About this talk

The first contacts between Jews and Armenians date back to antiquity, and there is evidence of Jewish settlements in the Armenian Highlands as early as the first century BCE. Traces of Jewish communities can be found in various parts of Armenia, including the village of Yeghegis, home to a remarkably well-preserved Jewish cemetery with Hebrew inscriptions on tombstones dating to the thirteenth century.

Today, the Jewish community of Armenia is estimated at between 500 and 2,000 people, most of whom live in the cities of Yerevan, Vanadzor, and Sevan. The majority are descendants of Ashkenazi Jews who fled Eastern Europe and settled in Armenia, finding a safe haven before and during World War II.

In Yerevan, the Mordechai Navi Synagogue serves as the spiritual center of the country's Jewish community, offering regular services as well as Hebrew classes for young people. Members of the community are actively involved in Armenia's cultural, public, and social life. The community also runs several organizations, as well as the newspaper Magen David, which keeps Armenian Jews informed about developments in Armenia, Israel, and the Jewish world.

This is the story of a community that strives not simply to preserve its Jewish roots, but to actively celebrate and live its Judaism.

About Lasha

Lasha Shakulashvili is a Georgian scholar specializing in lesser-known Jewish communities across the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Educated in Georgia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, he currently teaches Yiddish language and culture at Tbilisi State University.

Lasha is the founder of Jewish Storytelling, an educational initiative dedicated to sharing the histories, languages, and cultural heritage of Jewish communities through lectures, courses, field research, and storytelling. His research has taken him to Georgia, Armenia, Oman, India, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Lasha works in Georgian, English, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Latvian.