The name “Armenia” designates, variously, a large historical country in eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia, an early Islamic administrative unit in Transcaucasia, and the tiny modern Republic of Armenia.

The history of Jews in Armenia presents many problems, but associations with Jews date to very early times. Mount Ararat, mentioned in the Bible as Noah’s landfall (Gen. 8:4), is situated in a part of historical Armenia that is now in Turkey; its biblical name derives from the ancient (pre-Armenian) state of Urartu. Jews from the Israelite …