By Harut Sassounian / Publisher, The California Courier
A recently published book “Remembering for the Future:
Armenia, Auschwitz, and Beyond,” edited by Michael Berenbaum, Richard Libowitz,
and Marcia Sachs Littell, is a collection of scholarly papers delivered at a
conference held at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, March 8-11,
2014. In his paper, “The Armenian Genocide as Jihad,” Prof.
Richard Rubenstein attributes the Armenian mass killings to Islamic fanaticism
against Christians. This is an often misunderstood topic even by Armenians who
proudly proclaim that they were the first nation to adopt Christianity as state
religion in 301 A.D. There is a whole folklore based on the misconception that
Armenians were martyred because of their faith and refusal to convert to Islam.
Given the current anti-Islamic fervor in the United States and elsewhere, some people
are misled by these false claims.
