They could leave Syria only on the condition that they leave members of their family behind. Thus the community lived under siege, constantly under fearful surveillance of the secret police. This much was allowed due to an international effort to secure the human rights of the Jews, the changing world order, and the Syrian need for Western support; so the conditions of the Jews improved somewhat. Prior to the initiation of the peace process in the Middle East, the Syrian Jewish community was deprived of many basic human and civil rights.
Those who attempted to flee across the borders illegally were usually caught, arrested, and cruelly tortured in the dungeons of the secret police. The plight of Syrian Jewry became an international human rights issue in the mids.
The United States, Canada, and France played leading roles in the efforts to bring justice to the community. The Madrid Conference in was the turning point for the Jewish community.
American and Israeli pressure succeeded in convincing the Syrian government to declare that Jews could leave freely. For up to date information on Kosher restaurants and locations please see the Shamash Kosher Database. I Accept. Mandatory cookies. Some Syrians still remember how in the years before the outbreak of the civil war, a handful of Jews gathered for services in the Eliyahu Hanavi synagogue in downtown Damascus.
But today, it is unclear if there are any Jews left in the country. Last year, a resident of Qamishli, a town in the north of Syria, told The Times of Israel that they would openly embrace any Jews who chose to return. Years ago, there were many Jewish families that used to live with us in peace. It is unclear what exactly Putin was referring to when he spoke about cooperating with local Jews about restoring their shrines.
In the Middle Ages, Syria was home to one of the largest Jewish settlements in the world, with most living in the Damascus area. The community was granted citizen rights equal to those of the Greeks ibid. Apion , where these rights were granted by the founder of the city, Seleucus I Nicator , and this probably caused considerable envy of the Jews, which erupted into violence upon the declaration in Palestine of the great war against Rome 66 C.
Jewish influence was also felt in Damascus , where a majority of the female Greek population had strong leanings toward Judaism. This, however, did not prevent the Greeks of that city from slaughtering the entire Jewish population of 10, with the outbreak of the Jewish-Roman War Wars The Mishnah states that: "He who buys land in Syria is as one who buys in the outskirts of Jerusalem " Hal.
Eliezer declares their produce liable to tithes and subject to the Sabbatical laws, but R. Gamaliel declares it exempt" ibid. Numerous tannaitic traditions discuss the particular halakhic status of Syria cf.
Peah Nevertheless, the Jews of Syria probably considered themselves part of the Diaspora, and this would explain not only financial support of the Palestinian rabbis, but also the fact that a number of Syrian Jews were brought to Bet Shearim for burial.
As far as can be deduced from the writings of Arab historians the Jews of Syria did not occupy a position of prominence at the time of the conquest of the country by the Arabs during the s.
There is, however, no doubt that they preferred the conquerors, as did most of the population, to the Byzantine rulers. In the history of the conquest related by the Arab historians the Jews are occasionally mentioned among the groups of the population who negotiated with the Arabs; they were included in the surrender treaty of Damascus in Later, when the inhabitants of Tripoli fled to Byzantium, the Arabs placed a Jewish garrison in this important coastal town.
With the Arab conquest the situation of the Jews was improved in comparison to the former servitude and religious coercion. The Umayyad dynasty, which chose Damascus as the capital of the Muslim empire, treated non-Muslims with tolerance. With the advent of the Abbasids there was a decisive change in the attitude of the Muslim kingdom toward Jews and Christians — a situation which was acutely felt in Syria.
The burden of the taxes was increased and growing pressure was exerted on non-Muslim groups to convert to Islam. During this period the Muslim authorities began to issue decrees against Jews and Christians, e.
Map of Major Jewish communities in Syria. The disintegration of the Abbasid caliphate began in the early ninth century. For a period of four centuries Syria became the scene of a struggle between various dynasties and the Jews, like the remainder of the population, suffered greatly.
The local rulers and the governors of the caliphs who often regained control over Syria were incapable, for example, of preventing the invasion of the Karmatian hordes from Bahrain or of the Byzantines who penetrated into the country on several occasions and devastated it.
In spite of this the tenth century was a period of numerical growth and economic progress for the Jewish population of Syria. The ruin which at the time befell Iraq as a result of the political chaos prompted many of its Jews to immigrate to other countries, and a considerable number settled in Syria. The emigrants retained their identity and founded their own synagogues in the towns where their numbers were considerable. The Jews then began to play an important role in commerce and banking, even though most of them were craftsmen.
