The white tent is in the middle of a large courtyard in the Armenian neighborhood of the old city of Jerusalem. In the early twentieth century, Armenian refugees slept in this open space, known as De Koegentuin. Now, activists from the protest movement have been committed to the Armenian neighborhood for almost two years.
The reason for their protest: a dubious real estate deal between the Armenian patriarchy of Jerusalem, the autonomous leadership in the region of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the company Xana Gardens. In addition, around a quarter of the territory of the Armenian neighborhood, in the possession of the Armenian patriarchate, would be leased for almost a hundred years. A luxurious hotel will rise on the site of the cow garden, a place of symbolic significance for the community where there is also a theological seminar.
The company Xana Gardens, led by the Australian-Israeli Danny Rothman, is, according to lawyers and activists, probably has ties with an Israeli settlement organization: Ateret Cohanim. After the deal was closed in May 2021, rumors soon went to the Armenian community. Only two years later it became clear what had happened behind closed doors. Large -scale protest broke out in the neighborhood, led by young Armenian activists.
Existential threat
“After the discovery we immediately set up a camp here,” says writer and ceramist Kegham Balian (35), giving a tour through the tent. Inside are smaller camping tents, where a few are sleeping. Activists watch TV on worn banks, people talk and cook. Posters of the old city and Saint Jacobus the superior are hanging on the walls.
The activists see the deal as an existential threat to the future of the Armenian community in the old city. Earlier, a real estate deal caused unrest: in 2020 the Armenian patriarchate concluded an agreement with the municipality of Jerusalem to build a parking space in the cow garden, with half places for Jewish residents. “Our primary goal is to maintain the cow garden, but in a broader sense we want to promote the development of the community and its institutions,” says Balian, serving tea and walnuts stuffed at a large table. “The only positive consequence of this case is that it has united us.”
The only positive consequence of this case is that it has united us
The old city, including the Armenian neighborhood, is located in East Jerusalem, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and has since been annexed. Israel claims East Jerusalem and its territory, and controls both West and East Jerusalem through the municipality. It is also rapidly expanding illegal settlements in East Jerusalem.
The Armenian district (0.126 square kilometers) consists of roughly two thirds of the cathedral and the monastery of Jacobus the superior, and adjacent a closed residential area for the Armenian community. Dozens of Armenian families have been living close together for centuries. “Everyone knows each other and there is hardly any privacy,” says Balian. “Most here speak at least three languages. Mutual Armenian, and also Arabic, Hebrew and often English.”
In the streets between the houses, Balian shows centuries -old Armenian inscriptions on the stone walls. The roof of his family house offers a wide view of the old city. Every evening the entrance gates to the Armenian neighborhood, where a monastery community is located, are closed. As a teenager, he took sneak routes with friends to go out of the neighborhood.
Activists in the Armenian camp in Jerusalem.
Photos Samar Hazboun
‘Two -class citizens’
Balian comes from a famous Armenian family of ceramics makers in Jerusalem, who have had a studio just outside the old city since 1922. In 1919, his ancestors were invited by the British military governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs, to restore the Ottoman tile work on the Rock dome in the old city. As a result, they escaped the Armenian genocide, the genocide of Armenians between 1915 and 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.
Around the First World War and the Armenian genocide, many Armenians resorted in Jerusalem, but the presence of Armenian Christians in the city goes back to the fourth century, when the first pilgrims arrived. For the establishment of Israel in 1948, around 15,000 Armenians lived in Palestine.
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During the wars of 1948 and 1967, their number has fallen sharply due to displacement and migration, and the Armenian population is still shrinking. In the meantime there are still about two thousand Armenians in the city, and more and more of them are leaving abroad, partly because of the political unrest in Israel and Palestine.
Just like Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Armenians do not have Israeli citizenship, only a permanent residence permit, which can nevertheless be withdrawn. Their structural building permits are also denied by the Israeli municipality, so that the community can hardly expand. “We are being treated as second -class citizens. We have been here for seventeen hundred years, and it is our moral duty to preserve and increase our presence,” says Balian.
