Jews in Armenia in the Ancient Period (First Century BCE to Fifth Century CE)

The first Armenian literary source to mention Jews in Armenia is the history ascribed to P‘awstos Buzand (fifth century CE). The long passage that refers to multitudes of Jewish families concerns the invasion of the country by Persian troops in 368/9, when almost all significant Armenian cities were ruined and their inhabitants, exclusively “Armenians and Jews,” were taken to Persia. Though P‘awstos’s information should not be accepted at face value, it is clear that if the Jewish settlement in Armenia were not substantial, he would not have mentioned it at all. One should also suppose that the Armenian word hreay means both “Jew” and “Judaizer.” P‘awstos says those Jews had been brought to Armenia from Palestine by the Armenian king Tigran II. Greco-Roman sources, too, seem to corroborate this fact (though in relevant passages they do not specifically refer to “Jews”). Furthermore, it seems that, even after 368/9, a considerable number of Jews continued living in Armenia. There is evidence in later sources, both Armenian and foreign, about Jewish inhabitants in Armenia in the Middle Ages. The most striking corroboration of the presence of Jews in medieval Armenia is the recently discovered Jewish cemetery of the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries in the village Ełegis of the Vayoc‘ Jor district of the Republic of Armenia.