NCSJ In Azerbaijan - February 9-13, 2006
NCSJ Leaders, in Conference of Presidents Mission, Visit Azerbaijan
NCSJ's Chairman Dr. Robert J. Meth and Executive Director Mark B. Levin helped plan and lead a mission to Azerbaijan for a delegation of over 80 U.S. Jewish community officials.
(l-r): Israel Bonds' Bobbie Goldstein, NCSJ Chairman Meth, Conference of Presidents' Rachel Greenbaum and NCSJ Executive Director Levin
(clockwise from top): NCSJ Executive Director Levin , EAJC President Alexander Mashkevitch and NCSJ Chairman Meth
At the Baku synagogue
Modern-day Baku
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 02.16.2006
In meeting with Jews, Azeri leader hints at stronger relations with Israel
By Lev Krichevsky
BAKU, Azerbaijan (JTA) -- The president of Azerbaijan told a group of American Jewish leaders that his country may upgrade its relations with Israel and open a trade mission there.
President Ilham Aliyev made the comments in a meeting with visiting American Jewish leaders this week, although the issue was left unresolved.
Azerbaijan, a Muslim state, established diplomatic relations with Israel in the early 1990s but has yet to open an embassy in Israel; Israel has had an embassy in Baku since 1993.
Azerbaijan has said its complicated geopolitical situation, particularly its proximity to Iran, as well as its membership in international Islamic organizations, prevent it from opening a mission in Israel.
Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations mission to Baku believe the visit of a high-profile Jewish group to Azerbaijan was a success because Aliyev and the Jewish leaders were able to engage in dialogue.
"We believe that Azerbaijan is a critical country strategically, geopolitically and even morally," said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents.
The delegation of 50 American Jewish leaders, under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress in conjunction with NCSJ -- Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia, met Monday in Baku with Aliyev and other top officials at the end of their four-day visit.
Azerbaijan is increasingly important for the United States and Israel in the world of geopolitics.
The country is sandwiched between several larger regional giants, including Russia, Iran and Turkey, and has traditionally had good relations with Tehran.
Azerbaijan gained strategic importance recently with the discovery of new oil and gas riches in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian basin: A just-completed pipeline that bypasses both Iran and Russia would transport Azeri and Central Asian oil and gas from Baku via Turkey to Western European markets, and possibly to Israel.
Most recently, Azerbaijan has become a U.S. partner in the war against terror sending its small contingents to Afghanistan and Iraq and providing NATO aircrafts air and landing rights on its territory.
Aside from geopolitical considerations, Azerbaijan should be commended for its treatment of its Jews, U.S. Jewish leaders said.
Israelis and local Jewish groups estimate the number of Jewish living in Azerbaijan between 15,000 to 40,000.
This predominantly Shi'ite Muslim nation of 8 million is widely described as a safe haven for its Jewish community; unlike many other former Soviet republics, Azeri Jews have not seen any major manifestations of anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism.
According to Gennady Zelmanovich, the head of the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Azerbaijan, "there have never been any problems whatsoever for Jews in Azerbaijan. Even in Soviet times, we have not had much of the restrictions Jews in other republics had," referring to the broader religious freedom and other rights local Jews have long enjoyed.
While Azerbaijan has been criticized in the West for a lack of democratic freedoms and suppression of political opposition, cooperation with the United States and Israel dominated this week's agenda.
"We don't shy away from the difficult questions. But at the same time, it's important to recognize the positive things that are taking place here," said Mark Levin, executive director of NCSJ. "This is a Muslim country whose Jewish community is not threatened, whose government has normal diplomatic relations with Israel."
Said Hoenlein: "We can bring this positive message to other countries, including some of Azerbaijan's neighbors, and we hope they can learn from this example."
While visiting Jewish leaders and Israeli diplomats based in Baku have been describing Azeri-Israeli relations as normal -- and far warmer than Israel have with many other Muslim states -- the issue of Azerbaijan opening an embassy in Israel still seems a way off.
