Jackie Abramian

Give food, save lives 🙏 Christian Solidarity International is launching a hunger relief campaign, and we need your help! The people of Sudan feel abandoned and forgotten by the world. They are scared. They are hungry. Two million displaced people are seeking refuge in the Nuba Mountains. Resources are stretched to a breaking point, as international aid dwindles. They are fleeing the bombs; now they face starvation. CSI is distributing food, blankets, mosquito nets and medicines. Time is of the essence. Emergency aid saves lives and brings hope. Please pray for them. And if you are able to help, please donate today. 👉 donate.raisenow.io/hnjwv?analytic… Remember Sudan. #GiveFoodSaveLives

As Democracy Falters, a New York Museum Champions Activism The Museum of the City of New York will open its expanded center for social activism alongside a slate of exhibitions, public programs, and screenings. hyperallergic.com/as-democaracy-… via @hyperallergic

Painter Brings to Life Lost Homeland in Turkey: Remembering Greek Victims of the Genocide Through Art pjmedia.com/uzay-bulut/202…

🗣️ #WPSWednesday: “My message to the leaders of the world is let’s live in peace. We are innocent people. We deserve & must live like other people in the world. Love & peace are the only ways that can guide us to the right way.” @jackhar euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

Who do you know who belongs on the PurposeBuilt100™? superpowers4good.com/p/who-do-you-k…

Gaza Birds Singing children’s musical support group, created by Gaza composer/musician @ahmedmuin2016 spreads joy of singing and earns lots of smiles from the traumatized children - shared in Instagram videos made with his makeshift recorder and cellphone. euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

CPJ is stepping up our emergency assistance and safety response to ensure journalists are able to do their jobs across the globe. Want to learn more about the impact of CPJ’s journalist assistance and safety work? 📥 Subscribe to CPJ’s quarterly Journalist Assistance and Safety Newsletter⤵️ mailchi.mp/cpj/janewslett…

Gaza musician, Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha's message to world leaders: "Let’s live in peace... Leaders are poisoned....can’t hear, can’t see. But I think they must search for a solution for what is going on, so we can get back to our normal lives.” @euronewsweek euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

"I ...tried to get rid of the bad energy by writing and singing. These songs come with these stories that I have seen in this war. My gift to the world is in my language of music,” says Gaza native and musician/composer Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha @ahmedmuin2016 euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

🗣️ #WPSWednesday: “Words are the tools I turn to, again & again, to make sense of events & shape them into narratives that do them justice. And yet, when it comes to the genocide in #Gaza, my birthplace, language feels wholly inadequate.” @j_alfarra aljazeera.com/features/2026/…

🗣️ #WPSWednesday: “While the world has banned torture, survivors are often neglected. A new charter written by people who have experienced this most violent of crimes sets out their demands to the world to help them recover.” @DrAliceJEdwards, @pass_blue. passblue.com/2026/05/05/sur…

Armenians Emerge As Most Persecuted Christians In Jerusalem In 2025, With 43 Of 150 Attacks In The Armenian Quarter Alone, According To New RFDC Annual Report ➖➖➖ Armenians were the most persecuted Christian community in Jerusalem in 2025, with 43 of the 150 reported attacks against Christians in the city taking place in the Armenian Quarter, according to the newly released annual summary from the Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC). This was reported by Jerusalemite-Armenian journalist Kegham Balian. The Armenian Quarter recorded more incidents than any other location in Jerusalem, outpacing the Via Dolorosa (32), West Jerusalem (22), Mount Zion (18), Jaffa Gate (17), and other Old City locations (12). Across all of Israel, the RFDC documented 181 incidents of harassment targeting Christians, Christian symbols, and Christian institutions in 2025. The overwhelming concentration was in Jerusalem, which accounted for 150 of those cases, with the remaining 18 in Haifa and the North and 13 in the Center and South. By type, spitting remained the most common form of harassment, making up roughly 60 percent of all incidents, or about 109 cases. Verbal abuse including insults, threats, and shouting accounted for another 18 percent (32 incidents), followed by vandalism and damage to religious symbols at 12 percent (22 incidents). Physical violence made up 5 percent of cases (9 incidents), with desecration of holy sites and degrading behavior at 3 percent (6 incidents), and online incitement at 2 percent (3 incidents). The RFDC noted that many cases go unreported entirely, while others are filed too late to be captured in quarterly tallies, meaning the actual scale of the phenomenon is almost certainly higher. Incidents spiked during periods of heightened religious intensity, including the High Holy Days, Hanukkah, the December and January holiday season, Passover and Easter, Shavuot and Pentecost, Jerusalem Day, Bein HaMetzarim, and Tisha B’Av. The center also reported a clear pattern of increased attacks during religious processions and in situations involving visible Christian symbols, a dynamic that places Armenian clergy and worshippers, who are often visibly identifiable in the Old City, at particular risk. On enforcement, the picture remained grim. The RFDC assisted in filing 33 complaints with Israeli police in 2025, with at least another 12 filed directly by Christians or initiated by police action. Most of those complaints were closed, some remain under investigation, and indictments have been extremely rare relative to the scale of documented harassment. As the report bluntly noted, there is still no police officer specifically designated to liaise with the Christian community in Israel. There were, however, modest signs of institutional pushback during the year. Sixteen vandalized church directional signs were reported and subsequently repaired by responsible authorities after the intervention of RFDC volunteers. Public statements opposing spitting and abuse against Christians were issued by leading rabbinical authorities, including Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu (Chief Rabbi of Safed), Rabbi Nebenzahl (Rabbi of the Jewish Quarter), and Rabbi Rabinovitch (Rabbi of the Holy Sites). The RFDC indicated plans to launch a dedicated website cataloguing rabbinical rulings on the issue. The center itself continues to operate as a fully volunteer initiative, with roughly 90 percent of the data in the annual report collected by volunteers and another 10 percent by the Rossing Center. None of the volunteers, including the director, receive compensation, and operational costs are largely shouldered by the volunteers themselves. For the first time, the center received a significant donation from an anonymous Orthodox Jewish donor, designated for website design, graphics, quarterly reports, and special projects. The RFDC maintains active cooperation with the Latin Patriarchate and the Franciscan Custos, who for the past three years have annually circulated an official letter encouraging reporting and cooperation. Supportive working relationships also exist with representatives of the Armenian and Syriac churches. The center noted, however, that without the formal endorsement of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch and several other church leaders, comprehensive reporting coverage remains limited, which means the documented 181 incidents almost certainly understate the actual scale. The Religious Freedom Data Center was founded in June 2023 by Yisca Harani, an Israeli activist, scholar, and expert in Christian history and interfaith relations, in response to a sharp rise in anti-Christian incidents in Jerusalem, particularly in the Old City. Two and a half years into its operation, its annual data has now anchored in a full year of statistical record what Armenians in Jerusalem have been describing for years: that the Armenian Quarter is the single most targeted Christian location in the city, in a pattern that has held quarter after quarter and now year over year.