Immediately after their conquest of Egypt the Fatimids sent their armies to Syria, which they also succeeded in annexing. Their control over Syria, however, was unstable and the northern regions detached themselves from their authority after a short while. The period of Fatimid rule over southern Syria was a prosperous one for the Jewish communities. The first vizier of the Fatimids, Jacob Ibn Killis , a Jew who converted to Islam but remained loyal to his former coreligionists, appointed a Jew, Manasseh b.
He utilized his powers on behalf of the Jews and granted many of them positions in government. In several towns synagogues were destroyed or converted into mosques. The Jews of Syria maintained regular contact with the Palestine academy and were guided by its leaders in all religious affairs. The communities of Syria themselves produced eminent scholars during the 11 th century, among them R.
Baruch b. Isaac , who was rabbi in Aleppo during the second half of the century and wrote commentaries on the Gemara , as well as other intellectuals who wrote florid poems in Hebrew. During the s the Seljuk armies invaded and conquered Syria, with the exception of the coastal strip to the south of Tripoli.
At the close of the century the crusaders arrived in Syria and conquered the coastal strip. Many Jews fled to towns in the interior of Syria, which remained under Muslim domination.
Benjamin of Tudela, the 12 th -century traveler, provides statistics on the number of the Jewish inhabitants in the towns of Syria, many of whom he states were dyers. The Jews of Antioch and Tyre also engaged in the manufacture of glass, and other sources confirm that many of the Jews of Tyre earned their livelihood in this industry. Jews in Tyre were also engaged in international commerce.
The spiritual and religious life of the Jews of Syria was concentrated around the academy, which Solomon, son of the Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen , had transferred to Damascus.
The academy continued to exist for several generations and its leaders were known as geonim. During the s it was headed by Abraham b. Mazhir and then by his son Ezra , whom Benjamin of Tudela met.
These heads of academies were the final authority in all matters pertaining to religious life, and the descendants of the Babylonian exilarchs , who were referred to by the title of nasi , also played a role in the leadership of the Jewish population. Saladin and his successors, who belonged to the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty, were not inclined to persecute non-Muslims and permitted Jews to return to Jerusalem in after they had conquered the city from the crusaders.
Indeed the situation of the Jews improved during this period as a result of the lenient attitude of the Ayyubids and the economic prosperity of the state, owing to the close commercial ties with European countries, notably the Italian commercial colonies of the coastal towns. In Syria was invaded by the Mongols , led by Hulagu Khan. They carried out massacres in several towns, but it appears that Jews, like Christians, suffered less than Muslims. In Arab historians' reports of the conquest it is indicated that the great synagogue in the town of Aleppo was one of the refuges which remained untouched by the Mongols and that all the Jews who had escaped to this place were saved.
There was no bloodshed in Damascus since the town surrendered to the Mongols. The two largest Jewish communities in Syria thus remained unharmed. From then until the beginning of the 16 th century the Mamluk sultans ruled Syria. The Mamluks were inclined to accede to the requests of the Muslim theologians and frequently issued decrees against the non-Muslim communities, such as those pertaining to clothing and the dismissal of Jewish and Christian officials from government service The Mamluks, however, were unable to administer their affairs without the assistance of experienced officials and these were therefore restored to their positions after a short while.
Yet these decrees intensified conversion to Islam within the non-Muslim intellectual classes. After the Mamluks conquered Acre and the other coastal towns which had remained in the hands of the Crusaders , they destroyed them so that they would not provide a foothold in the event of further invasions from the sea. The ancient communities in these towns, such as the large community of Tyre, thus disappeared. The Jews probably settled in Damascus and Aleppo, where from that time the majority of the Jewish population of Syria resided.
The deputy of the nagid of Cairo, whose status was recognized by the Muslim authorities, stood at the head of the Jewish community in Syria, as did the nesi'im of the House of David, who were known as exilarchs. On the occasion of the controversy between the kabbalists of Acre and R. David Shimoni during the s, the exilarch of Damascus, R.
Jesse b. During the second half of the 14 th century there were frequent changes in the leadership of the Mamluk State and certain rulers once more found it necessary to resort to decrees against the non-Muslim communities in order to mollify their subjects; in the decrees of see above were reintroduced in Syria.
One of the officials, the Karaite Moses b. Samuel of Damascus, later expressed his experiences in Hebrew poems, particularly on how he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the retinue of a Mamluk minister. Non-Muslim officials were returned to their positions after a short while, but Muslim fanatics occasionally induced the authorities to renew the discriminatory decrees and thus caused Jews and Christians much suffering.
At the close of the Mongolian leader, Timur Lank Tamerlane , invaded Syria with a powerful army, captured Aleppo, massacring its people, and then plundered Hama and Damascus.
