Hrag Vartanian

I published this in AGBU News magazine back in April 1999 but I haven’t looked at it for ages. I came across it earlier this year and decided to post it on my blog for April 24.

Even though I was born in Aleppo, I really grew up in Toronto, which was a vastly less coherent [...]

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Always unconventional, Armenian American artist Onnig Kardash, staged a protest/performance on April 24, 1969 in front of the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood. The action seemed to underscore the need for love in the face of hate.
April 24 is the traditional day to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide, Kardash’s [...]

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I ventured to the East Village today (KGB bar to be exact) to attend the NY event for the Spring/Summer 2008 issue Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture. The journal has devoted a special print issue to the persevering Russian Jewish Diaspora.
Readers were Val Vinokur, Matvei Yankelevich, Margarita Shalina (pictured above), David Stromberg [...]

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The first Noor Play Festival of short plays on Middle East-related topics is scheduled to take place at the Wings Theatre (154 Christopher Street) from April 13-15, 2008. Its mission, as the Arabic name noor (light) suggests, is to enlighten savvy theatergoers about the Middle East while entertaining them.I can’t wait [...]

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I’m not a big drinker but who doesn’t love St. Patrick’s Day.
This past Monday I ventured to McSorley’s on E7th Street (the oldest Irish tavern in New York and the oldest continuously operated bar in the city) to have a pint and gawk at the disgusting interior…did you know they have wishbones on the chandelier [...]

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