Jewish Geography
Syria was home to well estab- lished Jewish communities for more than 2,000 years, dating back to the Roman period. Over the centuries, those communi- ties came to include Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain and European Jewish merchants. But the rise of Arab national- ist movements, along with a set of anti-Jewish laws and vi- olence surrounding the estab- lishment of Israel, resulted in waves of Jewish emigration. About 100,000 Jews lived in Syria at the start of the twentieth century, dropping to 15,000 in 1947. By 1992, there were about 4,000 Jews in Aleppo and small- er numbers in Damascus and Qamishli. In 2022, an estimate of Syria’s Jews counted only four. Many Jewish sites have had no caretakers for decades, says Emma Cunliffe, an archaeologist with the Cultural Property Pro- tection and Peace team at New- castle University. “In a conflict situation, that neglect intensi- fies,” says Cunliffe. “Those few people who remained to look after them were then unable to reach them. But then as the war progressed, the damage in- creased significantly.” By 2020, nearly half of Syr- ia’s Jewish sites were destroyed, according to a report from the Foundation for Jewish Heri- tage. The Jobar Synagogue in Damascus, one of few Jewish places of worship still visited by a handful of elderly Jews before the war, was mostly turned into rubble in 2014. A host of ancient Torah scrolls, tapestries, chan- deliers and other artifacts from the synagogue went miss- ing, with some resurfacing in
A shopkeeper helps a custom- er at the Azra Alyahoodi (Azra the Jew) market also known as the “Jewish market,” in the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria.
Turkey. The al-Bandara Syna- gogue, one of the oldest syna- gogues in Aleppo, also suffered damage during fighting in the region. The synagogue had been renovated in the 1990s but was damaged again during the civil war in 2016. Cunliffe, who con- ducted a study of the site in 2017, says some parts of the building were destroyed and its court- yard was littered with debris. Tadef, a town east of Aleppo, was once a popular destination for Jews because of its shrine to the Jewish scribe and prophet Ezra, who was said to stop there on his way to Jerusalem. But af- ter a long period of neglect, the shrine was illegally excavated and looted both by rebel groups and Syrian government forces between 2021 and 2022, accord- ing to the rights group Syrians for Truth and Justice. Scholars also worry about the ruins of Roman-era synagogues in ancient cities such as Apa- mea and Dura-Europos. Satellite imaging has shown that Dura- Europos was heavily looted while being held by Islamic State forces, according to Adam Blitz, a fellow of the Royal Anthropo- logical Institute. Remnants from the synagogue of Dura-Europos are treasured by museums, in- cluding the Yale University Art Gallery, which displays 40 tiles from the synagogue’s ceiling. Blitz says other artifacts from the site are feared to have been
pilfered by combatants. “There has been tremendous fear about mosaics being looted.” The extent of the damage to Jewish sites is still difficult to assess, according to Cunliffe, who says the skills and train- ing needed for forensic dam- age collection remain limited in the war-torn country. Investiga- tions through satellite imagery will also take several months. It may take much longer to estab- lish protection for these sites, as Syria’s cultural sector had been overlooked during the war and the Syrian Antiquities Authority consigned a tiny budget. As Syria hurtles into a new era, the fate of its heritage sites hangs in the balance. The coun- try’s gems of Jewish history will only survive as far as its next regime allows, Cunliffe says. The new regime has its roots in Islamic fundamentalist move- ments but in recent years has taken a pragmatic turn, leaving open questions about the fate of minorities and their interests under its governance. “Support for the people who are in a po- sition to access them and pro- tect them is critical, and also the need for an inclusive society that will allow that to happen,” Cun- liffe says. “We don’t know what the future of Syria looks like. Certainly, there’s a lot of fight- ing, and which group ultimately wins will dictate a lot of what is possible.” JTA
22 SPRING 2025
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