A coalition of national and Washington-based Jewish groups rallied outside the Syrian Embassy this week to protest the denial of travel visas to the 1,400 Jews remaining in Syria.
About 70 demonstrators representing at least five Jewish organizations demonstrated Tuesday for more than an hour with signs reading “Freedom for Syrian Jews.”
The rally was held across the street from the embassy, in accordance with an ordinance that prohibits the obstruction of traffic in front of diplomatic missions.
According to Gilbert Kahn, executive director of the Council for the Rescue of Syrian Jews, only 50 Jews have been allowed to leave the country since October, when the Damascus government virtually suspended issuing travel permits to Jews.
During the prior six months, more than 2,600 Jews had been permitted to leave the country, after the Syrian government lifted longstanding travel restrictions in April 1992.
“With renewed pressure from a variety of sources, congressional as well as others, the Syrians have begun to issue two to three permits a week over the past few weeks.
“But essentially they’re not letting anyone out,” Kahn said.
“We are hoping to upgrade our public protest and just get more attention to the issue,” said Reva Price, assistant director of B’nai B’rith’s department of international, governmental and Israel affairs.
After Tuesday’s demonstration, the protesters tried to present a letter protesting the restrictions against Jews to Syrian Ambassador Walid al-Moualem, but the embassy would not accept it.
Instead, a State Department official delivered a copy of a press release stating the intent of the demonstration.
According to Tami Schultz of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, the letter will be mailed to the ambassador this week.
“As American Jews, we are extremely dismayed at the failure of your government to honor the commitment and assurances that President Hafez al-Assad has given to two consecutive United States administrations to permit all the Jews of Syria to travel, as entire family units, for business and for pleasure,” the letter says.
Kahn of the Syrian Jewry council said that Assad and Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa had promised Secretary of State Warren Christopher in February that the “moratorium on travel for Syrian Jews was merely a bureaucratic problem and that the ban would be lifted.”
“Christopher has assured us that he continues to work with us, but we have to step things up for ourselves,” said Price.
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