Israel’s unrelenting bombardment and high-pitched drones buzzing across Gaza, inspired veteran composer, music teacher, and sound engineer @ahmedmuin2016 to harmonize B-flat drone pitch as the background music to his "Sheel Sheel Ya Ajmal Sheel" song. euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

@ahmedmuin2016 's “music as therapy” sessions have become a coping relief for the forcibly displaced children, their families, and the musicians across Gaza’s war-torn territory. via @euronewsweek euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

“We are changing the sound of the war to something good. We used the drone sound to sing because we don’t have any other choices,” says musician and composer @ahmedmuin2016 about his Gaza Birds Singing children’s musical support group @euronewsweek euronewsweek.co.uk/people/gaza-te…

How did America go from Obama to Trump? Maine Senate candidate @grahamformaine tells @davidsirota it wasn’t some great mystery: Democrats bailed out banks, abandoned working people, and let corporate power keep running the party. Go and listen to the full episode over on The Lever's Youtube channel.

Armenia's strategic significance: @Richard_RSC tells #F24Debate Yerevan’s position is set to grow ‘in an unexpected direction’ as a result of escalating tensions in the #StraitofHormuz ➡️ go.france24.com/tUIW

A group portrait of Armenian gentlemen in Erzurum, Western Armenia, 1912. 🇦🇲 Known to Armenians as Karin, Erzurum was for centuries one of the great centers of Western Armenian life. The city sat on the highland plateau where Armenians had lived for millennia, anchoring a region of churches, monasteries, schools, and trade routes that stretched across Asia Minor. Erzurum had been under Ottoman rule since the early 16th century, when most of Western Armenia was annexed following the 1514 Battle of Chaldiran. By the early 20th century, its Armenian community of merchants, craftsmen, clergy, and scholars formed the cultural and economic backbone of the city. The Sanasarian Academy, founded in Erzurum in 1881, was among the most prestigious Armenian schools in the Ottoman Empire, training generations of teachers, writers, and public intellectuals. Armenian printing presses, theaters, and benevolent societies flourished alongside it, organized under the Ermeni Millet, the Ottoman administrative structure that placed Armenian civic, educational, and religious life under the authority of the Apostolic Church. The men in this photograph, gathered with instruments and drinks for an evening among friends, belonged to that world. They were Ottoman subjects by law and Armenian by nation. Within three years it would be gone. The Armenian population of Erzurum was deported and massacred in the 1915 Genocide, and the layered civic life captured here survives largely in photographs such as this one. The photograph was captured by the Voskeritchian Studio, owned by the Voskeritchian brothers. Source: Taline Voskeritchian collection, via Houshamadyan.

For the first time in the history of the @RSF_inter, World Press Freedom Index, more than half of the world's nations are now classified as having “difficult” or “very serious” press freedom conditions. Over the past 25 years, the average score across all 180 countries and territories included in the Index has reached its lowest point ever. Since 2001, the growth of increasingly restrictive legal frameworks, has gradually undermined the right to information, even in democratic nations. The Index’s legal indicator has seen the most significant decline in the past year, indicating a growing global trend of criminalizing journalism. #WorldPressFreedomDay @UNESCO