When my mother left the Armenian Quarter in #Jerusalem to study at Haigazian College in #Beirut, she had to surrender her #Jordanian passport at the border, as she boarded a bus alone.
I picture her at 22, with her small suitcase, looking over her shoulder one last time at her parents and her home, knowing she could never return.
After she graduated from Haigazian, she was a young woman with no country. Since she was no longer a student, she didn’t have a right to stay in Lebanon and she couldn’t return to Jerusalem. She had nowhere to go.
Luckily, she found a job at the United Nations in Beirut, which allowed her to remain there lawfully.
A short time later, she was on a visit to the mountain village of #Anjar in Lebanon with her sister and brother-in-law when she met my dad.
He asked her to go to a dinner dance (barahantes) with him that night.
She was in jeans and a sweater, which was hardly suitable attire for a formal Armenian dinner dance.
He said that he didn’t care and that he would wear jeans too.
She said yes to the date.
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Do you know that there is a war raging against Armenia?
https://lnkd.in/g9MeJhx
Please help me raise awareness.