LOS ANGELES — Prof. Osheen Keshishian, well-known intellectual, educator, and journalist in the California Armenian community, passed away on Monday, October 19, 2026, after a short illness in Los Angeles.
Osheen was born in Jerusalem on November 30, 1934. He attended the Holy Translators school there until 1948, the Arab-Israeli war, when his family first fled to Amman, Jordan and a year later to Beirut, Lebanon.
Osheen graduated from the Armenian General Benevolent Union’s Hovagimian-Manougian high school for boys in 1955. He attended the American University of Beirut for one year and then immigrated to the United States of America, settling in California.
Osheen graduated from California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of La Verne with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Anthropology and American Studies. He served in the US Army for two years, 1959-61, as a medic, working in Madigan General Hospital, outside Lakewood, Washington.
Osheen was the owner and editor-in-chief of the English language weekly newspaper The Armenian Observer, which began publication in 1970 and continued till 2023. In the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, he was the editor of the first Diocesan-wide newspaper, the Californian. He worked as a professor in the Language Department of Los Angeles City College, following which, he was on the faculty of Glendale Community College from 1985 for 27 years.
Osheen was a member of the Central Board of the Tekeyan Cultural Association of the United States and Canada for a number of years. He was also a long-time member of the Board of Trustees of the Tekeyan Cultural Association Arshag Dickranian school in Los Angeles.