Before he returned to Central Asia his troops burned Damascus, while many craftsmen were taken captive and exiled to Samarkand. Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew sources indicate that the fate of the Jews was no different from that of the other inhabitants; many of them were killed or exiled.
The Jewish population recovered very slowly from these misfortunes. During the 15 th century trade in the region prospered once more and European merchants returned to Syria to buy spices and other goods from the Far East. Most Syrian Jews were craftsmen and small merchants, a certain number of whom were living in poverty. Extant information on the size of the Jewish community, which was recorded by Jewish travelers of the late 15 th century, confirms its impoverishment during the Mamluk period.
According to the writings of R. Joseph de Montagnana, R. Meshullam of Volterra, R. Obadiah of Bertinoro, and an anonymous traveler from Italy, there were about — families in Damascus apart from Karaites and Samaritans.
The above-mentioned travelers left no data on other communities, with the exception of R. Obadiah of Bertinoro, who points out that there were families in Tripoli. Thus, the Jewish population of Syria consisted of not more than 1, families, or approximately 7, persons. In , Jews were expelled from Spain and many went to countries like Italy and Turkey before settling in Syria and bringing about a decisive change in the composition and nature of the Jewish community.
Once the number of Spanish Jews in the Syrian towns increased, various problems related to the organization of the communities appeared and the process of their assimilation with the native-born Arabized Jews, the Mustarabs , raised considerable difficulties. The language spoken by the expellees, their way of life, habits, and outlook were different from the accepted Jewish way of life of Middle Eastern countries.
In the large towns — where they resided in greater numbers — the Spanish Jews established their own communities, with independent synagogues, cemeteries, and battei din. The wide erudition of their rabbis and the relatively large number of scholars among the Spanish Jews helped them to become leaders of Syrian Jewry throughout the eastern part of the Mediterranean.
A new and significant era in the history of Syria started in with the defeat of the Mamluks by the Ottoman Turks, who had earlier, in , captured Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine empire. The majority Muslim-Arabic speaking population and religious leaders developed, by and large, quasi-allegiance to the sultan, who was represented by Ottoman pashas, governors of several provinces — eyalets or vilayets of Aleppo, Damascus, Sidon, Acre , and Beirut.
These governors, however, controlled only the major cities and their rural neighborhoods, but were periodically challenged by local forces. In the countryside, notably the mountain regions, feudal lords, tribal chiefs, and large families assumed autonomous rule, collected taxes for the sultan and provided tolerable security.
Only from the s — under the brief Egyptian rule —40 and the reformed Ottoman administration — was the country gradually put under central control. The growing security facilitated the expansion of foreign activities, diplomatic, economic, and educational, notably by Russia , France , and Great Britain as well as by various missionary organizations.
Their main object was the Christian communities in the Syrian lands, some half a million out of the total population of a million and a half, mostly Sunni Muslims, and small communities of Alawis, Druze, and Jews — some 30, by the mid th century.
European economic activities that grew significantly during the 19 th century benefited mostly Christians and some wealthy Muslim and Jewish merchants but damaged the livelihood of Muslim artisans and traders, members of the traditional middle classes.
They and members of the lower classes were also badly affected by the newly introduced Ottoman reforms of the Tanzimat in , , and , namely, regular taxation, mandatory recruitment to the army as well as some reduction in the role of Islam and equal status granted to non-Muslims, particularly Christians. All these developments — European intervention, the Tanzimat reforms and periodically provocative Christian behavior — led to Muslim-Christian tension and violence, particularly in Aleppo in and in Damascus in In Damascus thousands of Christians were massacred by Muslims, assisted actively by Druze and passively by Jews.
Around the same time Druze in Lebanon massacred many Christian Maronites in an ongoing attempt to curb their socio-political ascendancy in Mount Lebanon. As a result of these events, many thousands of Christians emigrated from Syria and Lebanon to more tolerant places, including Europe and the Americas.
Many others, who remained in their homes, sought the protection of foreign powers to enhance their separate communal life. Yet, a small number of Christian intellectuals, mostly educated by American missionaries, tried to find a common ground with their Muslim neighbors in the Arabic language and culture and in secular patriotism centered on Syria. This cultural and patriotic movement constituted a first phase of Arab nationalism that emerged in the early 20 th century, but initially it did not attract Muslim intellectuals, let alone Jewish ones.
Some Jews traveled on extended journeys. There were also village settlements in southern Lebanon, to the south of Sidon, where at least some of the Jews engaged in agriculture. The most important community from both the economic and the cultural points of view was that of Aleppo. During the first half of the 16 th century the community was headed by R.
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