ceramicist whose brilliant glazed tile work changed the face of Jerusalem in the early days of the British Mandate and continues to be one of the citys most iconic art forms.

Moughalian did not know her maternal grandfather. Nor did she know much about the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkish Muslims in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. This cataclysmic series of persecutions forced the Ohannessians into exile from their Anatolian mountain village, first to Syria and then to Palestine in 1918, where Ohannessian established Dome of the Rock Tiles so named because of that first, lifesaving commission to retile the vast Muslim structure built in 691 CE.

Growing up in Highland Park, New Jersey, Moughalian learned about the Holocaust in school and read books, including Elie Wiesels Night, found on the bookshelves of her many Jewish friends. She learned much more about the Jewish tragedy during World War II than about the Armenian tragedy in World War I, a traumatic topic that was difficult for her mother to talk about.

Feast of Ashes is the result of Moughalians quest to learn about her grandfather and his art pieces of which she began to seek out and collect and about the cruel persecution that shaped her familys fortunes.

She is not a professional writer; she is an accomplished flutist and artistic director of the Perspectives Ensemble. One manifestation of her inexperience that escaped the editors attention is her inconsistency in referring to her grandfather. She alternately calls him Tavit and Ohannessian, often in the same paragraph.

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Jerusalems other face - The Jerusalem Post

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January 30, 2020 at 4:46 am by Mr HomeBuilder
Category: Tile Work