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Forgotten Hostages:
The Jews Of Syria

LOTHAR KAHN

Special to The Jewish News

T

he Forgotten Hos-
tages" is the title of a
recent article in the
leading French-Jewish peri-
- odical L'Arche. The forgotten
hostages are the Jews of
Syria.
They are easily forgotten,
for from a post-war popula-
tion of 300,000 their numbers
have shrunk to about 5,000
concentrated in the ghettos of
Damascus,
amascus, Aleppo and
L-_,Kamishi.
Moreover, they are careful
to play their assigned role of
citizen-prisoners to the hilt.
They had better, for imprison-
ment comes easily.
According to the report in
L'Arche by Paule-Henriette
Levy and Muriel Sonnet,
Syrian Jews when asked
about their treatment will
say, "Everything is fine."
They know the secret police is
well-organized, has its eyes on
them and will miss few oppor-
tunities to harass them.
The picture is not pretty.
The Jews of Syria are mostly
aging men and women who
feel they are alone. Few peo-
ple are in a position to help
them. Their movements
within the country are cir-
cumscribed and even the an-
nounced intention to
emigrate may lead to their
incarceration.
They are denied the right to
vote, they are prohibited from
military service and cannot
hold any jobs in the public
sector. Synagogues are clos-
ing down one after the other
and the few remaining are
under the close surveillance
of the police.
According to some recent
reports, even cemeteries have
fallen victim to bulldozers
allegedly making room for a
road to be built in the vicini-
ty. There is no recourse, as the
authorities are often the
cause of their misery.
For the few young, life in
Syria is depressing. Even in
Jewish schools, Moslems are
principals and are not kindly
disposed to their charges. As
the young get to be of mar-
riageable age, there are too
few Jewish young men for the
availabe women, leading to
forced celibacy for many. A
few of these women hae been
married under pressure to
Syrian officers.
Ways of earning a livelihood
are clearly limited. The vast
majority of men are either
petty merchants or artisans.
For Jewish grocers, earning a

living is hard, given that
Moslems are not allowed to
shop in the ghettos.
While the Syrian govern-
ment maintains that Jews are
citizens, the facts speak other-
wise. The government has
taken offense at the protests
about Jews that have
emanated, especially from
France, a country that has
had traditionally strong ties
to both Syria and Lebanon.
It is in France more than
the U.S. where concern for
Soviet Jewry has become
secondary to concern for
Syrian Jews. There, under the
chairmanship of the head of
Sephardic Jews in France,
Roger Pinto, the Interna-
tional Committee on Syrian
Jewry has been especially
active.
Its program has been sim-
ple: allow the Jews of Syria to
emigrate. Let them leave
Syria if they desire for a coun-
try of their choosing. They
have loudly discounted
Syrian fears that emigrating
Jews would come to haunt
them as members of the
Israeli army. Since the ma-
jority of the 5,000 Jews are of
post military age, Syrian
security could hardly be
endangered.
The committee on Syrian
Jewry has received little at-
tention in the American
Jewish press. Yet it has
achieved notable results:
several parliaments, in-
cluding the European Parlia-
ment, have addressed the pro-
blem and adopted motions
urging the Syrian govern-
ment to allow Jews to leave
the country. Among the coun-
tries that have taken a stand
on the issue have been
Greece, Austria, France, the
United States and even
Yugoslavia. Several have
reminded Syria that the ap-
peals to let Jews emigrate are
in line with the Universal
Declaration of the. Rights of
Man to which Syria has been
a signatory.
Why has American Jewry
not shifted its primary in-
terest from Soviet Jewry to
Syrian Jewry? Has our
government appealed to
Jewish organizations because
it needs Syria's good will in
the hostage matter?
There is little pressure from
the U.S. government in its
delicate effort to secure the
release of hostages in
Lebanon. American Jewish
leadership has also been slow
inidentifying Syrian Jewry as
that in greatest need of
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