Azerbaijan marked 34 years since the Khojaly massacre. It is not just another date on the calendar. It is a day when memory returns in full force.
On Feb. 26, 1992, armed Armenian separatist forces attacked the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly and killed 613 of its residents. Among the dead were women, elderly men and women, and 63 children. Dozens were declared missing. Hundreds were taken captive, and many never came home.
International human-rights organizations later documented the scale of the killings. Survivors described scenes that remain difficult to speak about even today: families who tried to shield their children with their own bodies and failed, civilians shot at close range, violence carried out without distinction.
When news of families murdered in their homes, of people shot at close range and children killed in cold blood reached us on Oct. 7, 2023, something in us was shaken. The reaction was not rooted in politics or geopolitical calculation. It came from memory. The horror felt painfully familiar.
In the days that followed, thousands of ordinary Azerbaijani citizens went to the Israeli Embassy in Baku. There was no official call, no organized campaign, no directive from above. People came with flowers, candles and toys left in memory of the children. They stood quietly, holding the flags of both nations. It was not a diplomatic gesture. It reflected the compassion of a people who recognize suffering because they have experienced it themselves.
As a Jew and a rabbi who has made his home here for many years, I witness every day the unique bond between Jews and Azerbaijanis. We have lived side by side for generations, in peace and with genuine warmth. This relationship is not built on strategic cooperation or economic interest alone. It rests on something deeper, a shared understanding of what it means to bury the innocent.
In 2024, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev laid the foundation stone for a memorial in the restored town of Khojaly. In Israel, the Car Wall memorial stands in silent testimony, with vehicles riddled with bullets and burned with their passengers still inside. Memorials are not only about the past. They remind us that we were not erased, that we did not disappear, and that we chose life over defeat.
The Torah commands, “Do not slay the innocent and the righteous, for I will not justify the wicked.” This is not merely an ancient verse. It is a clear moral boundary. The deliberate murder of innocent civilians is a line that must never be crossed.
I do not compare tragedies to rank suffering or assign weight to grief. But there are moments when one nation recognizes the pain of another without needing it explained. That is what happened here, in Baku, on Oct. 7.
At a time when the relationship between Jerusalem and Baku continues to deepen on every diplomatic level, it is worth remembering that this partnership did not begin with agreements or summits. It began with memory, with compassion and with the shared conviction that innocent human life is stronger than terror.
