Bataween
Point of No Return
21 August '10
The 2,000 year-old Jewish communities of Syria and Lebanon ( 30,000 and 14,000 in 1948) have always been intertwined, as has the history of the two countries. Here's a timeline tracing their decline to less than 50 Jews in each country today.
19th century: an era of mass migration for Syrians of all faiths, driven by the 1860 Christian-Druze war and economic crises to move to Egypt and the New World.
1909: Young Jews leave to avoid Ottoman conscription law.
1917: exiles from Eretz Israel expose Jews to Zionism.
1918: Syrian and Lebanon under French mandate.
1930s: Anti-Jewish measures introduced, economy in crisis. 2,868 Jews move to Israel.
Nazi propaganda spreads. 5, 286 Jews leave.
1945: 1,000 Jewish children go on aliya.
1945: Riots against Jews of Tripoli, Lebanon. Temporary closure of Alliance Israelite School. End of French mandate.
1945: Syrian school curriculum becomes compulsory.
1947: Partition riots. Great synagogue of Aleppo burnt down. Jews cannot buy property. Hundreds arrested. Jews expelled from university of Beirut.
1949: Jewish bank accounts seized in Syria, property frozen, no freedom of movement.
1949: grenades thrown at al-Menashe synagogue, Damascus: 13 dead, 32 wounded.
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