TAN: Hezbollah flags flutter from wires above the almost empty neighbourhood of the 62 remaining Jews of Damascus. But here, in the heart of the dying centre of Syrian Judaism, the residents do not object to the presence of their homeland’s mortal enemy.The Jews who have remained in Damascus seem disconnected from the fighting in Lebanon and the rage that is building against Israel across the Arab world.

They are mostly too old to travel, too established in their tiny community to bother with the incendiary troubles of the region and accustomed to a society where diverse views and customs are tolerated.

Most of Damascus’s Jewish population departed in 1994 after the Syrian government said they could leave for the US. Several thousand Jews took the opportunity, bolting the front doors of their homes shut as they left.

Most have never returned to what was once an up-market district of the ancient Syrian capital. Only about 20 homes are now inhabited. Others have been bought by wealthy local Muslim consortiums, which are spending millions to restore them. A grand 19th-century manor was opened three weeks ago as an expensive hotel in the middle of the area.

“I hate it,” said an elderly Jewish woman whose nephew sold the family property.

“Every day I wake up and curse him,” she said, refusing togive her name as she fed straycats.

The shopkeepers who have moved into the neighbourhood are mostly Shia Muslims who have brought their Hezbollah loyalty with them.

But the three vendors we spoke to were keen to emphasise that their support for the anti-Zionist guerilla group did not mean they hated Jews. “They were our friends,” said pastry-seller Hassan al-Sadr. “We wish they would come back.”

At the grand Shia mosque near Damascus’s old bazaar, the foreman, Mazhar Ashkov, also lamented the absence of the Jews.

“The Jewish families we used to have here we used to have good relations with, which we still try to keep up,” he said. “Most of them have left the area, but we still get by on the memories.”

In the laneway leading to the mosque, a Star of David has been painted on the ground so people defile it as they walk past. But around the corner a sign written in Arabic, Hebrew and English respectfully marks the remnants of an ancient synagogue.

Syria has established two offices to handle the affairs of its absent Jewish community. The first, the Office of the Missing Jews, was set up to protect the old decaying homes, most of which their owners refused to sell.

The second has been entrusted to the remaining Jewish residents who administer the inhabited homes through the Office of the Jewish Committee.

When President Bashar al-Assad was sworn into office six years ago, one of his first appointments was with the leader of the local Jewish community. And his Government has taken pains ever since to embrace Judaism, while attacking Zionist expansion. This stance has fuelled the hostility felt by Syrians towards Israel.

“Crazy people say Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is fighting for Iran,” Mr Ashkov said.

“But he encourages people to believe Jerusalem is the holy place. It is one city that belongs to all of us. All the Jews in the land of Palestine, in their religion they are not my enemies. My enemy is the Zionist who is dealing with the Arabs in a very ignorant, arrogant and racist way.

“We as Arabs and Muslims did not commit the Holocaust. We did not hurt the Jews. It was theEuropeans who did this, and they are now the ones claiming we are terrorists.

“Hezbollah and the Lebanese only want to have a return of the justice that has been taken from them by the state of Israel.”