In this interview, Jewcy contributor Khatchig Mouradian submitted six questions to Coelho: two from Khatchig himself, three from Jewcy’s Joey Kurtzman, and one from Maro Krikorian, a Jewcy reader and Coelho devotee from Beirut, Lebanon.

Joey Kurtzman—In the Jewish community, we have a serious problem with our religion: the large majority of young Jews do not find the religion to be spiritually insightful or appealing. Your novels are profoundly spiritual, and some Catholics have criticized you for taking unacceptable liberties with the tradition. Why do you think mainstream traditions are failing to meet the spiritual needs of modern life, and what would you recommend young ethnic Jews should do about it?

Paulo Coelho—In my opinion, the Jewish community faces the same problem Christianity faces. As a Catholic, I totally disagree with the Pope on several issues, both political and social. Benedict XVI said that “Catholicism is the ultimate truth.” Can I accept that? Of course not. He condemned the use of preservatives. Shall I follow his orders on that issue, because he is the spiritual leader of my church? No.

I think that traditional religions face this backlash because they overlook the necessity of personal faith. To follow rituals is extremely important for the cult, but religious leaders should understand our individual faith, our need for actions that truly stir the souls of the men and women. Because these institutions have been ineffective in doing this, we have been seeing a gradual disinterest in all segments of society.

I always say that religion and faith have to be thought of separately—mainly because faith is sometimes at odds with the cult. You can find this difference in other realms, including politics. We all know that laws are different from rights. We all know that certain laws may be unjust and that we have the right to oppose them if we think they are unfounded. The same goes for religion: individuals don’t accept rules that are no longer tied to their personal lives and questionings. People need meaning and only life and faith can supply this, not merely rules.

Joey Kurtzman—Along the same lines, as we try to remake our faith so that it can serve some purpose for us, how careful should we be about violating the "authenticity" of the tradition?

Paulo Coelho—First you need to be clear about the “authenticity” of tradition. In my eyes, personal faith is the beating heart of this authenticity. This is the living fabric of all religions.

True, traditions have survived many centuries and certain rituals are long-lasting. But one should not be too quick to oppose changes to the tradition. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have known changes throughout their history. Certain changes were dictated by practical reasons and others by prophets. Traditions weren’t violated but enriched and perfected. We should keep this process in mind whenever we start to question if traditions are truly being violated.

Khatchig Mouradian—In conversations with your readers, I often hear comments like, "Paulo Coelho changed my life" or "Paulo's novels have had a profound influence on me." What are your thoughts about the influence you have on your readers and what is the influence your readers have on you?

Paulo Coelho—I can’t explain why people feel the way they do after reading my books. It’s personal to them. What I can say is that all my characters are mirrors of my own soul. I’m constantly trying to understand my place in the world and I have found that literature is the best way to see myself.

I don't have a ready-made formula to apply when I embark on a new book, but my guiding principles are discipline, compassion and a sincere eagerness to understand myself.

It’s a lonely process but thanks to the internet I’ve been able to open up more and more of my experiences and thoughts to my readers.

I decided to publish ¼ of my book in my blog so that I could get to better know my readers (I have a Hebrew page, as well). I wanted them to make up their own mind about the book but also to interact with each other. This experience with them is priceless. I’ve also invited readers from my blog to a party I gave in Spain: I got to know readers to whom I’d been talking for years. I’m doing the same thing this year with another 15 readers.

Why do I do this? Because it’s pure magic. A powerful moment, when I look into the eyes of the reader, and I can see how he or she experienced my novel.

A writer is always lonely. But in that moment—which doesn't happen very often—when you see yourself in a reader’s eyes, something magical happens. Thoughts vibrate, thoughts transfer. The internet is a new way of connecting to one another.

Khatchig Mouradian—In The Alchemist, you write: “When you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Can the motivation of ordinary people really change the world?

Paulo Coelho—Some people don’t want the things they claim to want, or want things that won’t truly help them. The Universe is merely an echo of our desires, may they be constructive or destructive ones.

There is a difference between dream and obsession—the same difference that lies between a Personal Legend and a Zahir. When you follow your personal legend, you walk your path and learn from it. Your objective doesn’t blind you to the road that takes you there. On the other hand, obsession is what prevents you from admiring the teachings of life. It’s like trying to get to your objective without overcoming the obstacles.

I think that individual change is the very motor of evolution in this world. Governments and their institutions have their own inertia, which explains why some communities are left behind and their voices left unheard. These are the scenarios where ordinary people take the lead. They can, since they are individuals or small structures, adapt themselves and find new solutions.

Recently I read about Dina Abdel Wahab, who founded in Egypt the “Baby Academy” for Children with Down syndrome. She says the following about ordinary people’s role in society: “It is easier for me as an individual to take the risk and do something, than for the government to do that on a mass scale.” I couldn’t agree with her more.

