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The Jewish Community of Syria

Syria

 سوريا‎ / Suryia
الجمهورية العربية السورية / Al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah - Syrian Arab Republic

A country in the Middle East. 

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: less than 100 out of 18,000,000

HISTORY

The Jews of Syria

66 | Identical Twins

The year 538 BCE was a formative one in the history of the Jewish people. Cyrus, King of Persia, granted the Jews the right to return to Judea and establish a national autonomy there. Following the “Cyrus Proclamation” some 50,000 Jews returned to Judea, from where they had been exiled 70 years prior to Babylon. The political and spiritual leadership in the country was assumed after a while by Ezra the Scribe, who was appointed by the Persian monarch “to hold a court of law in all of Syria and Phoenicia”.
Indeed, the timeline of Jewish settlement in Syria stretches back to biblical times. Later on, under the Seleucid empire (200-142 BCE) the Land of Israel and Syria were a single political unit, under the control of the Syrian-based dynasty which ruled from the city of Antioch, the administrative center of the Seleucid Empire (now known as Antakya in southern Turkey).
Proof of the demographic spread of Jews in Syria can be found in the words of Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria in the first century CE, who noted that the Roman governors of Syria were influenced by the multitude of Jews living in Syria. Another testimony is to be found in Josephus, who wrote that “The Jewish race […] is numerous there due to the proximity of both countries. It was in Antioch that they congregated in particular […] because the successors of King Antiochus (175-164 BCE) allowed them to live there in safety.”
The Romans, who conquered the eastern Mediterranean in the 60s BCE, gave the Jews in Syria fully equal rights, on par with the Hellenistic residents, and allowed them to send offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus further tells that many Hellenistic women living in the Syrian city of Damascus were drawn to the Jewish lifestyle, and that some of them kept the Sabbath and the ritual purity laws.
But all this did not prevent the Hellenistic population of the city to massacre the Jews upon the outbreak of the Jewish Great Revolt. According to various estimates, thousands of people were slaughtered then, almost the entire Jewish community of Damascus at the time.

630 | The Umar Laws

Some 20 years passed between the moment Muslim tradition holds that the Archangel Gabriel revealed himself and the Quran to Muhammad in a cave on Mt. Hira until Islam spread through the countries of Eastern Mediterranean coast by late 630 CE.
The Umayyad Caliphate, which led the Muslim world in the early days of Islamic conquest, chose the city of Damascus as the capital of its empire, and according to various sources, treated the Jews living there with relative tolerance.
Around the year 750 CE, when Syria was conquered by the Abbasid Caliphate, the treatment of the Jews changed. The burden of taxation was increased, and many of them were forced to convert to Islam. Eventually the legal status of the Jews was settled throughout the Muslim world under the “Pact of Umar” which defined Jews and Christians as “protected minorities” (“dhimmi”). Alongside freedom of religious practice the Jews were required to pay a poll tax and obey a series of humiliating rules, including the wearing of special shoes and dress to identify them, and the prohibition on riding horses and camels, limiting them to donkeys only.
As the Abbasid dynasty crumbled, Syria passed from hand to hand between various Muslim rulers, and their fortunes oscillated with each turn. In 969 the Fatimid dynasty conquered the Syrian lands and brought a positive approach to the Jews. The reason for this, according to various opinions, is that the first grand vizier of the Fatimids, Ya'qub ibn-Killis, was a Jew who converted to Islam but remained loyal to his people.
Ibn-Killis appointed a Jew, Menashe Ben-Abraham, to head the Syrian administration. Under his rule the Jews enjoyed prosperity and thrived, many of them abandoning traditional crafts for banking and trade.
The Jewish communities in Syria converged in several central cities, including Aleppo, Damascus and Tyre (now in Lebanon). During this time, the Jews of Syria held continual contact with the sages of the Land of Israel, who maintained exclusive authority over religious and lifestyle matters. Concurrently great Jewish scholars began to emerge in Syria as well. Most notable among these was Rabbi Baruch Ben Yitzhak, who served as the Chief Rabbi of Aleppo and composed enlightening commentary on the Talmud.

1170 | Impressions In A Travel Log

Traveler Benjamin of Tudela is considered one of the most important chroniclers of the Jewish communities of his time. His travels did not fail to lead him to the Jewish community of Syria.
According to his report, the main source of livelihood among the Jews of Syria was textile dyeing and glass manufacturing. Benjamin of Tudela also mentions that during this time a small group of Jews formed who engaged in international trade with considerable success. In addition, the great traveler tells us, following the conquests of the Turks and Seljuks who migrated from Central Asia, and then those of the Crusaders from Europe, the Rabbinical center of gravity also migrated from Israel to Damascus. But despite the honored presence of the new elite, the scholars of Damascus continued to adhere to the traditions of the Gaonim of Babylon.
In 1179 Syria was conquered by the great Muslim general Saladin, who instituted a tolerant approach to the Jews, allowing them in 1187 to return to Jerusalem upon his conquest of the holy city, ending 88 years of forced exile. The improved status of the Jews is also reflected in the notes of Hebrew-Spanish poet Yehudah Alharizi, who visited Syria in 1210. Alharizi meticulously documented the names of many Jewish physicians and government officials, especially in the communities of Damascus and Aleppo.


