Syrian Jews, Memory and a Future of Peace

From Moment Magazine

Kalid Loul, a Syrian American Muslim who grew up partly in Idlib, remembers elders speaking warmly of their former Jewish neighbors. After returning to Syria in 2025 for the first time in about fifteen years, he wrote this essay about the Jews who once lived there and what “home” might mean for them now.

A long history

Two thousand years in Syria

Jews lived in Syria for more than two thousand years, joined by exiles from Spain after 1492. By the early twentieth century, tens of thousands lived in Aleppo, Damascus, and Qamishli. Emigration grew with rising antisemitism; the 1947 Aleppo pogrom and decades of government restrictions on travel, property, and daily life drove most of the rest away, and by the 1990s nearly all had left.

Memory

We remember

Loul writes that if a Syrian Muslim feels a strong pull to return home, Syrian Jews whose families lived in Syria for centuries surely feel it even more. Some still speak Arabic or keep the keys to houses they fled. The Syrian Jews he has met in Brooklyn, Mexico City, and Jerusalem, he says, share a simple message: we remember.

A way forward

Small steps

Pointing to Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, which have honored their Jewish heritage and restored synagogues, Loul notes recent signs of openness in Syria, including visits by Syrian Jewish delegations. He calls for modest steps, such as recording stories, protecting cemeteries, and building personal ties, as a path toward understanding.

Read the full essay at Moment Magazine →

This summary was written by JIMENA and is based on “Reimagining Home: Syrian Jews, Memory and a Future of Peace” by Kalid Loul, published by Moment Magazine (September 22, 2025). The original essay belongs to its author and Moment Magazine.