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BIRTHRIGHT FROM BOTH SIDES: A PERSONAL REFLECTION
Mykil Bachoian
Jewish Exponent
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/26008/Birthright_From_Both_Sides_A/
May 31 2012
Background
I grew up in Los Angeles and currently reside in Los Angeles. I am a
26 year-old attorney licensed in California. My father is Armenian
and my mother is Jewish. Neither parent pushed their culture or
heritage upon me and I did not speak Armenian or Hebrew. Coming
from a family that felt the horrors of both the Armenian Genocide
and the Holocaust, I always cared so much about both sides of my
unique heritage and always hoped for more of a connection to both
sides of family's cultures. I wished my father had taught me Armenian
and my parents had sent me to Hebrew school. I felt like both parents
should have embraced their heritage, but at the same time, I know that
their marriage was not easy for either side of the family and that,
by both of them remaining neutral, there was no conflict in terms of
how my brother and I were raised.
Identity
While I am very close to the Armenian side of my family, most of my
close friends growing up in my neighborhood were Jewish, and I always
considered myself to be an Armenian Jew: ethnically/culturally Armenian
and ethnically/culturally/religiously Jewish. I am not particularly
religious, as I did not attend Hebrew school or have a Bar Mitzvah;
however, I always wanted to attend Hebrew school and to have a Bar
Mitzvah.
I'm not a religious person, but I want to have more of an educated
understanding of Judaism, because I appreciate Jewish religious
traditions, the meaning behind them, how long they have endured over
time, and how Jews throughout the course of history strived to continue
Jewish traditions and ways of life even in the face of death.
I always was proud to be Armenian, but being Jewish, I felt that
I could not be 100% Armenian. Christianity is so intertwined with
Armenian heritage that it becomes almost the same identity, especially
in the Diaspora, where Armenian communities typically revolve around
churches. So I always felt somewhat like an outsider, because I did not
grow up speaking the Armenian language, going to Armenian school, or
attending church, which are -- among many circles -- the standard for
an Armenian identity in the Diaspora. Because I'm neurotic in general,
and because I never fit into the restrictive box of what most Armenians
think it means to be "Armenian," I had a lot of self-confidence and
identity issues as an Armenian, more so than as a Jew.
Of course, I also had similar issues within the Jewish community,
but not to the same extent. So many friends of mine had Bar or Bat
Mitzvahs, but were indifferent towards Judaism, and almost all of
them lost their Hebrew-speaking abilities; accordingly, I never
felt less Jewish than them. But being Jewish, I always felt "less
Armenian." The problem is, I'm not sure how much of that was because
of my own insecurities or how much of that was because there actually
is a relatively narrow, yet common, description of what it means to
be Armenian, which I clearly don't meet. Identity is a complicated
concept for me, and my identity is certainly an evolving process.
Birthright Experiences I participated in Taglit (Birthright Israel)
in Summer 2007 just one week after graduating from UCLA.
By chance, my best friend was our group leader, and also by chance,
four or five of the forty kids in my group were friends of mine. In
a 10-day span, I was able to see a great deal of Israel in terms
of geography and connect with 8 Israeli soldiers of similar age who
joined our trip, all while receiving a crash course on the history,
demographics, and politics of Israel. Double-majoring in History and
Sociology, I naturally had a lot of questions: I treated the trip
as one giant classroom, certainly to a much greater extent than most
others in the group, for better or worse.
Although Birthright Israel was short in duration, I extended my stay
in Israel and was able to see more of the country on my own. I was able
to appreciate Israel's natural beauty and contrasts in topography from
the Golan Heights to the Red Sea. The program gave me an overview of as
much as Israel as possible in such a short timeframe, and naturally,
I felt a spiritual connection with Israel. The caveat, however,
is that we were never left to explore Israel on our own during the
Birthright trip -- we were required to remain with the group at all
times. Additionally, to the best of my recollection, we did not tour
the West Bank or Gaza, nor did we see the Security Barrier, Jaffa,
or Nazareth.
Nonetheless, after experiencing just a small taste of the country,
Israel quickly felt like home. During my 3L year at the Sandra Day
O'Connor College of Law, I returned to Israel in 2011 on a joint
Dispute Resolution program taught by my mentor at Arizona State
University and his colleague at the Marquette University Law School.
The program was completely different from Taglit, and focused on
alternative dispute resolution channels in Israeli society and the
Israeli legal system, as well as multi-layered conflict resolution
between Israelis and Palestinians, both within Israel proper and
overall on a larger scale.