1400 | Going Native

Tamerlane (whose original name was Timur Lang, meaning “Timur The Lame”), is considered the father of the Uzbek nation and also one of the cruelest conquerors in history. His wrath was felt keenly by the Jews of Syria around the year 1400, when Tamerlane and his army invaded Syria, burned Damascus to the ground and took many of the Jewish community captive.
The community's recovery was slow and hard. Jewish travelers who visited Syria in the years after this catastrophe, such as Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, reported that the Jewish community of Syria numbered only around 1,200 families at the time.
Upon the Spanish Exile, Jews began to migrate east, mostly to Italy and Turkey, but also to Syria. The encounter between the Spanish exiles led to a cultural and religious clash. The Spanish Jews called the Syrian ones “Musta'arab”, as they found them too similar in culture to their Arab neighbors and were essentially accusing them of having “gone native”. Disputes between the two groups centered on language (the one spoken by the Spanish exiles being Ladino, of course), the customs, the dress, the form of prayer and more. As a result of the schism the Spanish Jews established separate synagogues and cemeteries in the large cities.

1516 | Church And State Relations

In 1516 a new era began in the history of Syria, following the conquest of most of the Middle East by the Ottoman Empire. This power ruled Syria for some 400 years, shaping its cultural, economic and social character.
As Ottoman society in all its various stripes was a religious one, it was run by the dictums of the various religions. This dictated the Ottoman urban organization, including the model of the Jewish community.
The community's chief rabbi (the Hakham Bashi) was appointed by a committee, which also appointed the members of the religious court. This last was in charge of most aspects of Jewish life – divorce, marriage, money disputes, building regulations and more. The members of the committee were appointed by a key based on wealth and status in the community, and positions on the committee were hereditary. This can be seen in the last names of the committee members, which remained unchanged for generations. The means by which the rabbinical verdicts were enforced were varied: from excommunication and fines to corporal punishment. Thus for instance we have the story of a father whose son's feet were caned by his teacher (the “Hakham”) and when the father protested to the “Hakham” about the caning, the latter sentenced the plaintive father to the same punishment.
Syria was home to many Jewish communities at the time, from the large ones in Damascus and Aleppo to those of Hama, Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon, Baalbek and Banias. During this time the ties were tightened between many Jewish communities throughout the Middle East, including those of Israel and Syria, as they were all under the same regime.

1666 | Messianic Pangs

In the 16th and 17th centuries Damascus became an important center of the Kabbalah teachings of Rabbi Isaac Lurie of Safed, mostly through the work of two highly influential figures who lived as neighbors in the city: Rabbi Hayyim Vital, Lurie's most prominent disciple, and poet and musician Rabbi Israel Najara.
Vital, who left Safed after Lurie's passing, settled in Damascus where he lived until his death. Vital attracted many students from Israel and other countries, and his tomb in Damascus was a pilgrimage site until the end of the 20th century. Vital began a Hasidic/Kabbalist tradition whereby a student commits his teacher's sayings to writing. He was followed in this by Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne, who documented the words of his teacher the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nathan, who spread the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and later Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who published the works of his father, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. The songs of Rabbi Israel Najara, which spread throughout the Jewish world, had an immense impact on the development of liturgical music and poetry and are considered a cornerstone of the supplication and Sabbath song repertoire to this day.
During this period Jewish communities all around the world suffered a severe crisis of faith due to various pogroms, chief among them those of Khmelnytsky in Ukraine in 1648. Against this backdrop of breakdown various messianic cults cropped up. One of these was founded by an eccentric young man from Izmir, Turkey by the name of Sabbatai Zevi, who presented himself as the fruition of messianic yearnings handed down for generations. The messianic cult of Zevi spread in 1666 to many countries, passing en route through Aleppo in Syria as well, where it gained numerous converts.

1740 | The Francos Foreigners' Colony

In the year 1740 a Jew by the name of Hillel Ben Shmuel Pijotto moved from Livorno in Italy to Aleppo in Syria. Many historians mark this as the moment when the Jews of Syria were exposed to the modern world and the changes it brought with it. The store established by the Pijotto family thrived and soon became one of the leading businesses in the area. Following his success other European Jews thronged to Damascus, earning the honorific “Sinioris Francos” from the local Jews.
The Francos, who mostly came from Livorno in Italy, established a traders' colony in Aleppo. As foreign subjects of a European power, the Francos were not beholden to the Ottoman discriminatory laws, and at first did not see themselves as part of the Jewish community, living instead in the European colony along with all the other foreign subjects. Slowly, however, the Francos integrated into the Jewish fabric of life, took part in the religious ceremonies, married local women, built families and settled in.
The Francos served as “carriers” of sorts of European culture to the Middle Eastern Jews. Their dress was different, the men shaved their beards and their approach to the status of women was more liberal than was usual in Syria. Their successful establishment laid the foundation for the penetration of modernity into the Jewish communities of Syria. This penetration took many forms, from changes to the community structure of the yeshivas, through the integration of local Jews in the international trade business, and finally the introduction of modern European education into Jewish institutions of learning in Syria.

