BELMONT, Mass.—On Tues., Feb. 19, Prof. Steven L. Jacobs, Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama, will give a lecture entitled “Raphael Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide,” at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont. The lecture is co-sponsored by Temple Isaiah (Lexington) and NAASR.
Steven Leonard Jacobs, one of the foremost authorities on the life and work of Raphael Lemkin, will provide a detailed critical overview and discussion of the importance of the Armenian case in the development of Lemkin’s thinking and conception of the term “genocide” and its formulation as an international crime. Lemkin coined the term and was the motivating force behind the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.
Jacobs’ most recent book, Lemkin on Genocide (2012), provides an annotated commentary on two unpublished manuscripts written by Lemkin. He serves as the international editor of “The Papers of Raphael Lemkin.” Jacobs’ other books include Raphael Lemkin’s Thoughts on Nazi Genocide (1992); Contemporary Christian and Contemporary Jewish Religious Responses to the Shoah (1993); Rethinking Jewish Faith: The Child of a Survivor Responds (1994); The Holocaust Now: Contemporary Christian and Jewish Thought (1997); The Encyclopedia of Genocide (1999, Associate Editor); Pioneers of Genocide Studies (2002, Co-editor); Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (2003); and Post-Shoah Dialogues: Re-Thinking Our Texts Together (2004).
This lecture is made possible through NAASR’s Ethel Jafarian Duffett Fund. Ethel Duffett (1915-2005), a longtime NAASR member and generous benefactor, was the youngest child of Boghos and Nazley Jafarian from Mezireh in the Kharpert region. A survivor of the Armenian Genocide, she created a legacy of education about Armenian history and culture, especially memorializing the Armenian Genocide, which claimed many of her family members and destroyed the community into which she was born.
Jacobs’ lecture begins at 8 p.m. at NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont. For more information, call (617) 489-1610 or e-mail hq@naasr.org.
The Armenian Genocide is what greatly inspired the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to coin the word “genocide” in 1944. It also inspired the Austrian Jewish writer Franz Werfel to write the book “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh” in 1933. In fact, the book was the most widely read book in the Warsaw Ghetto, before its doomed rebellion in 1943.