My second trip to Israel made me think about my first time there with
Taglit, and I wondered whether it would be possible to have a similar
experience in Armenia. After graduating from law school and preparing
for the grueling California Bar Exam in July 2011, I was looking for
a chance to pause my life, reflect on the past, and contemplate my
future. My dream was to volunteer in Armenia on any sort of project --
not simply take a vacation which in my mind I thought I deserved. Once
I conducted research, I realized that my dream was possible: I simply
needed to commit to volunteering 30 hours per week for at least 8 weeks
in Armenia, participate in Birthright Armenia's scheduled forums and
havaks, and attain a conversational level of the Armenian language. If
I met those requirements, Birthright Armenia would reimburse me for
my airfare and set me up with a host family in Yerevan.
What more could I ask for? I departed for Armenia just ten days after
the Bar Exam. Birthright Armenia allowed me to immerse myself in
Armenia by giving me the tools and nothing else. It was a hands-off
approach -- Birthright Armenia brought me to Armenia, set up my living
arrangements with a host family, and provided language classes and
community forums on various topics relating to Armenia, but the rest
was up to me. I learned the most about Armenia by spending time with my
gracious host family, my cousins in Armenia, local Armenian friends and
my supervisor at the Armenian Young Lawyers Association. I also learned
what life in Yerevan was like by experiencing it myself and living
life like the average Yerevansi, albeit one with a lot more Armenian
language homework and a more regimented schedule to balance all of
the activities. On weekends, Birthright Armenia scheduled optional
excursions to different areas in Armenia outside of Yerevan, and, for
a minimal cost, provided transportation and meals at the excursions.
Essentially, Birthright Armenia deliberately left it to volunteers
to make their own experiences. For example, during my second week in
Armenia, an unrelated organization called Counterpart International
took a group of Diasporans (some from Birthright) to a Sassounsi
village about 45 minutes outside of Yerevan. There, we witnessed the
first day of elementary school and a remarkable dance performance
by kindergarteners, learned beautiful Sassounsi dances, and shared
our common Armenian traditions yet diverse experiences growing up in
different regions of the world. For that particular outing, Birthright
volunteers merely received a text from the Director of Birthright
about an optional day trip to a village sponsored by Counterpart.
Moments like these are far from rare for Birthright Armenia
volunteers. Volunteers can be as little involved or as heavily involved
as they wish; they can have as strong or as little a connection to
Birthright Armenia as they wish; they can live with host families
or live on their own -- every volunteer's experience with Birthright
Armenia is customized to exactly what he or she makes of it.
To summarize, the experiences of Birthright Armenia and Birthright
Israel are not comparable in any way, except for the fact that both
provide their respective Diaspora with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to see and experience their respective homelands -- an opportunity
that many individuals -- would not have had but for the sponsorship
of those programs.
From: A. Papazian
Mykil Bachoian
Jewish Exponent
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/26008/Birthright_From_Both_Sides_A/
May 31 2012
Background
I grew up in Los Angeles and currently reside in Los Angeles. I am a
26 year-old attorney licensed in California. My father is Armenian
and my mother is Jewish. Neither parent pushed their culture or
heritage upon me and I did not speak Armenian or Hebrew. Coming
from a family that felt the horrors of both the Armenian Genocide
and the Holocaust, I always cared so much about both sides of my
unique heritage and always hoped for more of a connection to both
sides of family's cultures. I wished my father had taught me Armenian
and my parents had sent me to Hebrew school. I felt like both parents
should have embraced their heritage, but at the same time, I know that
their marriage was not easy for either side of the family and that,
by both of them remaining neutral, there was no conflict in terms of
how my brother and I were raised.
Identity
While I am very close to the Armenian side of my family, most of my
close friends growing up in my neighborhood were Jewish, and I always
considered myself to be an Armenian Jew: ethnically/culturally Armenian
and ethnically/culturally/religiously Jewish. I am not particularly
religious, as I did not attend Hebrew school or have a Bar Mitzvah;
however, I always wanted to attend Hebrew school and to have a Bar
Mitzvah.
I'm not a religious person, but I want to have more of an educated
understanding of Judaism, because I appreciate Jewish religious
traditions, the meaning behind them, how long they have endured over
time, and how Jews throughout the course of history strived to continue
Jewish traditions and ways of life even in the face of death.
I always was proud to be Armenian, but being Jewish, I felt that
I could not be 100% Armenian. Christianity is so intertwined with
Armenian heritage that it becomes almost the same identity, especially
in the Diaspora, where Armenian communities typically revolve around
churches. So I always felt somewhat like an outsider, because I did not
grow up speaking the Armenian language, going to Armenian school, or
attending church, which are -- among many circles -- the standard for
an Armenian identity in the Diaspora. Because I'm neurotic in general,
and because I never fit into the restrictive box of what most Armenians
think it means to be "Armenian," I had a lot of self-confidence and
identity issues as an Armenian, more so than as a Jew.
