In Damascus, a Sole Synagogue Survives

March 2 2016

Once home to a thriving and ancient Jewish community, Syria now has but a handful of Jews, who have fared poorly during the ongoing civil war. Nonetheless, the Elfrange synagogue in Damascus refuses to close its doors. (Video, six minutes.)

Elfrange is the only one of Damascus’ seventeen synagogues that has not been shut down and robbed. It serves a membership of sixteen men, ages sixty to ninety.

Since the 1990s only a few dozen Jews have remained in Syria, according to Avraham Hamra, who in 1993 left Damascus, where he served as chief rabbi, and now lives in Holon, near Tel Aviv. As many as 4,000 Jews were still living in Damascus, Aleppo, and al-Qamishli until then-President Hafez al-Assad, on the eve of Passover 1992, permitted Syria’s Jews to emigrate, as long as they didn’t go to Israel.

Read more at Jewish Press

More about: Jewish World, Mizrahi Jewry, Synagogues, Syrian civil war, Syrian Jewry

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula