Jewish Geography BULLETINS FROM AROUND THE WORLD, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY
The Dura-Europos Synagogue wall paintings in the National Museum of Damascus.
AFTER YEARS OF WAR, THE WORLD’S OLDEST SYNAGOGUE PAINTINGS ARE REVEALED AS INTACT IN DAMASCUS by GRACE GILSON CULTURE
AFTER STUDYING the world’s oldest syn- agogue paintings for nearly a decade, Jill Joshowitz had accepted that she might nev- er be able to stand before them in person, as they remained locked away in Syria amid its civil war. Jewish sites and synagogues had suffered lootings and bombardment over the course of the war, which followed the emigration of virtually all Syrian Jews. Could the paintings have even survived? “I spent almost a decade of my life researching and writing about these paint- ings, and because they were stored in Syria, I never thought that I would really have an opportunity in my lifetime, as a
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