Thread by @HistoricalJW

Jewish ethnic divisions - Syrian Jews (Thread)

Syrian Jews lived in 2 main cities: Damascus and Aleppo (Halab) for thousands of years. The Jews settled there during the period of the First Temple (586-1,000BCE) following Yoav ben Tzruya aka “Joab”, the army minister of King David who conquered parts of the area.

The Syrian Jews wandered between good life and crises according to the rules that changed every centuries. During the Mamluk period, Jews were forbidden to work in honorable, important and public positions, and some synagogues were even demolished and replaced with mosques.

During the Roman Empire, many Jews in Syria were murdered by pagans. During the Ottoman Empire rule in Syria, the Jews lived pretty well, in the 14th-16th centuries the community population’s grew bigger as many Jews were expelled from Spain and immigrated to Syria.

In 19th century, the situation of the Jews deteriorated, following the Damascus Affair. The Affair tells the Jews abducted a Christian monk murdered him & used his blood to bake matzah, the Jewish ‘defendants’ were arrested, tortured & the local synagogue in the city burned down.

This led to immigration of Syrian Jews out of the country, years later more Jews from the other big city Aleppo, immigrated to Mexico.
In 1920-1930 more Jews left Syria and immigrated to Palestine, apparently for Zionist reasons.

In 1936, a few of Syrian Jews were accused for Zionism, they were beaten and badly injured.
Later in 1947 as the UN announced about the new Jewish state of Israel, the Jewish Syrian then suffered from pogroms and discrimination as never before.

The Jews were deprived of their basic rights such as a driver's license, jobs, they couldn’t own telephones and were forbidden from buying property. Their synagogues that were among the oldest in the Middle East were burned, their homes were damaged.

100 Jews were murdered and hundreds were wounded.
Within about 3 years most of the Syrian population fled to Israel, US and Latin America.

The Syrian government then declared that Jews aren’t allowed to leave the country and their lives became an ongoing suffering when more laws were passed against them.

In 1954, the Syrian government temporarily lifted the ban on Jewish emigration as long as they wouldn’t immigrate to Israel and Jews who left had to leave all their property to the government. In the 1960s Jews couldn’t work in prestigious jobs in government and banks.

They couldn’t own properties, if a Jew wanted to travel aboard he had to pay 300-1,000$ to the government and his family would be used as hostages until he returned. Their freedom of movement was limited to 3 miles from their home.

In 1973, a Jewish human rights activist began an operation to smuggle Jews from Syria to Israel, America and Europe. About 4,000 Jews managed to escape but the situation put the Jews at great risk.

For example in 1974, 4 Jewish women who attempted to flee Israel were caught, raped & then murdered their bodies were discovered in a cave with more Jewish bodies.

The Syrian authorities, which didn’t show empathy or tolerance for the Jews, placed the bodies at the entrance to their parents' house.

When the Syrian president, Hafez Al Assad was asked why he doesn’t let the Jewish community leave, he said he doesn’t want them to live in Israel where they would be his enemies.

The last Jews of Aleppo were rescued by Israel in 2015, and in November 2019 the census determined that there are less than 20 Jews in Syria.
Their story is a tragedy, an ancient community with synagogues established thousands of years ago has came to an end.

Despite its history, Syrian Jews have established museums around the world in their communities to commemorate Syrian culture. Today, they still continue to cook traditional Syrian dishes and play Syrian Jewish prayers and songs.