Syrian Jews hope for revival of ancient heritage
Syria's tiny Jewish community and Syrian Jews abroad are trying to build bridges after Bashar al-Assad's ouster in the hope of reviving their ancient heritage before the community dies out.
This week, a small number of Jews living in Damascus, along with others from abroad, held a group prayer for the first time in more than three decades, in the Faranj synagogue in Damascus's Old City.
"There were nine of us Jews (in Syria). Two died recently," community leader Bakhour Chamntoub told AFP in his home in the Old City's Jewish quarter.
"I'm the youngest. The rest are elderly people who stay in their homes," the tailor in his sixties added in a thick Damascus accent.
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I grew up in a small Syrian enclave Jewish in Brooklyn in the 1960s. It was a wonderful community with many old-world traditions. I missed it when I grew up and moved to Manhattan.
In the days before electronic marketing, I received tons of unsolicited mail. I also received mail that most people did not: donation requests from American Palestinian groups. If you were going through a phone book, you would definitely identify my last name as of Arabic origin and put me on the list.
Like many Jews who had centuries-long roots in Arabic countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Jordan, my family had also long ago adopted Arabic family names — often by the chosen trade. My last name “Sayegh” means “jewel maker” in Arabic and is spelled to reflect that guttural “gh” sound that even I cannot pronounce correctly. So, it’s not totally surprising that Palestinian groups thought I was one of them.
Over the past years, I have often been frustrated when I find people do not understand the trauma of the 700,000 Jews from all over the Middle East who were violently expelled from their countries in 1948 and how it resonates today. Pro-Palestinian activists who call out Israel as a “European settler colonial project” omit a critical part of the story that calls into question their claim. They ignore the Mizrahi majority in Israel who are descendants of Jews expelled from Arab lands when Israel was declared a state.