The Jews Of Syria’s Qamishli: Short History, Lasting Legacy – Analysis

The history of Jews in the majority-Kurdish city of Qamishli in northeast Syria is less ancient than in other Kurdish regions across the Middle East. It is not even comparable to that of the Jewish communities in Aleppo and Damascus. However, not only did this small community play a central role in building the city, it also left behind a legacy whose impact is still felt to this day.

This article will examine how the Jewish community was formed in Qamishli, its relations with other ethnic and religious communities in the city, their situation under successive governments in Syria, and their ultimate migration to Israel and North America. With scant literature available on the Jews of Qamishli, research for this article significantly relied on oral history through collecting information in Qamishli itself, during a reporting trip to the city in March 2024 supported by the Middle East Forum. I also conducted interviews with individuals who have deep knowledge about the Jewish history in Qamishli, including some Jews from the city.

In many ways, the Jewish experience in Qamishli follows the familiar trajectory of Jewish communities elsewhere in the Middle East—namely, that the community ceased to exist after a few decades of local Arab independence, with almost all of its members migrating either to Israel or to North America. But within this broader picture, the Qamishli experience contains several unique features.

From the 1920s to the 1990s, Qamishli Jewry was distinctively seen as native and foundational to the city. This was not only because the Jews came to Qamishli as it was being established by the French. It was also because they were among the main founders of the city. In that sense, they and those around them regarded their early contributions as an inherent and foundational part of the city, and an element of the rich diversity Qamishli enjoyed since its establishment.

Another, less fortunate and specific element of the Jewish experience in Qamishli, relates to the fact of the city’s Kurdish majority and its location around Syria’s Kurdish population.

The dreadful abuses carried out against the Jews by governments in Syria and across the Middle East were compounded when it came to the Jews of the Kurdish regions. In many aspects, this was a double suffering for the Jewish communities. On the one hand, the anti-Jewish practices against them were part of a wider trend in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria. On the other hand, they were viewed with extra suspicion by successive governments in those countries for the mere fact that they coexisted with Muslim Kurds, themselves historically persecuted for their ethnic identity.

To a considerable extent, this shared pain brought the Muslim Kurds and Jews closer together in their struggle for survival, creating a paradigm of genuine coexistence and brotherhood. This also perhaps stems from the fact that most Muslim Kurds have historically adhered to a moderate form of Islam, one that allows them to accept non-Muslims in their environs. This moderate approach to religion is evident in northeast Syria today and stands in notable contrast to practices elsewhere in the country. This represents a contrast also when compared to Jewish relations with Muslims elsewhere in the region, particularly after the establishment of Israel.

Whether it is those who have lived during that period or the younger generation who have learned about it through their parents, the fond memories of Qamishli residents about the city’s Jews are another testament to a Jewish legacy left behind, one that is thoroughly positive.

Main Founders of Qamishli

With the start of the French mandate in Syria in 1923, French officials in the country realized the importance of building a new city along the border with Turkey that could serve as an economic hub for northeast Syria, which was rural at that time. Most of the first settlers of the city where Assyrians, Armenians, Jews, and Kurds—the former two were genocide survivors from nearby Turkey. [1]

Qamishli was located just across from Nusaybin, a city on the Turkish side of the border with a significant long-standing Jewish population. Long before Qamishli was founded in 1926, Jewish traders from Nusaybin would travel south to sell their merchandise to Kurdish and Arab tribes scattered throughout the region.

Given an already established relationship between Jewish merchants and local Arabs and Kurds, the French rulers in Syria encouraged leaders of the Jewish community in Nusaybin to settle in Qamishli. Their hope was to make the city as vibrant as possible. They needed traders and craftsmen for the newly established city. And the Jews fitted the bill perfectly. [2]

Nusaybin, like much of the majority-Kurdish southeast and elsewhere in Turkey, was going through political turmoil, and the Jewish community there no longer felt safe. The indirect French offer in neighboring Syria was not only tempting but also logical. Indeed, many Jewish families started to move across the border as Qamishli’s first brick was laid. [3] For many Jews, the move meant only going away from their original homes in Nusaybin for a couple of miles as Qamishli was literally being built on the Syria-Turkey border.

