By Michael Freund, JNS
It would help reinforce the moral gravity of the Holocaust by anchoring Jewish memory within a broader struggle against annihilation and denial.
American Jewry has never been reluctant to urge Israel to live up to Jewish values. Indeed, Diaspora leaders regularly offer counsel, sometimes unsolicited and even misplaced, on the direction of the Jewish state. Yet on one of the clearest moral issues of the modern era, recognition of the Armenian genocide, too many have stopped short of demanding what history requires.
That silence is no longer defensible.
More than a century has passed since the Ottoman Empire set out to eradicate the Armenian people. Entire communities were uprooted, men marched to their deaths, women and children driven into deserts to starve or perish, and a civilization that had endured for millennia was shattered. Between 1915 and 1923, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were murdered. The intent was explicit. The execution was systematic. The result was the destruction of a people because of who they were.
That is genocide by every serious historical and legal standard.
For the Jewish people, whose modern national rebirth emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust, this issue should resonate with particular force. And that is precisely why American Jewry must press Israel to move from careful language and partial acknowledgments to formal recognition.
Last August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged in an interview that what befell the Armenian people was a genocide, though the country’s official position has yet to reflect his remarks.
Israel’s continued hesitation is especially striking when contrasted with that of some of the largest American Jewish organizations. The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs have all formally recognized the Armenian genocide. They examined the historical record and concluded, correctly, that the mass murder of Armenians was genocide, plain and simple.
If American Jewish leadership can speak with such clarity, then why does the Jewish state still equivocate?
For decades, Israeli governments justified their reluctance with geopolitical arguments. Turkey, we were told, was too important a strategic partner to antagonize. Azerbaijan, it was argued, might retaliate if Israel took a stand. Moral clarity was treated as a strategic liability rather than a strategic asset.
But history has stripped those rationalizations bare.
Turkey today is not the ally it once was. Its leadership openly demonizes Israel, embraces Hamas and traffics in antisemitic incitement. Whatever restraint Israel once exercised in hopes of preserving a relationship has yielded nothing but hostility. Continuing to suppress historical truth out of deference to Ankara does not buy security; it projects weakness.
As for Azerbaijan, the regional landscape has shifted. The longstanding conflict with Armenia has entered a new phase in the wake of a peace deal shepherded by U.S. President Donald Trump, thereby reducing the risk that Israel’s acknowledgment of historical fact would trigger serious diplomatic consequences. The old excuses no longer apply, if they ever truly did.
And so the burden shifts squarely to American Jewry.
Jewish organizations in the United States have long insisted that remembrance is not selective. We demand that the world recognize the Holocaust because Jews were its victims, but also because truth matters and denial corrodes the moral order. And we recoil when governments manipulate history for political convenience.
Those principles cannot be suspended when the victims are Armenians.
The very concept of genocide was shaped by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish jurist who understood that what happened to the Armenians was not an isolated tragedy but a warning, one the world ignored with catastrophic consequences. To honor Holocaust memory while minimizing or sidestepping other genocides is to hollow out one of the lessons we claim to teach.
There is also a deeper bond between Jews and Armenians. Both are ancient peoples whose histories are marked by exile, persecution and survival against overwhelming odds. Both maintained identity and faith while scattered across continents. Both rebuilt national homes after catastrophe. Jerusalem itself bears the imprint of this shared story with an Armenian presence in the Old City that has endured for centuries.
Recognizing the Armenian genocide would not diminish the Holocaust. On the contrary, it would reinforce its moral gravity by anchoring Jewish memory within a broader struggle against annihilation and denial. The Holocaust remains singular in its scale, intent and industrialized cruelty. Acknowledging another people’s suffering does not blur that truth; it strengthens the ethical framework that gives it meaning.
Critics argue that Israel gains nothing by taking such a stand. But moral leadership must not be measured by convenience. Israel was founded not only as a refuge, but as a state rooted in the ethical legacy of Jewish history. When it equivocates on genocide, it sends a message—whether intentional or not—that principles bend under pressure.
American Jewry already understands this. Its institutions have said so. Now they must press the case with Israel. If American Jewish leaders truly believe that Israel should embody Jewish values on the world stage, then this is the moment to insist upon it and call upon Jerusalem to recognize, at last, the genocide carried out by Ottoman Turkey against the Armenian people.