Azerbaijan insists that the issue of its relations with Israel should be treated delicately. Iran, the country's southern neighbor, has the largest ethnic Azeri community in the world, exceeding several times Azerbaijan's own Azeri population.
"It is always important to remember who our neighbors are," Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told the U.S. delegation on Monday in Baku, where the Jewish leaders also met with the Jewish community and with the country's chief Islamic religious authority.
Mammadyarov told the American group that his country was "moving in this direction" toward enhancing its relations with Israel but did not make any promises regarding the opening of his country's embassy in Israel.
On his part, Aliyev was also cautious when assessing this possibility and shied away from making any direct comments on the matter.
Aliyev mentioned a possibility for a trade mission in a private exchange with top members of the delegation. When speaking to the entire group in the presence of Azeri TV cameras, he said that the "level of our cooperation" with Israel "is increasing. We want to have more contacts, more communication."
Mammadyarov told U.S. Jewish leaders that his country -- a secular Muslim state -- has to be aware of the sensitivities of its Muslim neighbors, particularly because these countries have traditionally rendered Azerbaijan their diplomatic support on Nagorno-Karabakh, an area formerly under Azeri jurisdiction with a large ethnic Armenian population.
The bloody conflict with Armenia over that region that has lingered since 1988 resulted in Armenia conquering 16 percent of Azerbaijan territory and turned more than 1 million people from both sides into refugees.
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Azerbaijani Jews worried over increasing radical Islamists
By Amiram Barkat
BAKU, Azerbaijan - Azerbaijani Jews are worried over the strengthening of radical Islamists in their small country, and said they feel the anti-Jewish hostility here is growing.
Hundreds of Muslim extremists in Azerbaijan marched toward the French Embassy last Thursday to protest the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed - the first time Islamic fundamentalists demonstrated in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in the history of the country. Police stopped the protesters before they reached the embassy.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is visiting Azerbaijan this week to express support for the moderate Muslim country, which until now has taken pride in the lack of anti-Semitism. While 70 percent of the Azerbaijani population are Shi'ite Muslims, and the country borders Iran, Azerbaijani Jews told members of the delegation that until recently they had not felt themselves to be objects of hostility.
Tamila, a 34-year-old Jewish woman who asked that her last name not be published, said her Muslim husband recently asked her not to publicly wear a Jewish star around her neck.
"He told me he was afraid that religious Muslims would see me in the street with the Jewish star and realize that I am Jewish," she said.
Rosa, 73, said, "Here in the house it's warm, but outside it's cold, colder than it was in the past." When asked what she means, Rosa mentions a popular television star who recently accused the Jews of publishing the cartoons depicting the Mohammed.
"I'm very worried," she said. "He repeated it twice and no one protested."
Both women belong to the Hava center, a women's organization in Baku. Its director, Solmaz Yusifova, confirmed that the Jews in Baku feel more threatened now than in the past.
"There are many new people who have arrived in Baku recently," she said. "They look at us and say, 'Why should the Jews live in fancy houses when we have nowhere to live.' "
Jews and Muslims have been living alongside each other in the Caucasus for more than 1,000 years.
Dr. Avinoam Idan, a Caucasus researcher at the University of Haifa who accompanied the delegation on its visit, said Jews who live in the region have never been persecuted because of their religion.
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Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 02.16.2006
Hebrew department opens in Azerbaijan
(JTA) -- Baku State University in Azerbaijan opened a Hebrew department.
One Azeri student will be sent to Israel to study Hebrew, and will return to teach in the new department.
The president of Baku State University, Abel Maharramov, told Azeri reporters that the department will become a “bridge for the development of Azeri-Jewish cooperation.” Azerbaijan has had diplomatic relations with Israel since the early ’90s, but has not yet sent an ambassador to Israel.
Azeri sources have said this is due to the country’s complicated geopolitical situation, especially its proximity to Iran and its involvement in international Muslim organizations.