The early Jewish families that moved to Qamishli had substantial wealth generated from their previously burgeoning businesses in Turkey. The abundance of funds allowed several Jewish families to put their entrepreneurial experience into practice. [4] Qamishli’s first market started with the opening of 30 stores that were entirely owned by Jewish families. From the so-called Jews’ Market sprang Qamishli’s expansive market that exists today. [5] The market until present day is sometimes colloquially called Ezra’s Market, referring to a well-known Jewish family, Ezra, who opened their first grocery store in the market in 1928, shortly after arriving in Qamishli from Nusaybin. The family later established a much bigger enterprise that dominated the market, not only in Qamishli but in other smaller towns in the region. [6]

The Jewish settlement in Qamishli contributed to the city’s fast-growing population. According to a 1931 census conducted by the Syriac Catholic Archdiocese in Qamishli, 250 Jewish families resided in the city, out of nearly 1,200 families between Armenians, Assyrians, Arabs, Kurds, and Syriac Christians. At the peak of the presence, nearly 3,000 Jews lived in the Qamishli area. [7]

The comfortable social, political, and economic conditions that Jews found for themselves in Qamishli incentivized other Jews from elsewhere to consider making a move to the new city. For example, in the mid-1930s a significant wave of Jewish immigration to Qamishli originated from places such as Cizre in Turkey and Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan. With a previous experience living with Kurds, language, and communication for the majority of them was not an obstacle. And these newly arrived families had no difficulty interacting and integrating with their Kurdish and Christian neighbors in Qamishli, some of whom were also originally from southeast Turkey.

But not all Jews who came to Qamishli were merchants and businessowners. Some of the Jewish families, who didn’t have capital, settled in villages near Qamishli such as Khazna, Tel Sha’ir, and Awijah where they took up agricultural and livestock farming as a profession to sustain themselves in their new home. The lands that those poor Jewish farmers worked belonged to the Rahinas, a wealthy Jewish family who purchased the land and leased it to poor Jewish families.

In Qamishli, the Jews were a highly organized community. In 1934, they built a synagogue in their quarter which, in addition to being a worshipping place, offered religious classes for Jewish children and became a major center for the community. [8]

Most Jews of Qamishli spoke a variant of Neo-Aramaic, while some of them spoke Kurdish. They later had to learn Arabic as well. The use of Hebrew was limited to liturgy and other religious rituals.

Moshe Nahum, the first Jewish community leader appointed by the French authorities, recognized that for his community to thrive in Qamishli, it needed to establish and maintain friendly relations with other groups in the city. [9] According to several accounts, Nahum was the first Jewish person to move to Qamishli from Nusaybin.

But it was Sameh Eliyahu, a well-known Jewish mukhtar, or head of the neighborhood, who was widely credited for consolidating brotherly relations with other ethnic and religious groups residing in Qamishli. He ensured that Jews mixed with their Kurdish, Arab and Christian neighbors, and attended their religious and ethnic holidays. [10]

The overall atmosphere of tolerance and peaceful coexistence that prevailed in Qamishli helped the Jewish community to flourish as it considered itself an important element of the city’s social fabric.

The only reported incident against the Jews of Qamishli over the years was in 1947 when a part of their synagogue was damaged. It remains unclear who was behind this attack.

Policies Toward Jews Under Successive Governments

During the decades in which Jews lived in Qamishli, several governments and rulers came to power in Damascus. As the country changed hands between French rulers, national governments, Arab nationalists, and finally the arrival of the Baath Party and longtime dictator Hafez al-Assad, each of them had different policies toward the Jewish community in general, and that of Qamishli in particular.