Yet the actions of these people shouldn’t pass unnoticed by governments. On the contrary, governments should create a favorable environment for businesses that have social awareness in their top agenda—which can be reached through fiscal initiatives, grants, etc…

Joey Kurtzman—You are on the board of the Shimon Peres Institute for Peace. I love Israel, but I also recognize that it's easy for the dominant party to support "peace." How can we ensure that calls for "peace" in the Jewish community are not used as a means of invalidating the needs of the Palestinians?

Paulo Coelho—As Indira Gandhi once said: "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." We can all detect (Jews, Palestinians, as well as the international community) when a call for peace is simply a bluff.

The best insurance then is a call for peace that both parties will lose something, but at the end everybody will win. A deal is a deal. It may not be the better deal, the win-win situation, but nevertheless it is a deal, and must be pursued. At this very moment, the only winners are radicals on both sides, and this is not the ideal scenario.

Maro Krikorian—Tell us about one dream in your life that you would like to achieve?

My personal legend has always been to become a writer. I’m glad I can say that I’m fulfilling my dream. But this must not the interpreted as “the end of the line”—on the contrary—I have to commit everyday in order to stay in this path that I’ve chosen. One is constantly challenged—even by success. As for a dream that I still did not fulfill: to lock myself in a monastery for 3 months—with no Internet access.

The post Q & A with Paulo Coelho appeared first on Jewcy.

I received dozens of comments—made either to me in person or posted on Jewcy—immediately after the posting of the article. In one of the emails, a reader advised Jewcy to continue “kicking Foxman’s ass.”

I will not dwell on the positive remarks and the many emails, some from prominent academics, suggesting several other names of righteous Jews (about whom I might write in the future). I will, however, bring to the reader’s attention one point of view—from a fellow Armenian—that I thought was outrageous and, I believe, is shared by some other Armenians and non-Armenians.

“It is with great reluctance,” my fellow Armenian said, “that I wish to tell you that your article is oversimplified, very naïve and, at bottom, worthless. The Jewish involvement in Armenian Genocide is much complicated, intricate and perplexing.” He went on to cite historians who studied the “Zionist Jewish participation and their ominous role in Armenian Genocide.”

The post The Stubborn Myth of Jewish Involvement in the Armenian Genocide appeared first on Jewcy.

Today, very few survivors of another genocide—the destruction of the Armenians—are still alive. And individuals continue to deny it happened.

In a time when the memory of genocide victims—from the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust—is under attack by genocide deniers, I'd like to invite readers of this post—including, hopefully, Foxman himself—to learn about the deep connections between the Jewish heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the Armenian heroes of Musa Dagh. Also central to this story is Franz Werfel, a brilliant Jewish novelist who helped forge these connections.

***

Franz Werfel, an Austrian-Jewish writer, became an international literary figure with his 1933 novel, Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh. The book was originally written in German and published a year later in English under the title The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. It tells the story of the heroic self-defense of the Armenians of Musa Dagh during the Armenian genocide of 1915. Werfel decided to write the novel after witnessing the plight of Armenian refugee children in Damascus in 1929. Little did he know that his novel would not only become a classic and an inspiration for generations of Armenians, but would also serve as a model of survival and resistance for his own people during the Holocaust.

After the 1938 Anschluss, Werfel left Austria to take refuge in France. Soon, with the occupation of France by the Nazis, he narrowly escaped, fleeing to the U.S. He thus avoided the concentration camps, where a generation of Jewish leaders and youth found solace, inspiration and a call to uprising in his novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.

According to Professor Yair Auron,

"Momentous moral questions arise from Werfel's book. It prominently expresses humanistic values, to which the members of the [Jewish] youth movements were sensitive, as well as the moral uncertainties by which they were beset. The story of the defense of Musa Dagh became, indeed, a source of inspiration, an example for the underground members to learn, a model to imitate.

"They equated their fate with that of the Armenians. In both cases, murderous evil empires conspired to uproot entire communities, to bring about their total physical extinction. In both cases, resistance embodied the concept of death and national honor on the one hand, and the chance of being saved as individuals and as a nation on the other."

Auron notes that "reading the book strengthens the spirit of the members of the youth movements, the future fighters, as Mordechai Tannenbaum and other underground leaders suggested."

Werfel's novel had a great influence on Antek (Yitzhak Zuckerman), the deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the author of A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. When talking about the Holocaust and what books to read on the issue, Antek would say that "the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising could not be understood without reading The Forty days of Musa Dagh."

In an introduction to the French edition of the book, Holocaust survivor and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Elie Wiesel says,

"The novel is a masterpiece. … This Armenian community became very close to me. Written before the coming of Hitler, this novel seems to foretell the future. How did Franz Werfel know the vocabulary and the mechanism of the Holocaust before the Holocaust—artistic intuition or historic memory?"

Wiesel continues, "The novel is precisely about this memory. The besieged Armenians feared not death but being forgotten…"

***

I hope Abraham Foxman will choose to follow in the footsteps of Franz Werfel and Elie Wiesel, and not allow the resistance fighters of Musa Dagh to be forgotten.

