The situation of Syrian Jews is worsening, Israeli leaders told more than 2500 persons attending a Syrian Jewry Week rally at the Mann Auditorium here Tuesday night. Premier Yitzhak Rabin said that because the Syrians could not stand up to the Israeli army on the battlefield, they are taking revenge on Jews in the Damascus ghetto and in other parts of Syria.
“We have assembled here to demonstrate the common fate and common responsibility of Jews and we shall fight in every possible way until the Damascus authorities end their persecution of Syrian Jews…We shall free all Syrian Jews and bring to Israel all Syrian Jews who wish to be with us here.” Rabin declared.
Education Minister Aharon Yadlin claimed that Syrian intelligence agents were indiscriminately arresting Jews and torturing them with whips and burns on sensitive organs. Jewish school children are compelled to study from government textbooks which say that “Jews are criminals and must be annihilated,” Yadlin said. He said that Jewish teachers were being dismissed from Jewish schools and replaced by Arab teachers. The headmaster of the Jewish school in Damascus is an Arab, Yadlin said.
The rally at Mann Auditorium began on a poignant note. A young girl, Irit Cohen, lit a single candle in memory of her father, Eli Cohen, an Israeli intelligence agent who was hanged in Damascus 10 years ago after years of successful intelligence operations in the Syrian capital.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