Local historians and Jews from Qamishli agree that the French-mandate era (1923-1946) was undoubtedly a golden period when it came to Jewish life in Syria. Under the French authorities, Jews were free to practice their religion, travel throughout the country with no restrictions, and most importantly, they also held government jobs, served in the military, and faced no discrimination when it came to Jewish participation in public life. It was also a time when society in general was more tolerant toward non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities. During this period, Qamishli’s Jews could connect with their brethren in Damascus and Aleppo, which had significant, more established, and certainly more ancient Jewish communities. The relationship considerably empowered the Jews in Qamishli. For example, a rabbi was sent on a regular basis from Damascus or Aleppo to Qamishli to offer guidance to the local Jews and settle disputes between members of the community based on Jewish law. In short, under French-ruled Syria members of the Jewish community in Qamishli were full-fledged citizens who enjoyed major religious, social and economic freedoms that contributed to improving their status and influence in the city and beyond.

In 1946, Syria gained its independence from France. The period was initially marked by important political and economic achievements by a national government that wanted to cater to all Syrians, regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was a turning point for Syria’s Jews. Under the government of then-president Shukri al-Quwatli, Jews were stripped of Syrian citizenship and all civic rights. From that point on, Jews were labelled as “Moussawi,” or the “the followers of Moses” in government records. This classification meant that Jews were treated as less than second-class citizens. They no longer had the right to public employment nor were they allowed to travel inside or outside the country. Jewish children could go to public schools, but they had no prospect for public employment after graduation. In Qamishli, a Jewish school that opened in 1947 with the approval of Damascus’s ministry of education (then called ministry of Ma’aref) was shut down in mid-1948 as part of the growing anti-Jewish policy. This was a time when several attacks were carried out on Jewish synagogues, houses and stores in Aleppo and Damascus by radical Arabs.

Starting in 1949, Syria was racked by a series of military coups that changed power dynamics in the country but not discriminatory policies toward the Jews. For most of the next decade, and despite political unrest, anti-Jewish practices in the country continued unabated.

Then came the period of union between Syria and Egypt in 1958. By all accounts, the harshest mistreatment of Jews in Syria in general, and Qamishli in particular, took place during the short-lived union between the two countries which ended in 1961. In those three years, the Jamal Abdul Nasser-led government not only doubled down on previous subjugation against the Jews in Syria, but devised novel practices that further harassed the local Jewish population.

Yazi Nahum, one of the last two Jews still living in Qamishli, vividly remembers that dark period of her life.

Every day at 7 o’clock in the evening, the police would go around the Jewish quarter knocking on doors one by one,” the 80-year-old recalled. “They would conduct a daily inspection and check the names of all household members. After 7 in the evening no Jew was allowed to stay out. The police arrested and tortured those who were caught outside past 7 o’clock. Those were very bad days for us. [11]

Most members of Nahum’s family left for Israel. She stayed behind after she was married to a Muslim man. The other Jewish woman still living in Qamishli is called Rachel. An interview with her was not possible due to her poor health and fading memory.

The curfew policy continued well after the dissolution of the union between Egypt and Syria as coup leaders in Damascus espoused an Arab nationalist ideology like that of Nasser, despite their animosity toward the Egyptian leader.

Moreover, social events, wedding parties and other forms of public gatherings by the Jewish community required prior approval by the intelligence agencies.

The 1963 coup that brought the Arab Socialist Baath Party to power in Syria marked yet a new chapter of mistreatment of Jews under Arab nationalists. The Baathists continued the policies of their predecessors toward the local Jewish community, depriving its members of basic rights. Anti-Jewish rhetoric particularly increased following the 1967 Six-Day War, which concluded with a spectacular defeat for Syria and its Arab allies.

Hafez al-Assad’s takeover of the Baath and assumption of power in 1970 brought some change in the way Baathists treated the Jewish community. Still reeling from the 1967 defeat, Assad’s attitude toward Syria’s Jews was no different from his predecessors. But being the strategic and cunning politician that he was, Assad relaxed some restrictions on the Jews, including a phase where his government began to issue travel documents for the Jews.

