According to press reports hundreds of Jews in the Syrian town of Al Qamishli, located near the Turkish border, face threats of annihilation. Their property has been appropriated and the police persecute them and throw many into prisons and torture chambers. The town’s impressive beis knesses was commandeered by the army and turned into a horse barn, Rachmono litzlan, and according to recent reports four women from the town were arrested on charges of assisting their husbands to cross the border illegally. After five years of imprisonment and torture they were on the verge of losing their sanity.
Reports on developments in this community of 450 Jews are few and muddled. They are cut off from the rest of the world. Tourists and reporters are banned from entering the town’s Jewish ghetto and the Jews are under house arrest, unauthorized to leave the town even for urgent medical care. Their stores have been confiscated and they are forbidden to engage in commerce, which is their only source of income. They are also forbidden to maintain ties with the local non- Jewish population. A curfew on them starts at dusk and spot checks are often conducted to ensure that they are at home. Many Jews caught trying to flee have been thrown into torture chambers.
At the beginning of the 20th century Al Qamishli had a Jewish community numbering some 3,000 and conditions were good. Jews worked in the public and private sectors and upheld Jewish traditions. After the United Nations declared the plan to divide up Israel on November 29, 1947 their circumstances started to decline. Many limitations and prohibitions were imposed. Jewish women were arrested and jailed and then brought to the local beis knesses, where they were beat in public view. In 1963, 800 Jews remained, and the population diminished further after the Six-Day War.
(By: Arnon Yaffeh, Paris for Dei’ah veDibur)
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21 Responses
If Israel really cared they would be planing a Comando style operation as we speak to get them all out……………
Why would they choose to live there, I’m sure they had opportunities to leave and go to Israel. I understand It’s hard for them to just pick up and leave, but sometimes you just gotta cut your ties.
What is the source of this story? I couldn’t find it on Google.
leveledandsane:
I cannot beleive the arrogance of your statement. I don’t think you are in the position to judge them. Are you familiar with Syrian immigration policies? Or of the environment there? Did you check with Syrian immigrants to see how difficult it may be to leave there?
This sounds like something out of WWII era Poland. Can anyone verify this?
I don’t understand, were living in a time where we have an abundance of money and many influential Jews involved in the government. How can we just sit back and not do anything? It’s hard to imagine that in the year 2008 Jews are living in such condisions.
leveledandsane, you are probably right but we can’t look at that. We need to look at the current situation and get them help.
http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/asyriakss68.htm here is the link.
But why is this Israel’s responsibility?
I’m going to be brutally honest: no one is going to help them. the world doesn’t care what syrian animals do to innocent Jews. They didn’t help us in WWII why should they help us now? Unless Israel takes serious action, they will all be murdered in cold blood. NEVER AGAIN ( yeah, right)
someone once asked rav meir kahane, hy”d (the first victim of al-queda) why he doesnt do anything for syrian jewry, as opposed to russian jewry?
he responded, syria is much much different than russuia.
years later, it was made (quasi) public that the syrian jewish comunity (ocean parkway) was paying off the syrians to keep things relatively good for the the syrian jews (shamis and halabis). then they made a big payoff to get all who wanted to leave (a hundred or so didnt have the brains/guts to leave.)
i tend to doubt this report, because i know only a very few jews (less than 100) are in syria today, and there never was a coomunity outside of damascus (shami) and alleppo (chalab)
either way, hakessef ya’aneh et ha’kol
unfortunately, this kesef will come at the expense of yeshivot
It is quite disturbing how many can blame them for living there. Its their hometown, imagine yourself in their situation. Everyone shot out brilliant ideas, however, we all firstly must daven to Hakodosh Boruch Hu that their matzev should cease into tranquility. Further, we must daven and express our thanks for all our own gifts. Our homes, families, and lifestyle.
May we hear of their salvation immediately.
Good Shabbos.
the right way
It’s like living in a neighborhood that becomes bad, you don’t just stay there, you move away. Look at brownsville, you just gotta know when to move on.
To zionflag comment 3 : the Arabs have not hated us since the time of Avraham Avinu. throughout the generations, the golus in Arab countries was the best of all the golus’n. the beginning of the decline of the Jew-Arab relations was in the 1800’s when the Zionist movement(at the time Chovevei Zion) started to be felt in Eretz Yisroel making the Arabs feel (accurately)threatened. as a point of interest, even the Turks were provoked and if not for the intervention of the Yerushayim and Turkish Rabbanim, all Jews were to be expelled from Eretz Yisroel. [this was due to an incite filled article published by Ben-Yehuda YM”SH in Yerushalayim.]
all you sound so forgetful about what happened in the Holocaust. People in Europe wanted to leave but could not! You think that want to be there? HELLO? Not everyone lives with an United States Passport that can go and come however they please. Stop thinking in such a spoiled American way! These Jews are in danger (according to this article) and we must help them! If nothing political can be done at least daven! Hashem should save their lives!
since when does the state of israel take care of yidishe problems? its up to each person that cares, to do whatever he feels he can about the situation
The following Jerusalem Post article says that there are only 3 Jews remaining in Qamishli (and interestingly enough, they are shomer shabbos and kashrus):
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1139395373799&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The following Jewish Virtual Library article says that in 1994, Syrian Jews were granted permission to leave the country thanks to U.S. pressure, and that almost all of them left, and very few remain:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/syrianjews.html
The fact that there was such a mass emigration 14 years ago makes it difficult to believe that there are still 450 Jews in Qamishli alone- the above articles indicate that there are less than that many Jews in all of Syria. It is possible that the Jerusalem Post reporter didn’t see everything while he was in Syria, and I can’t emphasize strongly enough that if the De’ah Vedibbur article is both true and up to date, that we should do WHATEVER WE POSSIBLY CAN to help the Jews get out of Syria IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER! I also do not chas veshalom want to accuse De’ah Vedibbur of lying. The descriptions of toruture nebach match earlier reports of Syria’s treatment of Jews from before 1994, so they must have thought that the article was accurate. The Jerulsalem Post article also notes that the author fears for his safety and for that of the 3 Jews of Qamishli while he is writing his article, so it is definitely possible that they are in sakanna, and that they were coerced into saying nice things about Syria in the article out of fear for their safety. Again, I re-emphasize that if the De’ah Vedibbur article is true, or even if 1 Jew in Syria is suffering in any way and not being allowed to leave, that I would never dream of diminishing their suffering 1 bit, and that I would fully support getting them all out of Syria ASAP. However, the author of the Jerusalem Post article actually visited Qamishli (unlike the author of the De’ah Vedibbur article), and the Syrian Jewish emigration of 1994 is a recorded fact, and both of these make it difficult to believe that there are still 450 Jews in Qamishli.
I think the pro-muslim sentiments found among yeshiva world readers is disgusting
I’m in total agreement # 24 theStayger. It’s sickening to see yeshiva world has been infiltrated by muslim-supporters. I’ll be dan lekaf zechus these
comments are being made by neturi karta-niks still its sad that YW is being dominated by these unfurtunately not well and confused people.
Why the arguing? Act!
leveledandsane
They didn’t move there because housing was cheaper BoroPark, Monsey, or Lakewood. Syria has a had Jewish community since bayis Rishon and the shul in Aleppo was possibly the oldest functioning shul in the world. Leaving Syria is as easy as leaving Cuba or North Korea.
This article is a “re-tread” of stuff from the 1970’s. The vast majority of Syrian Jews left in 1994. There aren’t 450 Jews in Qamishli, let alone all of Syria.