Behind the Headlines the Syrian Jewish Community

The 4500 member Jewish community in Damascus is dominated by an 80 year old Jewish supporter of the Syrian regime who is regarded with distrust by the Jewish population, two American Jewish students recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The two, Terry Magady, 23, and Dan Weiner, 22, both of California, spent five days last month in the Syrian capital as part of a personal ” fact-finding” tour of the region, including Egypt, Jordan and Israel. They were put in touch with the JTA by an official of the Jewish Agency student department.

“Every official transaction, including applications to go abroad, must go through a men called Mr. Totah,” they explained. “He acts as a liaison between the government and the Jewish community. Unfortunately, he acts largely out of self-regard and sells information to Syrian officials about the comings and goings of the community.”

VIEWED WITH DISTRUST AND FEAR

The figurehead leader, as Magady and Weiner described him, is regarded by the Jewish community, who call him “a 50-50 Jew,” with a mixture of distrust and fear. “Talk to Mr. Totah first,” they were told. “Totah will make a phone call and everything will be OK.” Totah is also reportedly in regular contact with the American Embassy in Damascus.

“We avoided Totah for as long as we could, because we knew that meeting with him might prevent us from reaching the community at large, they said. Totah, however,” caught up” with them on the fourth day of their visit, greeting them by name at one the local synagogues. The next day, which was by coincidence their last, two “well dressed” men visited them at the youth hostel at which they were staying, telling them “to be sure they were on their scheduled flight to Amman the next morning.” They were.

Totah presented the two students with what they termed a “white – washed” overview of Jewish life in Syria, denying any problems and minimizing the political oppression to which Syrian Jews are subjected. They received a different picture, however, from other, more forthcoming community members.

“We found an extremely affluent community, with surprisingly strong Jewish values and a strong, Jewish identity, spiritually led by the well-liked and young Rabbi Albert Hamrah, “Monody said.”But this community is denied even minimal political freedoms and is subject to an ever-present feeling of tension that things could get worse at any point.” Specifically, those concerns center on a political take-over by Islamic radicals or another war with Israel. Most important, all want out of Syria.

Magady and Weiner reported that community members branded the controversial screening of a CBS – TV “60 Minutes” program on Syrian Jewry a few years ago as a “total farce.” They pointed to the presence of Syrian officials who accompanied the television crew at all times as ample evidence of the one sided picture of contentment and freedom which resulted.

SYRIAN JEWS WANT TO LEAVE

“We would give up everything we have here, all our possessions and money, if we could just get out,” community members told the two students, with many expressing a desire to immigrate to Israel. “All we want is to be with our family and to Keep our Jewish identity — anywhere but here.” Time and again, the two students heard expressions of bewilderment over the fact that many Iranian Jews chose to remain in Iran after the Shah was deposed. For them the implications of the ascent of an Islamic republic are all too clear, Weiner and Magady related.

For this reason, as well as one of safety, the Jewish community in Damascus is a cohesive one clinging to remnants of Jewish tradition as a means of retaining their heritage. All shops close on the Sabbath, some of the community observes kashrut, and attendance is high at two Jewish day schools and three synagogues.

Six men are studying for their rabbinical ordination and religious artifacts are freely brought in from abroad. Daily life for many of the community members, most of whom are brass and copper merchants, is a good one, and Weiner added that the impressive Jewish community center is reminiscent of a local Jewish community center back in the U.S.

ARBITRARY ACTS CITED

Tensions between the Jewish community and Moslems have largely died down since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. But Magady and Weiner reported that it is an enforced, and perhaps illusory picture of harmony. Entire families are arbitrarily punished for the act of one individual and only family heads are allowed to go on periodic trips abroad, provided they leave their family and a $7000 deposit behind. In addition some 400 women lack partners for marriage; emigration is a forbidden topic of discussion. and a plain-clothes policeman regularly patrols the shops in the Jewish quarter.

Community members, the two students said, praise the pressure exerted on the Syrian government by American officials and world Jewry, contending that it is largely responsible for the fact that acts of violence committed against them are now at a minimum. But all tear that this respite is temporary and that time works against them.

They look to Israel with great pride, listening regularly to Israel Radio’s Arabic-language broad casts and tending to glorify Israeli military prowess. “If only Israel would destroy this regime and free us,” Magady and Weiner said one person told them. “For this we wait, because it is the only way we will ever get out of Syria.”