1840 | The Damascus Libel

Many believe that the “Damascus Libel” was another expression of Western values penetrating the east. Indeed, alongside scientific progress and Enlightenment the Europeans also brought along with them prejudices rooted in ancient Christian stereotypes. The background and details of the affair are reminiscent of blood libels from Europe: A Christian monk and his Muslim servant had disappeared, and the Jews were accused of murdering them and using their blood to bake matza. Due to the libel senior figures in the Jewish community were arrested and tortured, and 63 children of age three to ten were abducted and tortured in an attempt to wring a confession from their parents. Among the figures to raise an outcry against the blood libel were Jewish-born poet Heinrich Heine and the Minister Moses Montefiore, who demanded that the Ottoman Sultan act to squash the blood libel.
Eventually it was the Rothschild family that ended the sad episode: The Rothschild's exposed documents detailing the affair and disseminated them through the international press. The exposure caused an uproar in global public opinion, and soon the seven prisoners still left alive after long months of severe torture were set free.
The “Damascus Libel” continued to influence Jewish-Arab relations in Syria until the end of the 20th century. In 1983, as the initial phase of the Lebanon War was winding down, the Syrian Minister of Defense Mustafa Tlass published a book titled “The Matza of Zion”, in which he repeated the Damascus Libel. The cover of the book carried a typical anti-Semitic drawing of a Jew eating a child, and the foreword stated that the “historical” events were still relevant. Tlass went on to argue against making peace with Israel and accused Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had done so, of having “sold his soul to the devil”.

1869 | Haves And Have-Nots

Had someone made a list of “The 100 richest in Damascus”, it is more than likely that it would have prominently featured several Jewish families. The wealth of around ten of the city's Jewish houses was immense by any measure. A traveler who visited their palatial homes wrote that “the beauty of the houses is beyond imagination, such as I had not seen even in England, the houses are coated in gold and each and every yard has water pools and trees”. Other travelers noted the unique dress of the upper class women, the plethora of diamonds and gems they wore. Another visitor refers to the daily excursions favored by the wealthy Jews, who rode through the city upon perfectly white asses (the equivalent of today's luxury cars).
However, the majority of the Jews in Damascus lived in great poverty. This is attested to by Karl Netter, the emissary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle network to Syria, who wrote in 1869 that “as opposed to a few very rich men, there are thousands of poor people who for lack of work and income are literally dying. Those wealthier than them sit in marble halls, surrounded by all delights, and the poor live in holes and hovels, a horrifying sight”.
The gaps between rich and poor in the large Jewish community of Aleppo were not so blatant, thanks to a broad middle class, and yet Aleppo too had displays of opulent living. Rabbi Avraham Antibi gives an amusing, if bitter voice to this phenomenon: “And we are witness to the phenomenon that even he who is not wealthy spends more than his means on fine clothing and jewelry for his wife. He is forced against his will to fulfill all of his wife's desires, for each woman is jealous of her neighbor. When she sees her neighbor wearing handsome garments she is seized by a fit of jealousy and desires to wear clothes as nice and fights with her husband, screaming at him night and day.” (citations from “By Ships of Fire to the West” by Yaron Harel.)

Average Population between 1840-1880 (from “By Ships of Fire to the West” by Yaron Harel)

City Muslims Christians Jews Jewish % of City Population
Damascus 110,000 16,000 6,500 5%
Aleppo 65,750 18,000 6,850 8%


1900 | A People Who Dwell Apart

In the early 20th century the Ottoman Empire grew constantly weaker, a result among others of corrupt sultans, bureaucratic decay and technological backwardness, as well as battlefield defeats. “The sick man of the Bosporus” the European powers disparagingly called it. These established the system of “capitulations” throughout the Ottoman Empire which granted special rights to their subjects, encroaching on the authority of the regime.
This development, alongside many Ottoman reforms in favor of the Jewish and Christian subjects, aroused hostility among Muslim society, reaching a fever pitch in 1860 in a massacre of the Christian population by their Muslim neighbors.
The extensive European economic activity in Syria, pushing out Muslim traders, as well as the regime's resistance to meaningful economic reform, led to the formation of Syrian national movements, which sought in the late 19th century to create an Arab state under the Sharif of Mecca.
Unlike their fellow-minority Christians, who sought to take part in the Syrian national awakening, the Jews chose to remain separate and maintain their communal identity, thus proving the biblical observation: “A people living apart, not reckoning themselves among the nations.” (Numbers 23:9)
In the mid-19th century an emigration wave began, leading Jews out of Aleppo. These emigrants established communities in Manchester, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Sao Paolo and in the United States as well, particularly in Brooklyn, New York. Others made their way to Beirut and to Cairo. The main reason for this was the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which boosted sea-borne commerce with Asia at the expense of the age-old land routes, upon which many Aleppo Jews depended for their livelihood.
At the same time the traditional structure of the Aleppo community grew weaker due to the inroads made by winds of secularism and Enlightenment from Europe. Some quintessential examples of this process were the establishment of an Alliance chain of schools, the attempt to establish a Reformed community in Aleppo and expressions of contempt towards the local rabbinical leadership. Most prominent among those defying the rabbinical hegemony were the wealthy Farkhi family of Damascus, of whom Rabbi Chaim Maimon wrote: “Indeed they do not obey the laws and they are extremely difficult.”

