This story of the Armenian Jews, which spans more than 2,000 years in the South Caucasus, is one of profound cultural integration, tenacity, and distinctive coexistence rather than one of vast numbers. It demonstrates how two ancient peoples, each with a history of displacement and survival, coexisted on the same territory. Jews have lived in Armenia since the first century BCE. Tigranes the Great, the Armenian king, extended his dominion into the Levant. To promote trade and urban growth, he sent thousands of Jewish prisoners from Judea to Armenia after his return. These early Jewish communities were an important component of the kingdom's merchant class by settling in prosperous Armenian commercial hubs like Artashat and Vagharshapat. In the fourth century, this flourishing first phase came to a sudden end. Tens of thousands of Jewish families were exiled to Iran after the Persian King Shapur II invaded Armenia and devastated the country.

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There was almost no written record of Jewish life in mediaeval Armenia for centuries after the Persian exile. Things changed in the 1990s with a groundbreaking archaeological finding. Researchers discovered a flawlessly preserved Jewish cemetery from the 13th century in the southern Armenian town of Yeghegis. Sixty tombstones, with legible Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions, were found at the town. The results demonstrate that during the Mongol era, an affluent and self-governing Jewish community coexisted peacefully under the protection of local Christian Armenian princes.

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Due to regional geopolitical changes, Jewish life in Armenia saw a resurgence in the 19th and 20th centuries after centuries of decline. Russian Subbotniks, ethnic Russians who converted to Judaism, fled to Armenia in the 1800s to avoid religious persecution under the Tsarist government. A fresh group of Jewish professionals arrived after World War II. To aid in the reconstruction of the Soviet republic, academics, scientists, and engineers from Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia relocated to Yerevan. Despite being predominantly secular and Russian-speaking, this group was well educated and extremely integrated.

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The deliberate eradication of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917, which claimed almost 1.2 million lives, is known as the Armenian Genocide. The impact on Jewish communities differed depending on whether they were in Ottoman territory or over the border in Russian-controlled territory (Eastern Armenia) because the events occurred inside the Ottoman Empire (historic Western Armenia). The Ottoman Empire's sharp fall and the rise of the nationalist "Young Turks" administration, which aimed to homogenise Anatolia, were catalysts for genocide. The Ottoman Empire sided with Germany when World War I broke out in 1914. The government wrongly accused the Christian Armenian minority of being a wartime traitor after suffering a significant military setback against Russia. The genocide began on April 24, 1915, when hundreds of Armenian leaders and intellectuals were apprehended in Constantinople and killed. Millions of Armenians were methodically deprived of their belongings under the Tehcir Law and made to march brutally through the Syrian desert in the direction of detention camps without access to food or water. Planned massacres, sickness, and malnutrition claimed the lives of about 1.5 million Armenians. The survivors scattered globally, creating the modern Armenian diaspora.​