Of course, I also had similar issues within the Jewish community,
but not to the same extent. So many friends of mine had Bar or Bat
Mitzvahs, but were indifferent towards Judaism, and almost all of
them lost their Hebrew-speaking abilities; accordingly, I never
felt less Jewish than them. But being Jewish, I always felt "less
Armenian." The problem is, I'm not sure how much of that was because
of my own insecurities or how much of that was because there actually
is a relatively narrow, yet common, description of what it means to
be Armenian, which I clearly don't meet. Identity is a complicated
concept for me, and my identity is certainly an evolving process.
Birthright Experiences I participated in Taglit (Birthright Israel)
in Summer 2007 just one week after graduating from UCLA.
By chance, my best friend was our group leader, and also by chance,
four or five of the forty kids in my group were friends of mine. In
a 10-day span, I was able to see a great deal of Israel in terms
of geography and connect with 8 Israeli soldiers of similar age who
joined our trip, all while receiving a crash course on the history,
demographics, and politics of Israel. Double-majoring in History and
Sociology, I naturally had a lot of questions: I treated the trip
as one giant classroom, certainly to a much greater extent than most
others in the group, for better or worse.
Although Birthright Israel was short in duration, I extended my stay
in Israel and was able to see more of the country on my own. I was able
to appreciate Israel's natural beauty and contrasts in topography from
the Golan Heights to the Red Sea. The program gave me an overview of as
much as Israel as possible in such a short timeframe, and naturally,
I felt a spiritual connection with Israel. The caveat, however,
is that we were never left to explore Israel on our own during the
Birthright trip -- we were required to remain with the group at all
times. Additionally, to the best of my recollection, we did not tour
the West Bank or Gaza, nor did we see the Security Barrier, Jaffa,
or Nazareth.
Nonetheless, after experiencing just a small taste of the country,
Israel quickly felt like home. During my 3L year at the Sandra Day
O'Connor College of Law, I returned to Israel in 2011 on a joint
Dispute Resolution program taught by my mentor at Arizona State
University and his colleague at the Marquette University Law School.
The program was completely different from Taglit, and focused on
alternative dispute resolution channels in Israeli society and the
Israeli legal system, as well as multi-layered conflict resolution
between Israelis and Palestinians, both within Israel proper and
overall on a larger scale.
My second trip to Israel made me think about my first time there with
Taglit, and I wondered whether it would be possible to have a similar
experience in Armenia. After graduating from law school and preparing
for the grueling California Bar Exam in July 2011, I was looking for
a chance to pause my life, reflect on the past, and contemplate my
future. My dream was to volunteer in Armenia on any sort of project --
not simply take a vacation which in my mind I thought I deserved. Once
I conducted research, I realized that my dream was possible: I simply
needed to commit to volunteering 30 hours per week for at least 8 weeks
in Armenia, participate in Birthright Armenia's scheduled forums and
havaks, and attain a conversational level of the Armenian language. If
I met those requirements, Birthright Armenia would reimburse me for
my airfare and set me up with a host family in Yerevan.
What more could I ask for? I departed for Armenia just ten days after
the Bar Exam. Birthright Armenia allowed me to immerse myself in
Armenia by giving me the tools and nothing else. It was a hands-off
approach -- Birthright Armenia brought me to Armenia, set up my living
arrangements with a host family, and provided language classes and
community forums on various topics relating to Armenia, but the rest
was up to me. I learned the most about Armenia by spending time with my
gracious host family, my cousins in Armenia, local Armenian friends and
my supervisor at the Armenian Young Lawyers Association. I also learned
what life in Yerevan was like by experiencing it myself and living
life like the average Yerevansi, albeit one with a lot more Armenian
language homework and a more regimented schedule to balance all of
the activities. On weekends, Birthright Armenia scheduled optional
excursions to different areas in Armenia outside of Yerevan, and, for
a minimal cost, provided transportation and meals at the excursions.
Essentially, Birthright Armenia deliberately left it to volunteers
to make their own experiences. For example, during my second week in
Armenia, an unrelated organization called Counterpart International
took a group of Diasporans (some from Birthright) to a Sassounsi
village about 45 minutes outside of Yerevan. There, we witnessed the
first day of elementary school and a remarkable dance performance
by kindergarteners, learned beautiful Sassounsi dances, and shared
our common Armenian traditions yet diverse experiences growing up in
different regions of the world. For that particular outing, Birthright
volunteers merely received a text from the Director of Birthright
about an optional day trip to a village sponsored by Counterpart.
Moments like these are far from rare for Birthright Armenia
volunteers. Volunteers can be as little involved or as heavily involved
as they wish; they can have as strong or as little a connection to
Birthright Armenia as they wish; they can live with host families
or live on their own -- every volunteer's experience with Birthright
Armenia is customized to exactly what he or she makes of it.
To summarize, the experiences of Birthright Armenia and Birthright
Israel are not comparable in any way, except for the fact that both
provide their respective Diaspora with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to see and experience their respective homelands -- an opportunity
that many individuals -- would not have had but for the sponsorship
of those programs.
From: A. Papazian