1925 | No Zionists Wanted

In 1908 the “Young Turks” revolution took place in Syria. Driven by a desire to assimilate the peoples of the empire into the Turkish nation, a military conscription duty was passed into law for non-Muslims as well in 1909. The law and its implication, as well as the disillusionment following false promises of equality and the alluring opportunities overseas, led to a second wave of emigration by Jews leaving Syria. Over the first decade of the 20th century some 2,000 young Jews departed from Syria, leaving their communities without a vanguard that was supposed to lead them into the modern age.
After the end of WW1, as part of the global game of Monopoly of Risk between the great powers, France received a mandate to rule Syria. The Syrian nationalists were not pleased, to put it mildly, and organized incitement campaigns that included mass demonstrations and violence. These reached a peak in 1925, with the revolt that broke out on Mt. Druze near Damascus. The revolt spread throughout the country, inevitably striking at the weakest link: the Jewish minority. An incited Arab mob entered the Jewish quarter in Damascus, caused immense damage to property and murdered passers-by. One of the causes of the violent outburst of hatred was opposition to the Zionist movement, which was growing stronger in the next-door Land of Israel, or Palestine. The Syrian nationalists identified with the Palestinian Arabs, and all proclamations of support by Jews in Syria were in vain: They were repeatedly accused of being Zionists.

1942 | Immigrants or Pioneers?

In 1932 some 10,000 Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel from the countries of Central Europe. At a January 19th, 1933 meeting of the governing council of Mapai, the leading worker's party which controlled the Jewish political scene, David Ben-Gurion said that Zionism had turned overnight “from a movement of pioneers, exemplary individuals, who made aliyah out of vision and faith, into a broad movement of rescue-seekers, a mass immigrant movement”. The barb directed by the labor leader towards the Jews of Germany, who moved to the Land of Israel out of self interest rather than ideology, was aimed equally at the Jewish immigration from Syria in those years.
However, although moving from Syria to the Land of Israel was easier than from most other places, only few seized the opportunity. It is estimated that the number of Syrian Jews who made aliyah until 1931 was about 1,250 people. The main reason for this was the benevolent treatment they enjoyed under the French mandate. This trend changed between 1932-1936, during which period every single year saw more immigrants than all preceding years combined. The reason for this was the global economic depression, which severely hurt the Syrian economy, whereas the situation in Palestine at the time was relatively good. “No bus leaves Damascus without Jewish passengers,” reported Eliyahu Cohen, a delegate from the Zionist leadership, in late 1934. Ironically, those responsible for the economic boom in the Land of Israel were the very German-Jewish immigrants whom Ben-Gurion disparaged, due to the industrial development they initiated and led.
Between 1936-1939 the Great Arab Revolt raged through the British mandate of Palestine, and did not go unnoticed by the nationalists in Syria. In 1942 the Jewish quarter in Damascus was attacked following false rumors that Syrian territories were to be annexed to a future Jewish state. Between 1938-1942 some 7,000 Jews made aliyah through the clandestine “Aliyah Bet” organization. The census held at the time in Syria lists about 30,000 Jews.

2000 | The Jewish Refugees of Syria

On November 29th, 1947 the UN approved the partition of the Land of Israel. Two days later an Arab mob set upon the Jewish quarters in the cities of Syria, torching synagogues and crying for vengeance against the Jews. Many of the Jews of Aleppo and Damascus fled to Beirut that very night, including many community leaders. From this year on the condition of Syria's Jews grew steadily worse. They became a persecuted and defenseless minority, deprived of basic civil rights, at the mercy of the Syrian regime and citizens.
On February 17th, 1949 the government of Syria sent a memo to the Arab League suggesting the confiscation of Jewish property throughout the Arab countries. Following the flight of the Jews hundreds of homes in the Jewish quarter in Damascus were abandoned, along with public buildings, schools, community structures and more. The Alliance schools, crown jewel of Jewish education, was impounded, and the palaces of the wealthy Damascus Jews were seized by the state.
On September 28th, 1961 the Syrian government was overthrown by military coup. At first the Jews enjoyed improved conditions under the new regime, but after about a year the restrictions, arrests and official harassment resumed. In 1965, after the capture and execution of Israeli undercover agent Eli Cohen, hostility towards the Jews of Syria increased. International organizations, including the Joint, assisted the Jews of Syria with financial aid and securing visas to the United States. The Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Agency appealed to international bodies and friendly nations requesting help to rebuild the lives of Syria's Jews. Between 1955-1962 some 2,500 Jews made aliyah from Syria.
In 1970 Hafez al-Assad ascended the presidency in Syria, inaugurating the rule of the Alawites in Syria. Towards the end of his reign, at the turn of the century, the remaining Jews in Syria were allowed to leave the country, and most migrated to the United States. By the beginning of the 21st century there were only a few dozen Jews left in Syria.