Israel established its embassy in Baku in 1993.
On Monday, the president of Azerbaijan told a group of American Jewish leaders that his country may upgrade its relations with Israel and open a trade mission there. Arthur Lenk, Israel’s ambassador to Baku, told reporters that two Azeri students are already studying in Israel, and the more the two countries know about each other, the wider their cooperation will be.
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Azerbaijan pres. meets Jewish leaders
By Yaakov Katz
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN - Israel should open a line of communication with Hamas in an effort to resolve the Middle East conflict, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev told a group of American Jewish leaders on Monday.
"Extremism is a dangerous trend and tendency," Aliyev told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "[But] dialogue is [the] best solution even if sometimes its doesn't reach solutions." Referring to the recent failure of Azerbaijanian and Armenian peace talks in Paris over the weekend, Aliyev hinted to the group of 100 that Israel should follow his example in entering negotiations with Armenia, despite their failure.
"We need to try to explore every possibility," he said during the meeting held at the Presidential Palace in Baku. The two days of intense peace talks focused on finding a solution to ending the bloody 18-year conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Over 30,000 people have been killed during the conflict and 1 million were made refugees.
"There are opportunities for finding peace in the Middle East," the president continued, warning that "every aggressive step" leads to more violence. "It is better to talk and be present than to oppose and isolate," he said.
Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told the conference that Azerbaijan did not plan on opening an embassy in Israel in the near future. Israel has an embassy in Baku.
"We would like to move in the direction of sending more delegations to Israel," Mammadyarov told the conference. He said that the opening of an embassy in Israel was currently a "delicate issue" since Azerbaijan would soon be taking up the chairmanship of the Organizations of Islamic Conferences (OCI).
Both the foreign minister and the president warned of a confrontation with their southern neighbor Iran, claiming that it could destabilize the entire region. "The social and economic future of Azerbaijan depends on the security in the region," Aliyev said.
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Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 02.14.2006
Azerbaijan may upgrade Israel relations
(JTA) -- The president of Azerbaijan told a group of American Jewish leaders that his country may upgrade its relations with Israel and open a trade mission there.
President Ilham Aliyev made the comments in a meeting with visiting American Jewish leaders this week, although the issue was left unresolved.
Azerbaijan, a Muslim state, established diplomatic relations with Israel in the early 1990s but has yet to open an embassy in Israel; Israel has had an embassy in Baku since 1993.
Azerbaijan has said its complicated geopolitical situation, particularly its proximity to Iran, as well as its membership in international Islamic organizations, prevent it from opening a mission in Israel.
Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations mission to Baku believe the visit of a high-profile Jewish group to Azerbaijan was a success because Aliyev and the Jewish leaders were able to engage in dialogue.
"We believe that Azerbaijan is a critical country strategically, geopolitically and even morally," said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents.
The delegation of 50 American Jewish leaders, under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress in conjunction with NCSJ -- Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia, met Monday in Baku with Aliyev and other top officials at the end of their four-day visit.
Azerbaijan is increasingly important for the United States and Israel in the world of geopolitics.
The country is sandwiched between several larger regional giants, including Russia, Iran and Turkey, and has traditionally had good relations with Tehran.
Azerbaijan gained strategic importance recently with the discovery of new oil and gas riches in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian basin: A just-completed pipeline that bypasses both Iran and Russia would transport Azeri and Central Asian oil and gas from Baku via Turkey to Western European markets, and possibly to Israel.
Most recently, Azerbaijan has become a U.S. partner in the war against terror sending its small contingents to Afghanistan and Iraq and providing NATO aircrafts air and landing rights on its territory.
Aside from geopolitical considerations, Azerbaijan should be commended for its treatment of its Jews, U.S. Jewish leaders said.
Israelis and local Jewish groups estimate the number of Jewish living in Azerbaijan between 15,000 to 40,000.
