The Jewish Community of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի հրեական համայնք) is Armenia's oldest and largest Jewishnon-governmental organization. It serves as a community center for Jewish holidays and cultural events and owns Armenia's only Jewish newspaper, Magen David.
History
The Jewish Community of Armenia was founded in 1991 by a group of activists including Gershon Burstein and William Weiner. Since 1996, it has been headed by Rima Varzhapetyan-Feller. It is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and represents the communal interests of Armenia's Jewish citizens and residents in the Council for National Minorities.[1][2][3]
Armenia's only medieval Jewish cemetery in Yeghegis, previously abandoned for centuries, was cleaned up by the community and has since then become a tourist destination.[5]
Publications
The Jewish Community of Armenia owns and operates the only Jewish newspaper in Armenia, Magen David. It is published monthly and contains articles in three languages: Russian, Armenian and Hebrew. Paper copies are distributed free of charge at the community's Yerevan office, and online copies can be accessed on the organization's website.[6]
Members of the community have also coauthored and published several multilingual books on the history of Armenian Jewry, including Jews in Armenia: The Middle Ages (2009) and The Jews of Noah's Land (2020).[7]