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The Jewish Community of Syria

Syria

 سوريا‎ / Suryia
الجمهورية العربية السورية / Al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah - Syrian Arab Republic

A country in the Middle East. 

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: less than 100 out of 18,000,000

HISTORY

The Jews of Syria

66 | Identical Twins

The year 538 BCE was a formative one in the history of the Jewish people. Cyrus, King of Persia, granted the Jews the right to return to Judea and establish a national autonomy there. Following the “Cyrus Proclamation” some 50,000 Jews returned to Judea, from where they had been exiled 70 years prior to Babylon. The political and spiritual leadership in the country was assumed after a while by Ezra the Scribe, who was appointed by the Persian monarch “to hold a court of law in all of Syria and Phoenicia”.
Indeed, the timeline of Jewish settlement in Syria stretches back to biblical times. Later on, under the Seleucid empire (200-142 BCE) the Land of Israel and Syria were a single political unit, under the control of the Syrian-based dynasty which ruled from the city of Antioch, the administrative center of the Seleucid Empire (now known as Antakya in southern Turkey).
Proof of the demographic spread of Jews in Syria can be found in the words of Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria in the first century CE, who noted that the Roman governors of Syria were influenced by the multitude of Jews living in Syria. Another testimony is to be found in Josephus, who wrote that “The Jewish race […] is numerous there due to the proximity of both countries. It was in Antioch that they congregated in particular […] because the successors of King Antiochus (175-164 BCE) allowed them to live there in safety.”
The Romans, who conquered the eastern Mediterranean in the 60s BCE, gave the Jews in Syria fully equal rights, on par with the Hellenistic residents, and allowed them to send offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus further tells that many Hellenistic women living in the Syrian city of Damascus were drawn to the Jewish lifestyle, and that some of them kept the Sabbath and the ritual purity laws.
But all this did not prevent the Hellenistic population of the city to massacre the Jews upon the outbreak of the Jewish Great Revolt. According to various estimates, thousands of people were slaughtered then, almost the entire Jewish community of Damascus at the time.

630 | The Umar Laws

Some 20 years passed between the moment Muslim tradition holds that the Archangel Gabriel revealed himself and the Quran to Muhammad in a cave on Mt. Hira until Islam spread through the countries of Eastern Mediterranean coast by late 630 CE.
The Umayyad Caliphate, which led the Muslim world in the early days of Islamic conquest, chose the city of Damascus as the capital of its empire, and according to various sources, treated the Jews living there with relative tolerance.
Around the year 750 CE, when Syria was conquered by the Abbasid Caliphate, the treatment of the Jews changed. The burden of taxation was increased, and many of them were forced to convert to Islam. Eventually the legal status of the Jews was settled throughout the Muslim world under the “Pact of Umar” which defined Jews and Christians as “protected minorities” (“dhimmi”). Alongside freedom of religious practice the Jews were required to pay a poll tax and obey a series of humiliating rules, including the wearing of special shoes and dress to identify them, and the prohibition on riding horses and camels, limiting them to donkeys only.
As the Abbasid dynasty crumbled, Syria passed from hand to hand between various Muslim rulers, and their fortunes oscillated with each turn. In 969 the Fatimid dynasty conquered the Syrian lands and brought a positive approach to the Jews. The reason for this, according to various opinions, is that the first grand vizier of the Fatimids, Ya'qub ibn-Killis, was a Jew who converted to Islam but remained loyal to his people.
Ibn-Killis appointed a Jew, Menashe Ben-Abraham, to head the Syrian administration. Under his rule the Jews enjoyed prosperity and thrived, many of them abandoning traditional crafts for banking and trade.
The Jewish communities in Syria converged in several central cities, including Aleppo, Damascus and Tyre (now in Lebanon). During this time, the Jews of Syria held continual contact with the sages of the Land of Israel, who maintained exclusive authority over religious and lifestyle matters. Concurrently great Jewish scholars began to emerge in Syria as well. Most notable among these was Rabbi Baruch Ben Yitzhak, who served as the Chief Rabbi of Aleppo and composed enlightening commentary on the Talmud.

1170 | Impressions In A Travel Log

Traveler Benjamin of Tudela is considered one of the most important chroniclers of the Jewish communities of his time. His travels did not fail to lead him to the Jewish community of Syria.
According to his report, the main source of livelihood among the Jews of Syria was textile dyeing and glass manufacturing. Benjamin of Tudela also mentions that during this time a small group of Jews formed who engaged in international trade with considerable success. In addition, the great traveler tells us, following the conquests of the Turks and Seljuks who migrated from Central Asia, and then those of the Crusaders from Europe, the Rabbinical center of gravity also migrated from Israel to Damascus. But despite the honored presence of the new elite, the scholars of Damascus continued to adhere to the traditions of the Gaonim of Babylon.
In 1179 Syria was conquered by the great Muslim general Saladin, who instituted a tolerant approach to the Jews, allowing them in 1187 to return to Jerusalem upon his conquest of the holy city, ending 88 years of forced exile. The improved status of the Jews is also reflected in the notes of Hebrew-Spanish poet Yehudah Alharizi, who visited Syria in 1210. Alharizi meticulously documented the names of many Jewish physicians and government officials, especially in the communities of Damascus and Aleppo.


