Residents of this community are being urged to write to the United Nations Secretary General U Thant and to the Syrian Mission to the UN to protest the mistreatment of Syrian Jews by the government, according to Alan D. Hecht, president of the Baltimore Jewish Council.
In asking Baltimoreans to express their concern over Syrian anti-Semitism, Hecht cited a statement recently published by the non-sectarian Committee of Concern headed by General Lucius D. Clay, which describes not only the general persecution threatening the survival of the Syrian Jewish community, but the specific tortures that a number have been subjected to.
“The Committee statement reports,” Hecht said, “that Jews who try to leave Syria are singled out for especially oppressive measures. They are interrogated, held in solitary confinement for up to three months, and those who are eventually released are, without exception, physically ill, maimed or deranged.” The Committee of Concern has called on the Syrian authorities to cease their persecution of their Jewish minority, to free those imprisoned, and to permit those who wish to emigrate to do so.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
