
of “ALM” television network): “He says that they are a “famous nation”.
What does that mean?” stated Rima Varzhapetyan.
Mrs. Varzhapetyan and the rabbi leader both solve all issues of
the Jewish community. There are issues in which Mrs. Varzhapetyan does
not come to terms with the rabbi leader and vice versa. Years ago,
Burstein was always preoccupied with the fact that the leader of the
Jewish community was a woman and that her husband was a non-Jew.
According to Mrs. Varzhapetyan, the rabbi leader does not worry about
that anymore. Mrs. Varzhapetyan, in her turn, is not in favor of some
of the statements made by the rabbi leader. For example, Burstein finds
that Armenians never come to terms with one main concept. Mrs.
Varzhapetyan does not share that opinion. In general, it appears there
is some kind of contradiction between the two leaders. Most probably,
there have been contradictions due to each side wanting to be the
absolute leader. Some say that there has been a time when Hersh Meir
Burstein had strived for that. Both the rabbi leader and Mrs.
Varzhapetyan do not deny the fact that there are disagreements between
them.
Razmik Davoyan, who is the former adviser of the president of ethnic
minorities’ issues, is familiar with this. According to him, “there is
no such issue in Armenia. Perhaps the Jewish like to take on the role
of being driven away. In reality, the rumor going on is not rumor at
all. This is probably an aggravated issue. If the conversations
continue for no reason at all, sometimes that means that there are
provocations of ethnic hostility, or some kinds of speculative reasons.
We can create a lot of problems for ourselves by talking about
something that has not taken place. We must not be subject to
provocation because that can have dangerous effects.” It is possible
that they are expecting something from their compatriots abroad. We can
not foresee the desires of Jews, but we can predict them.”