1400 | Going Native

Tamerlane (whose original name was Timur Lang, meaning “Timur The Lame”), is considered the father of the Uzbek nation and also one of the cruelest conquerors in history. His wrath was felt keenly by the Jews of Syria around the year 1400, when Tamerlane and his army invaded Syria, burned Damascus to the ground and took many of the Jewish community captive.
The community's recovery was slow and hard. Jewish travelers who visited Syria in the years after this catastrophe, such as Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura, reported that the Jewish community of Syria numbered only around 1,200 families at the time.
Upon the Spanish Exile, Jews began to migrate east, mostly to Italy and Turkey, but also to Syria. The encounter between the Spanish exiles led to a cultural and religious clash. The Spanish Jews called the Syrian ones “Musta'arab”, as they found them too similar in culture to their Arab neighbors and were essentially accusing them of having “gone native”. Disputes between the two groups centered on language (the one spoken by the Spanish exiles being Ladino, of course), the customs, the dress, the form of prayer and more. As a result of the schism the Spanish Jews established separate synagogues and cemeteries in the large cities.

1516 | Church And State Relations

In 1516 a new era began in the history of Syria, following the conquest of most of the Middle East by the Ottoman Empire. This power ruled Syria for some 400 years, shaping its cultural, economic and social character.
As Ottoman society in all its various stripes was a religious one, it was run by the dictums of the various religions. This dictated the Ottoman urban organization, including the model of the Jewish community.
The community's chief rabbi (the Hakham Bashi) was appointed by a committee, which also appointed the members of the religious court. This last was in charge of most aspects of Jewish life – divorce, marriage, money disputes, building regulations and more. The members of the committee were appointed by a key based on wealth and status in the community, and positions on the committee were hereditary. This can be seen in the last names of the committee members, which remained unchanged for generations. The means by which the rabbinical verdicts were enforced were varied: from excommunication and fines to corporal punishment. Thus for instance we have the story of a father whose son's feet were caned by his teacher (the “Hakham”) and when the father protested to the “Hakham” about the caning, the latter sentenced the plaintive father to the same punishment.
Syria was home to many Jewish communities at the time, from the large ones in Damascus and Aleppo to those of Hama, Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon, Baalbek and Banias. During this time the ties were tightened between many Jewish communities throughout the Middle East, including those of Israel and Syria, as they were all under the same regime.

1666 | Messianic Pangs

In the 16th and 17th centuries Damascus became an important center of the Kabbalah teachings of Rabbi Isaac Lurie of Safed, mostly through the work of two highly influential figures who lived as neighbors in the city: Rabbi Hayyim Vital, Lurie's most prominent disciple, and poet and musician Rabbi Israel Najara.
Vital, who left Safed after Lurie's passing, settled in Damascus where he lived until his death. Vital attracted many students from Israel and other countries, and his tomb in Damascus was a pilgrimage site until the end of the 20th century. Vital began a Hasidic/Kabbalist tradition whereby a student commits his teacher's sayings to writing. He was followed in this by Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne, who documented the words of his teacher the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nathan, who spread the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and later Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who published the works of his father, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. The songs of Rabbi Israel Najara, which spread throughout the Jewish world, had an immense impact on the development of liturgical music and poetry and are considered a cornerstone of the supplication and Sabbath song repertoire to this day.
During this period Jewish communities all around the world suffered a severe crisis of faith due to various pogroms, chief among them those of Khmelnytsky in Ukraine in 1648. Against this backdrop of breakdown various messianic cults cropped up. One of these was founded by an eccentric young man from Izmir, Turkey by the name of Sabbatai Zevi, who presented himself as the fruition of messianic yearnings handed down for generations. The messianic cult of Zevi spread in 1666 to many countries, passing en route through Aleppo in Syria as well, where it gained numerous converts.

1740 | The Francos Foreigners' Colony

In the year 1740 a Jew by the name of Hillel Ben Shmuel Pijotto moved from Livorno in Italy to Aleppo in Syria. Many historians mark this as the moment when the Jews of Syria were exposed to the modern world and the changes it brought with it. The store established by the Pijotto family thrived and soon became one of the leading businesses in the area. Following his success other European Jews thronged to Damascus, earning the honorific “Sinioris Francos” from the local Jews.
The Francos, who mostly came from Livorno in Italy, established a traders' colony in Aleppo. As foreign subjects of a European power, the Francos were not beholden to the Ottoman discriminatory laws, and at first did not see themselves as part of the Jewish community, living instead in the European colony along with all the other foreign subjects. Slowly, however, the Francos integrated into the Jewish fabric of life, took part in the religious ceremonies, married local women, built families and settled in.
The Francos served as “carriers” of sorts of European culture to the Middle Eastern Jews. Their dress was different, the men shaved their beards and their approach to the status of women was more liberal than was usual in Syria. Their successful establishment laid the foundation for the penetration of modernity into the Jewish communities of Syria. This penetration took many forms, from changes to the community structure of the yeshivas, through the integration of local Jews in the international trade business, and finally the introduction of modern European education into Jewish institutions of learning in Syria.