The fuss about the rental of the cow garden brought the Armenian inhabitants of the neighborhood closer together, but also exposed existing tensions between residents and the Armenian patriarchy, says Balian. “In most Armenian communities, the relationship between patriarchy and the population is as between a shepherd and his herd.” Even before the deal, according to Balian, there was criticism of the autocratic governance of patriarchy, and in particular priest Beret Yeretsian, who orchestrated the deal. “He governed the community with iron fist. The patriarch has the absolute power, but Yeretsian ruled as a kind of rasputin and indirectly controlled patriarchy. He only closed this deal because of the money.” Yeretsian has been relieved of his position and driven away by the community; He fled to the US.
After the protest in the community, the Patriarchate sent a letter to Xana Gardens to undo the deal. The company fights that, and sent bulldozers and armed men to the Armenian neighborhood to take the ground. According to the activists, settlers were also present. Outside the tent in the cow garden, Balian points to stone barricades, which were raised to ward off the attacks.
Kegham Balian (left photo, left) with an activist in the camp founded by Armenians in Jerusalem. On the right photo activist Vartan Hidoyan.
Photos samar hazboun
Bribery
For Daniel Seidemann, lawyer and connoisseur of Jerusalem, it is clear that the Armenian patriarchate entered into a transaction of a “very doubtful character” to sell a significant part of the Armenian neighborhood.
According to Seidemann, the controversial deal is not a private initiative. “There is a pattern of settlement organizations in East Jerusalem, which are involved with the support of the Israeli state in very questionable activities to take properties in the old city and to surround the city with settlements and related projects.” Moreover, settlers have the wind in their sails since the Ultrarrear Israeli government took place at the end of 2022, in which extreme right -wing ministers also have sitting who are a colonist themselves.
According to lawyer Seidemann, the events surrounding the alleged purchase of the cow garden are unusual and extremely suspicious, which strongly suggests that there may have been illegal payments. Ateret Cohanim is a settlement organization that is committed to the colonization of the old city by expeling Palestinians and replacing it with settlers. In the past there have been accusations, in particular of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, that ateret Cohanim through fraud and bribery property has taken in the old city.
Activist Kegham Balian in the Armenian neighborhood in Jerusalem.
Photo Samar Hazboun
Ateret Cohanim itself denies involvement with Xana Gardens, but in a photo published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz The founder of the organization can be seen in a hotel together with business partners of Xana Gardens, Danny Rothman and George Warwar.
Last March there was again a fuss in the Armenian community. The Armenian patriarchate was told by the municipality of Jerusalem that she would have a debt accrued since 1994 on arrears, following one decision of the municipality from 2018 to retire retroactively on the possession of Christian churches. In addition to the Armenian neighborhood, Patriarchate also owns various buildings and pieces of land elsewhere in the old city and beyond.
Not only Armenians have to deal with increased violence and intimidations
Indeed, other churches in Jerusalem hang a similar debt above the head. They have appealed to the government to stop taxation that they see as a attack on the Christian presence in the ‘Holy Land’.
The Armenian activist Kegham Balian outside the camp.
Photo Samar Hazboun
Firm
In addition to the controversial real estate deal and the municipal tax, there is more to play around the activist tent in the Armenian neighborhood. In recent years there has been more and more verbal and physical aggression against religious leaders and members of the Armenian community in the old city. Not only Armenians have to deal with increased violence and intimidations. The inter-religious Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue documented 111 attacks on Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem last year, according to his annual report on this subject. It is mainly about physical attacks – including spitting – on religious leaders and ecclesiastical property. According to the Rossing Center, the perpetrators are in particular Ultraortthodox Jewish young men, “driven by nationalism and religious extremism.”
The Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC), which documents through a hotline cases of intimidation of Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem, reported 69 incidents between April and June this year-mainly in the old city, and in half of the cases against Armenians.
Moreover, Christians in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank are impeded by the Israeli authorities in reaching churches and shrines. For example, Palestinian Christians on the occupied West Bank, who can only enter Jerusalem with rare Israeli permission, recently denied access to celebrate Palm Sunday there. In the old city, Christians had limited access to the Holy Graf Church during Easter.
Seidemann sees an indirect connection between the increasingly solid grip of settlers and the government on the old city and surroundings, and the increased hostility towards Christians. “They see the Christian communities in the old city, including the Armenians, as a stand-in-the-way.”