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NEWS
Jews in Syrian Town Face Persecution
By Arnon Yaffeh, Paris
According to press reports hundreds of Jews in the Syrian
town of Al Qamishli, located near the Turkish border, face
threats of annihilation. Their property has been appropriated
and the police persecute them and throw many into prisons and
torture chambers. The town's impressive beis knesses
was commandeered by the army and turned into a horse barn,
Rachmono litzlan, and according to recent reports four
women from the town were arrested on charges of assisting
their husbands to cross the border illegally. After five
years of imprisonment and torture they were on the verge of
losing their sanity.
Reports on developments in this community of 450 Jews are few
and muddled. They are cut off from the rest of the world.
Tourists and reporters are banned from entering the town's
Jewish ghetto and the Jews are under house arrest,
unauthorized to leave the town even for urgent medical care.
Their stores have been confiscated and they are forbidden to
engage in commerce, which is their only source of income.
They are also forbidden to maintain ties with the local non-
Jewish population. A curfew on them starts at dusk and spot
checks are often conducted to ensure that they are at home.
Many Jews caught trying to flee have been thrown into torture
chambers.
At the beginning of the 20th century Al Qamishli had a Jewish
community numbering some 3,000 and conditions were good. Jews
worked in the public and private sectors and upheld Jewish
traditions. After the United Nations declared the plan to
divide up Israel on November 29, 1947 their circumstances
started to decline. Many limitations and prohibitions were
imposed. Jewish women were arrested and jailed and then
brought to the local beis knesses, where they were
beat in public view. In 1963, 800 Jews remained, and the
population diminished further after the Six-Day War.
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