1840 | The Damascus Libel

Many believe that the “Damascus Libel” was another expression of Western values penetrating the east. Indeed, alongside scientific progress and Enlightenment the Europeans also brought along with them prejudices rooted in ancient Christian stereotypes. The background and details of the affair are reminiscent of blood libels from Europe: A Christian monk and his Muslim servant had disappeared, and the Jews were accused of murdering them and using their blood to bake matza. Due to the libel senior figures in the Jewish community were arrested and tortured, and 63 children of age three to ten were abducted and tortured in an attempt to wring a confession from their parents. Among the figures to raise an outcry against the blood libel were Jewish-born poet Heinrich Heine and the Minister Moses Montefiore, who demanded that the Ottoman Sultan act to squash the blood libel.
Eventually it was the Rothschild family that ended the sad episode: The Rothschild's exposed documents detailing the affair and disseminated them through the international press. The exposure caused an uproar in global public opinion, and soon the seven prisoners still left alive after long months of severe torture were set free.
The “Damascus Libel” continued to influence Jewish-Arab relations in Syria until the end of the 20th century. In 1983, as the initial phase of the Lebanon War was winding down, the Syrian Minister of Defense Mustafa Tlass published a book titled “The Matza of Zion”, in which he repeated the Damascus Libel. The cover of the book carried a typical anti-Semitic drawing of a Jew eating a child, and the foreword stated that the “historical” events were still relevant. Tlass went on to argue against making peace with Israel and accused Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had done so, of having “sold his soul to the devil”.

1869 | Haves And Have-Nots

Had someone made a list of “The 100 richest in Damascus”, it is more than likely that it would have prominently featured several Jewish families. The wealth of around ten of the city's Jewish houses was immense by any measure. A traveler who visited their palatial homes wrote that “the beauty of the houses is beyond imagination, such as I had not seen even in England, the houses are coated in gold and each and every yard has water pools and trees”. Other travelers noted the unique dress of the upper class women, the plethora of diamonds and gems they wore. Another visitor refers to the daily excursions favored by the wealthy Jews, who rode through the city upon perfectly white asses (the equivalent of today's luxury cars).
However, the majority of the Jews in Damascus lived in great poverty. This is attested to by Karl Netter, the emissary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle network to Syria, who wrote in 1869 that “as opposed to a few very rich men, there are thousands of poor people who for lack of work and income are literally dying. Those wealthier than them sit in marble halls, surrounded by all delights, and the poor live in holes and hovels, a horrifying sight”.
The gaps between rich and poor in the large Jewish community of Aleppo were not so blatant, thanks to a broad middle class, and yet Aleppo too had displays of opulent living. Rabbi Avraham Antibi gives an amusing, if bitter voice to this phenomenon: “And we are witness to the phenomenon that even he who is not wealthy spends more than his means on fine clothing and jewelry for his wife. He is forced against his will to fulfill all of his wife's desires, for each woman is jealous of her neighbor. When she sees her neighbor wearing handsome garments she is seized by a fit of jealousy and desires to wear clothes as nice and fights with her husband, screaming at him night and day.” (citations from “By Ships of Fire to the West” by Yaron Harel.)

Average Population between 1840-1880 (from “By Ships of Fire to the West” by Yaron Harel)

City Muslims Christians Jews Jewish % of City Population
Damascus 110,000 16,000 6,500 5%
Aleppo 65,750 18,000 6,850 8%


1900 | A People Who Dwell Apart

In the early 20th century the Ottoman Empire grew constantly weaker, a result among others of corrupt sultans, bureaucratic decay and technological backwardness, as well as battlefield defeats. “The sick man of the Bosporus” the European powers disparagingly called it. These established the system of “capitulations” throughout the Ottoman Empire which granted special rights to their subjects, encroaching on the authority of the regime.
This development, alongside many Ottoman reforms in favor of the Jewish and Christian subjects, aroused hostility among Muslim society, reaching a fever pitch in 1860 in a massacre of the Christian population by their Muslim neighbors.
The extensive European economic activity in Syria, pushing out Muslim traders, as well as the regime's resistance to meaningful economic reform, led to the formation of Syrian national movements, which sought in the late 19th century to create an Arab state under the Sharif of Mecca.
Unlike their fellow-minority Christians, who sought to take part in the Syrian national awakening, the Jews chose to remain separate and maintain their communal identity, thus proving the biblical observation: “A people living apart, not reckoning themselves among the nations.” (Numbers 23:9)
In the mid-19th century an emigration wave began, leading Jews out of Aleppo. These emigrants established communities in Manchester, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Sao Paolo and in the United States as well, particularly in Brooklyn, New York. Others made their way to Beirut and to Cairo. The main reason for this was the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which boosted sea-borne commerce with Asia at the expense of the age-old land routes, upon which many Aleppo Jews depended for their livelihood.
At the same time the traditional structure of the Aleppo community grew weaker due to the inroads made by winds of secularism and Enlightenment from Europe. Some quintessential examples of this process were the establishment of an Alliance chain of schools, the attempt to establish a Reformed community in Aleppo and expressions of contempt towards the local rabbinical leadership. Most prominent among those defying the rabbinical hegemony were the wealthy Farkhi family of Damascus, of whom Rabbi Chaim Maimon wrote: “Indeed they do not obey the laws and they are extremely difficult.”

