Week of Solidarity with Syrian Jews

A week of “Solidarity with Syrian Jews” opened in Israel and other countries today with the aim of focussing world opinion on the plight of Jews in Syria and bringing external pressures to bear on the Damascus authorities to allow them to emigrate. The Ministry of Education has distributed 2000 replicas of an exhibit tracing the history of Syria’s Jewish community from ancient times to the present. It includes an aerial photograph of the Jewish quarter of Damascus taken by Israel Air Force reconnaissance pilots.

The “Solidarity Week” was proclaimed here by the Israeli Students Union; the Tel Aviv Pupils Council; the Public Committee for Arab Jewry; the Zionist Council for Israel; and the Organization of Syrian Emigrants. Mass rallies, demonstrations and lectures are planned during the week on campuses, and in cities, towns and villages throughout Israel.

In Paris, a rally will be led by Beate Klarsfeld, the anti-Nazi activist. A similar event will take place in London under the auspices of the “35 Group,” a group of women who have been active on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) plans to hold demonstrations in 13 different localities.

In addition to demanding free emigration for Syrian Jews, the various demonstrations will call for the release of Jewish political prisoners in Syria and the removal of harsh restrictions imposed on Syrian Jews. Cables have been sent to the United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, and to UNESCO demanding an investigation of the condition of Jews living in Arab countries.

In the United States a national petition drive will be undertaken Feb. 21-23 to gather one million signatures to save Syrian Jews. The drive, sponsored by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, will coincide with the first yahrzeit of Eva Saad and Tony, Lora and Farah Zeybak, sisters, who were found murdered March 7, 1974 in a street of the Jewish quarter in Damascus.