Armenia News Bulletin 12-29-08

Click here to download the PDF (143KB) of the latest AGBU Armenia News Bulletin.

Armenia News Bulletin 12-24-08

Click here to download the PDF (115KB) of the latest AGBU Armenia News Bulletin.

Armenia News Bulletin 12-22-08

Click here to download the PDF (112KB) of the latest AGBU Armenia News Bulletin.

Buenos Aires’ Liga de Jóvenes Elects New Board

Since 1940, countless young Armenians have passed through AGBU Buenos Aires’ Liga de Jovenes (the oldest armenian youth committee in South America) and contributed to its mission of promoting the Armenian identity and heritage. Today, a new generation of students, many of whom attend or are alumni of the AGBU Marie Manoogian School, continue this time-honored tradition.

In the last years, the Liga de Jovenes (Youth Group) has organized several highly successful parties and festivals featuring local and international talent. “La liga,” as it is affectionately known, has also organized trips to other regions where Argentinean Armenians live in order to meet with them and forge a strong network around the country. La liga has also organized several cultural activities, conferences, shows, fair exhibitions, and they have also found creative ways to educate people about the Armenian Genocide and its impact on society.

La liga is also responsible for the publication of Generación 3 which is the largest Armenian youth periodical in South America. The magazine covers articles of interest to young Latin Americans, including issues relevant to Armenia and the diaspora. Each issue (4,000 copies) is distributed free of charge to all the Latin American countries and more recently to Spain.

Recently La liga elected a new board (pictured below)…and we wanted to take this opportunity to say: Congratulations to LA LIGA and Keep Up the Great Work!

Members of the AGBU Buenos Aires Liga de Jóvenes get together at the local Alex Manoogian Center after electing a new chairman for their committee. Among those pictured is outgoing chairman Carlos Khatchikian (seated, third from right), the new chairman Francisco Balassanian (standing, 4th from left), and  the new YP Buenos Airess chair Ignacio Balassanian (seated second from left).

ArmeniaNow.com Thanks AGBU

Every Holiday Season, the online publication Armenia Now organizes their “HyeSanta charity campaign” and this year in their annual letter they offer a special thanks to AGBU:

…ArmeniaNow wanted to demonstrate to our sponsors that their charity to us reached beyond our self-serving needs and that our aim was to turn “donations” into “investments.” We exist due to the generosity of the Armenian General Benevolent Union who, since 2003, has funded ArmeniaNow as part of its multi-faceted program of philanthropy in Armenia.

The complete letter is here.

Armenian Students in LA Stage Christmas Pageant

Via the Armenian Reporter Online:

Students from Armenian schools throughout the Los Angeles area – including [AGBU] Manoogian-Demirdjian, AGBU High School, Sahag Mesrob, Arshag Dickranian, and St. Gregory’s A. & M. Hovsepian – filed into the Kalaydjian Hall of the Diocesan Complex on December 12 to take part in the Diocese’s annual Christmas Pageant.

The event, filled with singing, dancing, and theatrical presentations, features a Christmas program organized each year by a particular school. This year the showcased school was Hovsepian, whose students staged an outstanding show for the young audience of 600.

Read the whole article here.

And there are many photos via the Armenian Reporter’s Flickrstream here.

Richard Hovannisian Lectures in Toronto About Rescuers & “Righteous” Turks & Armenians

Armenian-American academic Richard Hovannisian delivered two lectures in Toronto, one at the Sephardic Kehila Centre and the other at the Armenian Community Centre. The event was organized by the IIGHRS (which is a division of the Zoryan Institute), with the participation of the Armenian Community Centre the Armenian General Benevolent Union of Toronto, and the Canadian Jewish Congress-Ontario Region.

This from the Armenian Reporter Online:

Toronto – At the invitation of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (IIGHRS), Professor Richard Hovannisian spoke at the 28th annual Holocaust Education Week in Toronto. His topic was “Righteous Turks and Armenian Righteous among Nations: Rescuers in the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust.”

The week is known as the world’s largest commemoration of the Shoah, with some 160 events and 30,000 participants. The events include exhibitions, films, musical performances, book readings, survivor testimonies, panel discussions, and public lectures.

Professor Hovannisian holds the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He conducted a wide-ranging discussion of one of the most human and personal issues in genocide: what motivates individuals to risk their lives and often those of their families to save others who have been targeted by the state for annihilation.

Read the complete article here.

Nubarian Library is Open to All

On the Nouvelles d’Armenie website we find the following information about the AGBU Nubarian Library in Paris, France. The post is titled “Armenian Genocide and Turkey: Interview with Ara Sarafian.” Many of you will know that Ara Sarafian is a leading British Armenian academic who has published a number of books on the topic of the Armenian Genocide:

Q: Are Armenian archives open to all researchers, including the Turks?

A: I can not answer that question in a definitive manner, though I know that some “Armenian archives” in the diaspora are not open to researchers for a variety of reasons. The most important ones are the Jerusalem Patriarchate archives. I have tried to access them twice and turned away. The other archives are the Zoryan Institute archives, composed of the private papers of Armenian survivors, whose families deposited their records with the Zoryan Institute in the 1980s. A far as I know, these materials are still not catalogued and accessible to scholars. I understand that the ARF archives in Boston have been catalogued up to 1925, while the AGBU Nubarian Library archives in Paris have been open for at least a decade.

Read the whole interview here.

85th General Assembly on “Meronk” (H1 Satellite TV Channel)

We are very pleased to inform you that the Armenian television program Meronk, has dedicated a segment to AGBU’s 85th General Assembly in Aleppo, which took place this past October. It will be aired on Armenia’s H1 TV channel via satellite on Friday, December 19 at 01:00 am (Yerevan time), which is:

• Thurs. 11:00 pm in Beirut,
• Thurs. 10:00 pm in Paris,
• Thurs. 04:00pm in New York, and
• Thurs. 01:00pm in Los Angeles.

New Ararat Futsal Website (Nicosia, Cyprus)

Check out the new website of one of AGBU’s most successful athletic teams.