Holocaust Remembrance Day and Armenian genocide: A moment of shared remembrance
This shared date should stir more than remembrance. It should inspire a deep sense of kinship between two ancient peoples who have both endured existential trauma.
This April 24 marks a rare and powerful moment: for the first time in years, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day coincides with the day internationally commemorating the Armenian genocide of 1915.
The overlap is more than symbolic. It offers Jews and Armenians a profound opportunity to recognize their shared history of suffering, survival, and the long struggle for justice and recognition.
In Israel, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a solemn day of national reflection. Sirens halt traffic and pierce the silence, honoring the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust — men, women, and children exterminated by the Nazi regime during WWII. It is not just a day of mourning, but a cornerstone of Israeli identity: the imperative to remember.
Likewise, April 24 marks the Armenian genocide, when in 1915 the Ottoman Empire began a campaign of mass deportations and slaughter against its Armenian population. Over 1 million Armenians likely perished, and the vast majority of the survivors were exiled from their ancestral lands. Along with the genocide of the Herero and the Nama in Namibia by Germany between 1904 and 1907, it was the first genocide of the 20th century.
German dictator Adolf Hitler, according to a recent study on the development of his antisemitism, probably had the annihilation of the Armenians in mind when he was considering the possibility of exterminating the Jews already in the early 1920s. Important factions within the German far Right at the time considered the genocide of the Armenians a useful model to deal with Germany’s own “problematic” minority – the Jews.
“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler reportedly told his generals before the invasion of Poland, to convince them they should show no mercy towards the Poles. And Franz Werfel’s famous novel on the Armenian Genocide – “The Forty days of Musa Dagh” – later served as an inspiration for the rebels in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
And yet, the Armenian Genocide remains unrecognized by quite a few governments to this day – including, notably and shamefully, Israel.
Shared trauma and resilience
This shared date should stir more than remembrance. It should inspire a deep sense of kinship between two ancient peoples who have both endured existential trauma.
Armenians and Jews are not only survivors of genocide; they are resilient diasporas, small nations that have forged identities shaped by faith and memory, and contributed meaningfully to global culture, science, and innovation.
Their histories, while distinct, rhyme. Both peoples were victims of imperial destruction and statelessness. Both have faced denial and erasure.
Both have learned the difficult lesson that the world’s conscience cannot always be counted on. And yet, both have chosen to build rather than retreat — to remember without becoming defined solely by pain.
The relationship between Israel and Armenia, however, has been complicated by geopolitics. Israel maintains close ties with Azerbaijan, Armenia’s rival.
It is a major oil supplier to Israel, while Israel provides advanced weaponry to Baku — arms that have played a prominent role in recent conflicts, most tragically in the 2023 military offensive that led to the mass displacement of 120,000 Armenians from the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Understandably, these dynamics have strained ties. Armenia last year recognized the State of Palestine — a move that some in Israel viewed as hostile, especially amid the ongoing war.
But framing Armenia’s decision as an anti-Israel gesture misses the point. Armenia’s foreign policy has long emphasized support for self-determination and international law, including similar recognitions of Kosovo and South Sudan. It was not an act of enmity, but of principle.
Likewise, Israel’s failure to recognize the Armenian genocide has long disappointed Armenians. Alongside Israel’s reluctance to officially recognize any other genocide due to the misguided notion that it would somehow relativize the Holocaust, the hesitation stems from strategic considerations.
Turkey’s influence, and the strategic importance of Azerbaijan, have led successive Israeli governments to prioritize political and economic interests over moral clarity.
But today, that calculus is shifting. Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has become an increasingly hostile actor, with unrelenting support for Hamas.. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s regime continues to slide deeper into an extreme authoritarianism, with elections that lack credibility and ongoing persecution of journalists and opposition voices.
Against this backdrop, a renewed Jewish-Armenian friendship would not only be morally right — it would also be strategically sound. Armenia is reorienting itself westward, strengthening ties with the US and European Union and seeking new partnerships in tech, defense, and education. Israel is uniquely positioned to support Armenia’s transition and deepen bilateral cooperation.
Opening an embassy in Yerevan and recognizing the genocide would be steps in this direction — not as rebukes to others, but as recognition of past failures to recognize a terrible evil that was committed against the Armenians and to support Armenia instead of participating in its victimization. .
The point is not to demand Israel make a grand political statement for the sake of optics. Rather, it is to seize this moment of historical convergence as an invitation: for Jews and Armenians to draw closer, to recognize the profound similarities in their stories, and to work together for a future built on memory, solidarity, and mutual respect.
The Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City, one of the four ancient districts, stands as a living testament to this relationship. Armenians have had a continuous presence in the city since the 4th century. Armenian scholars were among the first to print books in Jerusalem; Armenian priests have long served as quiet custodians of the city’s sacred spaces.
Today, as both nations grapple with difficult histories and uncertain futures, these threads of connection can form the fabric of something lasting.
There is already a growing foundation. Israeli, Jewish and Armenian diaspora communities work together in fields ranging from medicine to media. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, new Jewish communities are forming in Armenia, where Ukrainian and Russian Jews have found refuge. Mutual admiration, respect, and collaboration exist beneath the surface — they only need to be embraced and nurtured.
On this day of solemn memory, when Jews light candles for the victims of Auschwitz and Armenians lay flowers at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial in Yerevan, let both peoples look not only to the past but toward each other.
Let them acknowledge not just their own pain, but the pain they recognize in the other. And let that recognition become the basis for something enduring — a friendship shaped not by convenience, but by conscience.
In a world increasingly defined by transactional diplomacy, Jews and Armenians can model something better. April 24 is a chance not just to grieve, but to remember together, to heal together, and to build together.
Dr. Shmuel Lederman specializes in genocide studies and political theory. He teaches at the Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University of Israel.
