In 2014, Beirut’s Magen Abraham synagogue was reopened with much ostentation. Politicians in attendance made grand statements to the effect that Lebanese Jews are as much part of the nation’s fabric as members of any other religious group. But only 29 Jews remain in Lebanon, and for the most part they fear unwanted attention. Ephrem Kossaify and Nagi Zeidan explore the past and present of this Jewish community, in an essay accompanied by numerous historical photographs:
In the 1950s and 1960s there were sixteen synagogues in Lebanon, and they were always full. The only place in the Arab world where the number of Jews increased after 1948 was Lebanon. But the 1967 war and the gruesome civil war that followed gradually drove Lebanese Jews away.
The story has it that a Jewish woman from Beirut who was keen to meet other Jews heard of a coreligionist living in the town of Zahle, 30 miles east of the capital. She went there and searched for her. It was difficult as the woman had changed her name, something many Jews have done for safety reasons. But when she finally found her, the Zahle woman met her with a glacial stare. She spoke one word: “Leave.” The woman was obviously scared of the attention her visitor might awaken. Those who are still there preserve a total silence about their identity. They gather secretly in each other’s houses for their prayers.
While Jews have likely lived in what is now Lebanon since the time of the First Temple, the capital city’s Jewish community is much newer than many others in the Middle East:
The Jewish neighborhood of Beirut was established in 1800 by the Levy family who came from Baghdad. Then shortly after, in 1805, an Ashkenazi family arrived from Lithuania. Abraham Mann and his family were on a pilgrimage trip to the Promised Land. They stopped in Beirut to rest, work and save money before hitting the road again. But they . . . stayed and never left. By 1932, there were 265 Jewish families in the city. A surge in arrivals during the 1930s more than trebled the Jewish population there to 7,000 by 1940.
In fact, when pogroms and persecution swept through Syria in 1947 and 1948, many of its Jews took refuge in nearby Lebanon.
Read more on Arab News: https://www.arabnews.com/JewsOfLebanon