This predominantly Shi'ite Muslim nation of 8 million is widely described as a safe haven for its Jewish community; unlike many other former Soviet republics, Azeri Jews have not seen any major manifestations of anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism.
According to Gennady Zelmanovich, the head of the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Azerbaijan, "there have never been any problems whatsoever for Jews in Azerbaijan. Even in Soviet times, we have not had much of the restrictions Jews in other republics had," referring to the broader religious freedom and other rights local Jews have long enjoyed.
While Azerbaijan has been criticized in the West for a lack of democratic freedoms and suppression of political opposition, cooperation with the United States and Israel dominated this week's agenda.
"We don't shy away from the difficult questions. But at the same time, it's important to recognize the positive things that are taking place here," said Mark Levin, executive director of NCSJ. "This is a Muslim country whose Jewish community is not threatened, whose government has normal diplomatic relations with Israel."
Said Hoenlein: "We can bring this positive message to other countries, including some of Azerbaijan's neighbors, and we hope they can learn from this example."
While visiting Jewish leaders and Israeli diplomats based in Baku have been describing Azeri-Israeli relations as normal -- and far warmer than Israel have with many other Muslim states -- the issue of Azerbaijan opening an embassy in Israel still seems a way off.
Azerbaijan insists that the issue of its relations with Israel should be treated delicately. Iran, the country's southern neighbor, has the largest ethnic Azeri community in the world, exceeding several times Azerbaijan's own Azeri population.
"It is always important to remember who our neighbors are," Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told the U.S. delegation on Monday in Baku, where the Jewish leaders also met with the Jewish community and with the country's chief Islamic religious authority.
Mammadyarov told the American group that his country was "moving in this direction" toward enhancing its relations with Israel but did not make any promises regarding the opening of his country's embassy in Israel.
On his part, Aliyev was also cautious when assessing this possibility and shied away from making any direct comments on the matter.
Aliyev mentioned a possibility for a trade mission in a private exchange with top members of the delegation. When speaking to the entire group in the presence of Azeri TV cameras, he said that the "level of our cooperation" with Israel "is increasing. We want to have more contacts, more communication."
Mammadyarov told U.S. Jewish leaders that his country -- a secular Muslim state -- has to be aware of the sensitivities of its Muslim neighbors, particularly because these countries have traditionally rendered Azerbaijan their diplomatic support on Nagorno-Karabakh, an area formerly under Azeri jurisdiction with a large ethnic Armenian population.
The bloody conflict with Armenia over that region that has lingered since 1988 resulted in Armenia conquering 16 percent of Azerbaijan territory and turned more than 1 million people from both sides into refugees.
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U.S. Jewish Community Delegation Visits Baku
(AzerTag.com) -- A delegation comprising leaders of the Jewish community leaders of the United States on support of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is visiting Azerbaijan.
Members of delegation on February 10 have visited the tomb of the nationwide leader Heydar Aliyev in the Alley of Honors and laid a wreath on his monument.
In the Alley of Martyrs, visitors revered the memory of the courageous sons of Azerbaijan who fell for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Motherland, and laid flowers on their graves.
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Jewish Telegraphic Agency - 02.03.2006
Jewish leaders to visit Azerbaijan
(JTA) -- A group of Jewish leaders will visit Azerbaijan later this month.
The delegation, under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, will meet in Baku with President Ilham Aliyev and other top officials during the Feb. 9-13 trip.
Azerbaijan is a nation of “significant strategic, political and economic importance as a major oil exporter, neighbor of Iran, and for its role in confronting extremist Islamic movements,” said Harold Tanner, chairman of the Presidents Conference.
The delegation also plans to discuss utilizing Azerbaijan’s positive relations with Israel as a model for other Muslim countries around the world, said Malcolm Hoenlein, the groups’s executive vice chairman. The visit is being planned in coordination with NCSJ Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia, and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. From Baku, the American leaders will fly to Jerusalem.
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