THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040547
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
On Yom Kippur two years ago, Old Dominion University professor Leonard Dobrin went to synagogue in an unlikely place: Syria, arguably the most virulently anti-Jewish state in the Mideast.
But as Jews worldwide celebrate the holy day of atonement today, that would be much more difficult. On a return visit this fall, Dobrin found the synagogue padlocked.
Beaten down by a hostile regime, Syria's Jewish population has essentially dwindled to nothing. This modern-day exodus helps illustrate why Syria remains one of the biggest obstacles to a comprehensive Mideast peace.
As part of a cultural exchange program, Dobrin spent a semester in 1993 teaching in Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city. He had heard stories of a Jewish community that had existed there for thousands of years, and he decided to seek out whatever was left of it.
The quest took on the feel of a detective novel.
He found a Jewish contact in Damascus, the capital. Yes, he was told, there was a small Jewish community still in Aleppo. But before any details were divulged, Dobrin's non-Jewish companion - fellow ODU sociology professor Donald Smith - was ushered out of the room.
Dobrin's contact then wrote down some directions in Arabic and told him to give them to a cab driver.
Early on the morning of Rosh Hashana, Dobrin was in a cab, winding through the streets of Aleppo. The driver dropped him off near a nondescript building with an open door.
``There was no sign on the synagogue. They were not advertising that this building was a synagogue,'' Dobrin recalled. ``. . . And I have to admit, I was a bit frightened - I mean, 7 o'clock in the morning, the streets were not alive with people, a totally strange building . . .
``The minute I walked in and looked around, there was no question about it: This was a synagogue . . .
``The rabbi was there, setting up for services . . . He said, `Ah, an American professor? . . . Married?' I said, `Yes, for 30 years.' And he said, `Oh,' and turned around and walked away from me. He had a woman for me!''
And that wasn't to be the end of such overtures, Dobrin found as he got to know the Jews of Aleppo.
``I have three single sons in their 20s, and when I showed their pictures, I had parents of young women following me around trying to make a deal because that's one of the ways you get out of that country, by marrying an American. And everybody wanted out.''
By Dobrin's estimate, the ancient Aleppo Jewish community, which once numbered in the thousands, had dwindled to about 120 by 1993 as Jews continued to flee the persecutions and petty harassments of President Hafez Assad's regime.
Dobrin visited an old synagogue that's been out of use since it was firebombed during a pogrom in 1947. There he saw floor-to-ceiling stacks of Bibles and prayer books, gathering dust.
All Syrians must carry a picture identification card. It includes a special designation for Jews. Until recently, Dobrin said, Jews had been subject to a 10 p.m. curfew - and they were still frightened to be out on the streets at night. Visits by the secret police were common.
At the synagogue one day in 1993, Dobrin videotaped a group of men who had gathered for a Bible discussion. The gathering turned into a plea for help from Americans. ``Please let us out,'' said one of the men, an English teacher in the synagogue school. ``Why are we prisoners in our own country?''
``But then,'' Dobrin said, ``they asked me, when I went home, not to show that tape to anybody except people I really trusted and high-level American government officials who might be able to help them because they were afraid of being killed if the Syrian government ever got wind that they were sending such statements out of Syria.''
Despite the difficulties of life under the Assad regime, Dobrin found the Syrian Jews conflicted over the thought of leaving their ancient home.
``One of the men that I became friendly with was a gold dealer. He would go around . . . and buy gold jewelry that was handmade by artisans in Aleppo. And once a week, he puts all his gold jewelry in his suitcase and gets on a public bus and goes 220 miles or so to Damascus and walks around with his suitcase selling his jewelry to retail stores . . .
``He said, `I know that this can't be the way the jewelry business works in New York . . . I don't know how to make a living in America. I have a choice of either leaving a way of life that I know and understand and can deal with, under a very harsh situation that I don't like to live under . . . or I can move to America, where life will be much harder for me. It will be much more difficult to make a living. I recognize that I have no saleable skills in America.''
On his most recent visit, however, Dobrin found not a trace of the Jews of Aleppo. He has heard since from one of his Syrian friends that only four elderly members of the community, unable or unwilling to move, are left.
There has been a similar exodus from Damascus and other centers of the Syrian Jewish community, Dobrin said.
``For all practical purposes, it's gone.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Leonard E. Dobrin, a professor in the Department of Sociology and
Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University, sought out a Jewish
community in Syria's second largest city.
by CNB