1925 | No Zionists Wanted

In 1908 the “Young Turks” revolution took place in Syria. Driven by a desire to assimilate the peoples of the empire into the Turkish nation, a military conscription duty was passed into law for non-Muslims as well in 1909. The law and its implication, as well as the disillusionment following false promises of equality and the alluring opportunities overseas, led to a second wave of emigration by Jews leaving Syria. Over the first decade of the 20th century some 2,000 young Jews departed from Syria, leaving their communities without a vanguard that was supposed to lead them into the modern age.
After the end of WW1, as part of the global game of Monopoly of Risk between the great powers, France received a mandate to rule Syria. The Syrian nationalists were not pleased, to put it mildly, and organized incitement campaigns that included mass demonstrations and violence. These reached a peak in 1925, with the revolt that broke out on Mt. Druze near Damascus. The revolt spread throughout the country, inevitably striking at the weakest link: the Jewish minority. An incited Arab mob entered the Jewish quarter in Damascus, caused immense damage to property and murdered passers-by. One of the causes of the violent outburst of hatred was opposition to the Zionist movement, which was growing stronger in the next-door Land of Israel, or Palestine. The Syrian nationalists identified with the Palestinian Arabs, and all proclamations of support by Jews in Syria were in vain: They were repeatedly accused of being Zionists.

1942 | Immigrants or Pioneers?

In 1932 some 10,000 Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel from the countries of Central Europe. At a January 19th, 1933 meeting of the governing council of Mapai, the leading worker's party which controlled the Jewish political scene, David Ben-Gurion said that Zionism had turned overnight “from a movement of pioneers, exemplary individuals, who made aliyah out of vision and faith, into a broad movement of rescue-seekers, a mass immigrant movement”. The barb directed by the labor leader towards the Jews of Germany, who moved to the Land of Israel out of self interest rather than ideology, was aimed equally at the Jewish immigration from Syria in those years.
However, although moving from Syria to the Land of Israel was easier than from most other places, only few seized the opportunity. It is estimated that the number of Syrian Jews who made aliyah until 1931 was about 1,250 people. The main reason for this was the benevolent treatment they enjoyed under the French mandate. This trend changed between 1932-1936, during which period every single year saw more immigrants than all preceding years combined. The reason for this was the global economic depression, which severely hurt the Syrian economy, whereas the situation in Palestine at the time was relatively good. “No bus leaves Damascus without Jewish passengers,” reported Eliyahu Cohen, a delegate from the Zionist leadership, in late 1934. Ironically, those responsible for the economic boom in the Land of Israel were the very German-Jewish immigrants whom Ben-Gurion disparaged, due to the industrial development they initiated and led.
Between 1936-1939 the Great Arab Revolt raged through the British mandate of Palestine, and did not go unnoticed by the nationalists in Syria. In 1942 the Jewish quarter in Damascus was attacked following false rumors that Syrian territories were to be annexed to a future Jewish state. Between 1938-1942 some 7,000 Jews made aliyah through the clandestine “Aliyah Bet” organization. The census held at the time in Syria lists about 30,000 Jews.

2000 | The Jewish Refugees of Syria

On November 29th, 1947 the UN approved the partition of the Land of Israel. Two days later an Arab mob set upon the Jewish quarters in the cities of Syria, torching synagogues and crying for vengeance against the Jews. Many of the Jews of Aleppo and Damascus fled to Beirut that very night, including many community leaders. From this year on the condition of Syria's Jews grew steadily worse. They became a persecuted and defenseless minority, deprived of basic civil rights, at the mercy of the Syrian regime and citizens.
On February 17th, 1949 the government of Syria sent a memo to the Arab League suggesting the confiscation of Jewish property throughout the Arab countries. Following the flight of the Jews hundreds of homes in the Jewish quarter in Damascus were abandoned, along with public buildings, schools, community structures and more. The Alliance schools, crown jewel of Jewish education, was impounded, and the palaces of the wealthy Damascus Jews were seized by the state.
On September 28th, 1961 the Syrian government was overthrown by military coup. At first the Jews enjoyed improved conditions under the new regime, but after about a year the restrictions, arrests and official harassment resumed. In 1965, after the capture and execution of Israeli undercover agent Eli Cohen, hostility towards the Jews of Syria increased. International organizations, including the Joint, assisted the Jews of Syria with financial aid and securing visas to the United States. The Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Agency appealed to international bodies and friendly nations requesting help to rebuild the lives of Syria's Jews. Between 1955-1962 some 2,500 Jews made aliyah from Syria.
In 1970 Hafez al-Assad ascended the presidency in Syria, inaugurating the rule of the Alawites in Syria. Towards the end of his reign, at the turn of the century, the remaining Jews in Syria were allowed to leave the country, and most migrated to the United States. By the beginning of the 21st century there were only a few dozen Jews left in Syria.

Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People