UPDATE: Commenter Alamity provides an excerpt showing how the defenders of the Bialystok ghetto used The Forty Days of Musa Dagh as a handbook for Jewish resistance to the Nazis.

Read Khatchig Mouradian's past Jewcy articles here. * Check our always up-to-date list of posts on the ADL/Armenian Genocide issue * Get ongoing coverage from our friends at No Place For Denial.

The post A Tale of Two Uprisings: From the Warsaw Ghetto to Musa Dagh appeared first on Jewcy.

As editor of the Armenian Weekly, I often receive calls from journalists seeking the perspective of the Armenian community. These days, they frequently ask me whether the Anti-Defamation League is damaging relations between the Armenian and Jewish communities. My answer is always a resounding "no."

Yes, the Armenian community is upset that a prominent Jewish civil rights organization supports Turkey's campaign to the deny the Armenian Genocide, the great tragedy that haunts our community. But we are also aware of the Jewish-American writers, bloggers, and activists who speak out against ADL's hypocrisy.

Armenians also know that throughout the 20^th century there was never a shortage of righteous Jews, individuals who spoke out against the Armenian genocide. Here, I present three such righteous Jews, whose efforts will always be treasured by the Armenian community.

The post Are Armenians Angry at Jews? appeared first on Jewcy.

In an effort to better understand the plight of Turkish Jewry, I interviewed several prominent scholars who have studied the community.

Ottoman Jews: Safety Through Loyalty

For 500 years, Jews have lived as a loyal minority in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire and the present-day Turkish republic. According to Turkish-Jewish scholar Rifat Bali, who has published several books on the history of Turkey's Jews, their loyalty to the Ottoman Empire allowed Turkish Jews to escape the tragic fate of the Empire's Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians.

"Turkish Jews were not involved in any sort of ethnic nationalism," says Bali. "The Zionist movement did not take root in Istanbul because the community leadership had witnessed the tragic fate of the Ottoman Armenians. [They] understood that the Ottoman leadership would perceive Zionism as a separatist nationalist movement and that this would have dire consequences. They therefore took an ‘anti-Zionist' position."

Like today's Turkish Jewish community, the Jews of the Ottoman Empire were utilized as international advocates for Turkish political goals. "Haim Nahum, the last Ottoman Chief Rabbi, was an ‘anti-Zionist' and a supporter of the Turkish Nationalist movement," says Bali. "He was sent by Mustafa Kemal to the USA and Europe for lobbying on behalf of the Kemalists."

Turkish Jews in the 20^th century: Loyal Scapegoats

Turkish political groups that fight bitterly on other issues find common ground in blaming Turkish Jews for the country's ills. "Turkey's Jews have been scapegoated by the Islamist movement which started to grow in 1946," say Bali. "In 1969, the National Order Party began propagating its Islamist National View ideology, which accused Jews and Zionism of being behind all the troubles of Turkey." And in the ‘70s, Turkey's Jews were hostage to the clash between Turkey's ultra-leftists and ultra-rightists.

Turkish Jews Today

Adopting Muslim Names to Escape Attention

The post The Betrayal of Turkish Jews appeared first on Jewcy.

One case in point is Richard Cohen's article in the Washington Post, titled "Turkey's War on the Truth" (Oct. 16, 2007). Cohen makes arguments based on false premises. After conceding–with condescension–that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 was "plenty bad," he concludes that it falls short of genocide "because not all Armenians…were…affected." Clearly, if we follow his train of thought, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and several other cases should not be labeled as "genocide."

Cohen's standards are clearly different from those of the UN Convention defining genocide, but Cohen doesn't just introduce his own novel definition of genocide, he also creates his own facts. He suggests that jurist Raphael Lemkin, the author of the Genocide Convention, coined the term "genocide" based solely on "what the Nazis were doing to the Jews." This is blatantly wrong. Although this factual error was pointed out by many–including myself–to the editors of the Washington Post, no correction was issued and, to this day, no letter to the editor on this issue has appeared in the paper.

To set the record straight, the horrors of the Armenian genocide–and not only the Holocaust–played a central role in Lemkin's lifelong pursuit to find a name for the ultimate crime against humanity–the cleansing of a group–and to incorporate into international law the prevention of this crime and the punishment of its perpetrators.

The destruction of the Armenians came to Lemkin's attention when, in 1920, Soghomon Tehlirian–an Armenian whose entire family was killed during the genocide–assassinated Talaat Pasha, the mastermind behind the Armenian genocide, in Berlin. Lemkin read about Tehlirian's trial and, during a discussion with his professor at the University of Lvov, asked, "It is a crime for Tehlirian to kill a man, but it is not a crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million men?" His professor argued that states are sovereign and they can do what they want to their citizens. "Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing," his professor argued. Lemkin was proud of Tehlirian for defending "the moral order of mankind," but wanted international law–and not individuals–to punish the perpetrators.

The post The Washington Post Perpetuates a Destructive Myth appeared first on Jewcy.