By the time Hafez al-Assad took over the country, there were about 4,000 Jews left in Syria, including just under 500 living in Qamishli. [12]

The curfew policy targeting the Jews was lifted during the early days of Hafez al-Assad’s rule. According to Yazi Nahum, the curfew was lifted partly thanks to efforts by a Jewish community leader from Qamishli who traveled to Damascus with the hope of convincing the new leader, through his inner circle, to ease restrictions on the Jewish community.

But Assad’s distrust toward the Jewish community, particularly those in Qamishli, did not entirely cease. Until the early 1990s, Syria’s notorious military intelligence service would conduct annual intelligence studies on the few remaining Jewish families in Qamishli. One of the questions that was constantly asked was whether those families were in touch with their relatives who had migrated to Israel.

Assad’s policy toward the Jewish community was based on two tenets: 1) Some of the anti-Jewish restrictions that were lifted would project him as a tolerant leader. 2) Granting passports and travel documents to the Jews would further expedite their exit from Syria.

Migration to Israel

After the State of Israel was created, Jews in Syria sensed that they were no longer welcome in the country. This had become more evident in December 1947 when major riots broke out in Aleppo targeting the city’s Jewish residents. These violent events were part of a wave of anti-Jewish attacks inspired by the partition plan for Palestine, which was approved by a U.N. General Assembly resolution in the previous month.

The Aleppo attacks were carried out by local Sunni Arabs, who were in turn incited by Syrian authorities. In those attacks, at least 75 Jewish residents of Aleppo were killed, and hundreds wounded. The violence resulted in the destruction and burning of dozens of Jewish synagogues and schools, as well as hundreds of Jewish houses and Jewish-owned stores. [13]

Another event that shocked the Jewish community throughout the country was a 1949 explosion at al-Minshara synagogue. The attack was carried out by three individuals who threw grenades at the synagogue which was located in the Jewish quarter in Old Damascus. At least 12 Jewish worshippers were killed in the attack and dozens of others were wounded. [14]

Such events became an immediate precursor for a series of migrations among Syria’s Jews. For those in Qamishli, some families made the choice of leaving for Israel in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. Others, however, made the flight to North and South America. Since travel restrictions were still imposed on them, it meant that Jews who wanted to leave for Israel or elsewhere had to rely on smuggling routes to get out of Syria.

Yazi Nahum, the Jewish woman still resident in Qamishli, recounted the story of a daring Jewish man who was behind the smuggling of hundreds of Jews out of the city:

The man, whose name I have forgotten, realized that Qamishli’s Jews needed to move to Israel because he knew it would be better for them. This was shortly after the war in 1967. He moved to Nusaybin along with his brother. I’m not sure if he was originally from there, but Nusaybin was a good location because it’s only a few kilometers away from Qamishli. After settling there, he launched a covert mission to smuggle out Jewish families from Qamishli. He converted to Islam – and even married four wives. The conversion was important to avoid raising any suspicion about his multi-year mission. His mission ended after he successfully managed to get out dozens of Jewish families from Qamishli and made sure they arrived safely in Israel. Then it was his turn to move to Israel. But at that point he had many children from his four marriages. He asked his Muslim wives and children whether they wanted to immigrate to Israel with him. The wives and children agreed, and the big family left for Israel.

Nahum’s account was corroborated by two other sources in Qamishli, but neither was able to identify the man. [15] What is also certain about this story is that at least one Israeli organization and another Jewish group from North America helped the Jewish man and his brother in their endeavors. [16]

The Jewish migration from Syria continued during Hafez al-Assad’s rule, albeit under different circumstances.

Two important events are believed to be the main drivers behind Hafez Assad’s anti-Jewish policy, which included a push to kick the Jews out of Syria.

The first was the 1965 scandal of Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy who infiltrated the political and military establishment in Syria and almost became the country’s defense minister, a post assumed by Assad himself one year following Cohen’s execution in Damascus after the uncovering of his years-long espionage work for the Mossad. The Cohen scandal was a major embarrassment for Syria’s military and intelligence establishment that had been boasting about its espionage prowess, mostly acquired from the Soviet Union and East Germany. It was a particularly harsh insult for Hafez Assad, who was already planning his takeover of a country that he would later turn into a police state.

