Tucked away in a corner of the Old City of Jerusalem lies the Armenian Compound, a sprawling complex housing the Convent (seat of the Armenian Patriarchate) of St James and the meandering Armenian Quarter.
     At its peak, the compound was home to over 15,000 souls, mostly genocide survivors or their descendants, but a large part of them the progeny of pilgrims who had settled in Jerusalem centuries before.
     These hardy denizens boast two distinct entities each with its own unique culture: the "vanketzis" who live within the precincts of the Convent and the "kaghakatzis" who live in the Quarter.
     What makes the "kaghakatzis" special is that they are  community that precedes the "vanketzis" by a long stretch of years, having established their home in the twisting alleys of the Old City and "gone native."
     But what distinguishes them most is that they hail from a common ancestor, making them all members of a vast extended family where everyone is related to everyone else - a genealogical rarity.
     Over the years, attrition has decimated the number of Armenians in the Holy Land - there are less than 2,000 of them left, a few hundred of them still holding the fort in the Quarter.
     (According to tradition, Armenians reached Jerusalem between the tenth and sixth centuries BCE, when Dickran [Tigranes] the Great ruled an empire extending from the Caspian Sea to the shores of the Mediterranean).
     "Armenians have survived by challenging empires and by scuttling all attempts at assimilation," one researcher notes.
     "They believe in the eternality of their race, symbolized by their emblem - the soaring twin peaks of Mount Ararat, traditional site of Noah's stranded ark. The goldsmiths, jewelers, photographers, pharmacists, teachers and potters who pound the ancient cobblestones of the Old City are living proof of Armenian durability," the researcher adds.
     Although the Armenian Quarter has produced its share of illuminati, there has been little effort to ensure that its history and culture are preserved.
     The Kaghakatzi Family Project aims to redress this imbalance and create a permanent record of the wisdom, culture, history, arts and crafts, and traditions of this community as possible.    
 

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