Jerusalem names square after Armenian Genocide survivor. Still no official Israeli recognition of Sayfo Genocide

JERUSALEM — The city of Jerusalem has named one of its squares after Armenian photographer Elia Kahvedjian, a survivor of the Genocide of 1915 on the Christians of the Ottoman Empire. The Hebrew inscription reads: “Elia Kahvedjian Square – Survivor of the Armenian Genocide, photographer, lover of Jerusalem,” reports the Jerusalemite Armenian journalist Kegham Balian. 

The city honors Kahvedjian (1910-1999) for his great body of work as city photographer and as an eyewitness and lifelong documentalist of the soul of Jerusalem. Kahvedjian’s body of work shines light on a little-documented era of the city’s history, daily life in Jerusalem before the 1948 war. 

Elia Kahvedjian’s early life story, handed down by his children and grandchildren, is one of deep suffering. Jerusalem Story relates his story as follows; Elia Kahvedjian was born in Urhoy (modern-day Sanliurfa). He was one of the few in his family to survive the Sayfo. He and his sister survived but were separated. They would only meet again in Syria 18 years later. Elia’s mother saved her son by giving him to a Kurdish stranger who later sold him off. He then spent his early youth working day and night as a slave to a blacksmith and was homeless for a time afterwards. 

At age 10, Kahvedjian was sent by American missionaries to an orphanage in Nazareth where he discovered photography by his teacher and amateur photographer Garro Boghosian. At age 16, he started working in the photo shop of the Hanania brothers in the New City. He bought the shop four years later. Kahvedjian moved the studio to the Christian quarter in the Old City and worked from there until his retirement. His children followed in his footsteps.

Kahvedjian passed away in 1999 at the age of 1989. His studio, in addition to being a photo shop, today is also a small museum for his work.

No official Israeli recognition of Sayfo

The irony of the Jerusalem Municipality’s street name decision is that neither the Israeli Knesset nor the Israeli government has yet officially recognized the Genocide of 1915 Genocide on the Christians of the Ottoman Empire. The reasons might be many; unwanted competition? Armenia currently has too little to offer the people of Israel economically, strategically and geopolitically? 

Not enough evidence? There is actually ample documentation of the Sayfo Genocide. So that is not the problem. Israeli scholars Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi have extensively documented the Sayfo in their 2019 book “The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924.” 

To conclude: it is not wrong for the Israeli Knesset and government to see it as their moral duty to be tellers of truth and move to officially recognize the 1915 Sayfo Genocide of Syriacs, Armenians, and Greeks.