Relevant Articles
Articles, essays, and research from scholars, journalists, and community members, chosen by JIMENA to deepen your understanding of Jewish life in Syria.
Articles
Syrian Jews, Memory and a Future of Peace
A Syrian American Muslim writer reflects on the Jews who once lived in Syria, and on what it might take for them to return, even just to visit.
Syria Moves to Return Property to Syrian Jews Who Left
After decades away, Syrian Jews are visiting Damascus and Aleppo again, as Syria's new government hands Jewish sites to a community foundation.
Judy Feld Carr: The Toronto Music Teacher Who Rescued Syrian Jews
For nearly three decades, Toronto music teacher Judy Feld Carr secretly arranged the escape of more than 3,000 Jews from Syria.
Music, Memory and History: Syrian Jews and the Pizmon
Harvard ethnomusicologist Kay Kaufman Shelemay on how Syrian Jews remember their history through pizmonim, their beloved pizmonim.
A Hidden History
Journalist Matti Friedman, author of The Aleppo Codex, on the forgotten history of Aleppo's Jews and the Jewish world of the Middle East.
Escape Through Iskenderun: How the Shamosh Family Helped Refugees
For four decades, Rabbi Yaakov Shamosh and his son Harun helped more than 3,500 Syrian Jews who escaped across the mountains to Turkey.
Syrian Jews: Renaissance and Modern Era
From the arrival of Spanish exiles to the first emigrants to New York, Aleppo born historian Joseph Sutton traces four centuries of Jewish life in Aleppo and Damascus.
Digital Memories of Jewish Syria
The Sephardic Heritage Museum’s collection of some 2,000 artifacts and its online community help Syrian Jewish families piece together their history.
The Cookbook That Became a Legend
How Deal Delights, a ring-bound collection of Syrian Jewish recipes from a New Jersey synagogue sisterhood, became a treasured staple of the community’s kitchens.
Bush’s Secret Syrian Deal (New Jersey Jewish News)
Former Conference of Presidents chairman Seymour Reich recounts the quiet 1990s arrangement that allowed some 4,000 Syrian Jews to leave.
Two Shamoshim: The Spanish Personalization of Hanukkah in Post-Expulsion Aleppo
Historian Joseph Mosseri explains why the Sephardic Jews who settled in Aleppo after 1492 lit an extra Hanukkah candle each night, a custom Syrian Jews keep to this day.
Before Its Destruction: The Jobar Synagogue
Heritage · Tablet Magazine Before Its Destruction: The Jobar Synagogue in Syria The Eliyahu Hanabi synagogue in Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, was a Jewish holy site and gathering place into the 1990s. It was struck by mortar fire in 2013 and later looted. Tablet looks back at the synagogue through photographs taken before its destruction and the digital preservation work of Diarna. Read the article By Rose Kaplan, Tablet Magazine, May 25, 2016. Opens in a new tab.