The second event was the defeat in the Six-Day War. Assad was the defense minister at that time and was one of the most vocal voices within the country’s military establishment that wanted Syria to initiate the war on Israel, which in the end was not the case as it was Israel that launched preemptive strikes on Egypt, and then on Syria. It was only after those attacks that Syria began waging attacks on Israeli positions. That defeat lingered over Assad’s thinking for years and largely shaped his later policy toward Syria’s Jews. He no longer tolerated their existence in Syria, but it would have been uncharacteristic of him to mistreat or deport them in the harsh ways that some other Arab leaders chose to take against their own Jewish communities.

Assad preferred to find clever ways to encourage the Jewish flight from Syria. This included a Syrian government-led campaign to purchase Jewish-owned properties, using wealthy Muslim businesspeople as a façade to do so. This didn’t entirely work, but some Jews did indeed sell their real estate and commercial properties before leaving the country. In the late 1980s, the Assad regime began issuing passports for Jewish residents. Until 1992, hundreds of Jews began to leave the country, often traveling to Turkey and Europe, with either Israel or North America being their destination.

The last major batch of Jews who left Qamishli, and Syria at large, was in 1994, shortly after a Geneva summit between then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and Assad. It was reported that Assad made a pledge during the meeting with Clinton to allow the remaining 1,200 Syrian Jews to leave the country. [17] Those Jews were then granted Syrian passports, which allowed them to apply for and get U.S. visas. While some of them then traveled and resettled in the United States, the majority used the U.S. as a transit point from which they migrated to Israel.

The largest community of Syrian Jewry, outside of Israel, is in New York City, mostly concentrated in Brooklyn with an estimated 75,000 people.

Currently, it is believed that under 100 Jews have remained in Syria, including some that have either converted to Islam or married Muslims.

A committee to oversee the properties of Jews in Syria has been established by the state and one of its branches manages Jewish properties in Qamishli. There are about 250 stores and houses belonging to Jewish families in Qamishli that are now occupied by Christian or Muslim renters. Despite being away for decades, Jews still have full ownership of their properties in Qamishli—and elsewhere for that matter.
Famous Jewish Families

Below is a list of major Jewish families who had social, economic, and religious influence within the community and beyond: [18]

The Nahum family
The Yair family
The Sameh
The Eliyahu
The Shalu
The Ezra family
The Dodo family
The Saleh family
The Moshe family

A Deserted Synagogue

The Jewish synagogue that was built in 1934 remains standing in the middle of Qamishli’s old market, albeit deserted. A local Kurdish man who has the keys to the place looks after it. With small individual donations made by Jews abroad, the man has managed to keep the synagogue relatively intact and clean.

The synagogue is not open to the public and access to the place is granted to individuals based on prior permission by some members of Qamishli’s Jewish community who live in Israel.

The synagogue occupies a whole block in Qamishli’s market, still called the Jews’ market. It is divided by a garden into two sections. Each section has a prayer room. The larger room still has a bema and a menorah. In the middle of the end side of the other hall lies an inscription in Hebrew and Arabic that is dedicated to a young man named Benjamin Zion Eliyahu who died in 1982.

Since Qamishli came under the control of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES) in 2012, there have been several attempts by the new authorities to take charge of renovating the

synagogue with the eventual goal of reopening it. But it seems that the Jewish community refuses such proposals, preferring to keep the place away from political influence during this time of uncertainty in Syria.

Apart from the synagogue and Ezra’s store in downtown Qamishli, there is an old Jewish cemetery located on Qamishli’s western outskirts. The cemetery contains what has been known as the ‘Jewish Dome,’ a tomb where it is believed that the body of the Jewish scholar Judah ben Bathyra is buried. [19] Nowadays it is risky to visit the Jewish cemetery as it is adjacent to the Turkish border and has come under attack by Turkish guards in recent years.

While the vast majority of Qamishli’s Jews most likely would not return to the city, their properties as well as the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery represent an important period of Qamishli’s history in which the Jews played a central role.