Michael E. Stone - Jews in Ancient and Medieval Armenia: First Century BCE - Fourteenth Century CE

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Stone, Michael E., 1938- author. | Topchyan, Aram, author.

Title: Jews in ancient and medieval Armenia : first century BCE

to fourteenth century CE / Michael E. Stone and Aram Topchyan.

Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2022] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021058954 (print) | LCCN 2021058955 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780197582077 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197582091 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: JewsArmenia (Republic)History.

Classification: LCC DS135.A83 S76 2022 (print) | LCC DS135.A83 (ebook) |

DDC 947.560492/4dc23/eng/20220210

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058954

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058955

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197582077.001.0001

The genesis of this volume lies in the activity stimulated by the discovery of the Jewish cemetery in Eegis and its inscriptions, work carried out by Michael Stone and the late David Amit in cooperation with the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Armenian Academy of Sciences and its late director, Aram Kalantaryan, with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and with the Israel Antiquities Authority. That discovery stimulated research into the Jews in Armenia in which Aram Topchyan took a most significant and active part. Subsequently, Stone and Topchyan decided to continue working on this subject, which resulted eventually in the present book.

The various chapters and sections were written by Stone and Topchyan as follows:

.

.

Each author bears responsibility for his contribution.

The maps have been prepared by Mitia Frumin. Maps 1 and 2 are based on B. H. Harutyunyan and V. G. Mxitaryan, Atlas of the History of Armenia, 2 vols. (Erevan: Macmillan Armenia and Manmar, 2004, 2015), 1.2627 and 8081.

Biblical quotations are taken from the NRSV. Transliteration of Armenian follows the system of the Revue des tudes armniennes. Armenian manuscripts are assigned sigla according to the system endorsed by the Association Internationale des tudes Armniennes. Abbreviations for biblical, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphical books follow the SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd edition, except that all apocrypha and pseudepigrapha are italicized. Translations of Armenian sources are by the present authors, unless otherwise noted.

Deep thanks are expressed to Dr. David and Jemima Jeselsohn, who generously supported this project. Their support was instrumental in the book coming to fruition.

We are grateful to Maria Ushakova and Matthew Wilson, our research assistants, both of whom assisted us greatly, particularly in the course of the finalization of the work.

A special debt of gratitude is owed to Dr. David Sklare for drawing our attention to relevant material in the Cairo Geniza manuscripts. He guided us and made his own learning available to us.

Stimulated by this discovery, the authors sought further evidence in Armenian and Jewish sources for Jewish settlement in Armenia. These efforts bore some fruit, and it is these results that are presented here.

It is, indeed, impossible at present to write a continuous history of Jewish presence in Armenia, since there is no evidence of sustained Jewish settlement in the Land of Ararat. Nonetheless, there are episodic sources existing in Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, and other languages that attest the presence of Jews there. If we think of the history of Jews in Armenia as a dark tunnel, then the extant sources cast light upon patches of the tunnel, without illuminating it to all its length. It is to the elucidation of these patches of illumination that the present book is dedicated. As so often in historical writing, the statements made here are presently the most plausible way of accounting for the surviving data. New finds, documentary, archaeological, or epigraphic, may engender modification of some statements, and in adding to our knowledge may force us to modify our assertions. As an outcome of the varied and different data and considerations adduced in this book, the Jewish presence in Armenia is now a factor to be considered by all studying the history of the region.

In the last chapter, information about Armenia and Armenians garnered from Jewish sources from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages is presented, as well as some information about Armenian pilgrims to the Holy Land, two subjects that illuminate other dimensions of Armenian-Jewish interface and contacts. These data do not show anything directly about the presence of Jews in Armenia, but they do reflect the ongoing contacts between the two communities as well as illustrating knowledge (or the lack thereof) about Armenia among Jews in the Diaspora and in the land of Israel.