Aleppo, Syria; Once the Stronghold of Jewish Industry, Now Fighting the Good Guys, The Kurds

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                           The Jews of Syria, A Lost Civilization

Stiff European trade competition in the late 1800‘s, bolstered by the opening of the Suez Canal, caused severe economic hardship for Syrian-Jewish merchants. Many Jews emigrated to Lebanon, Israel, and elsewhere while the Jews of Damascus declined in religiosity. The Jewish population of Aleppo stayed steady, but that of Damascus decreased dramatically over a short period of time. Today some 50 Jews remain in Syria. Their population blame any little thing, like the bad weather, on the Jews.  Their Damascus Affair is a well-known anti-Semic event of that period.   

You need a game board to keep track of who the good guys are these days and what is happening to them.  Aleppo was a major, ancient Jewish center, known as "Aram-Zoba," with a history stretching back to biblical times, famous for its Great Synagogue, vibrant Sephardic culture absorbing Spanish exiles, and as the home of the priceless Aleppo Codex. Its Jewish community, a unique blend of indigenous and Sephardic traditions, thrived under Ottoman rule, becoming a significant scholarly and merchant hub before facing persecution and eventual mass emigration in the mid-20th century, with remnants now in Israel, the U.S., and Latin America. 

While Damascus was the biggest Jewish center, the second major Jewish center in Syria was Aleppo. Jewish activity there dates back to the 4th century C.E. with the building of the Kanisat Mutakal, the oldest Jewish structure in Aleppo. As Aleppo became the center of Jewish learning in Syria, several notable figures including Saadiah Gaon and R. Joseph b. Aknin (the Rambam’s disciple) made their way there from Israel to see the Aleppo community’s erudition and first-hand. They could not have been disappointed for the Jewish scholars of Aleppo were responsible for producing one of Judaism’s single most important documents and Syrian Jewry’s single greatest achievement: the Aleppo Codex. The Codex is the most authoritative and accurate of the Masoretic Texts which form the basis for the modern Hebrew text of the Bible. 

By the time of the Six-Day War of 1967 there were only 1,000 Jews in Aleppo and 1,500 in Damascus, down from 40,000 total Jews in 1948. The socialist Ba’ath party took over in 1963 putting into power Hafez al-Assad and later his son, the current president, Bashar. 

 

I wrote about Judith Feld Carr helping the Syrian Jews get out of Syria in my book, Messages From A Syrian Jew Trapped in Egypt.    Despite their dire situation, the Jews of Syria were not forgotten by the outside world. One hero in particular, Judy Feld Carr, was instrumental in bringing about what is one of the largest post-Holocaust rescue of Jews. Carr, a Canadian-Jewish musician, used funds from the Dr. Ronald Feld Fund for Jews in Arab Lands from the Beth Tzedek Synagogue in Toronto to pay for Syrian Jews to emigrate to a place of their choosing. Over the course of 25 years, an estimated 3,228 Jews were able to leave Syria thanks to Carr’s clandestine efforts. She has won numerous awards and is the subject of a book, The Ransomed of God: The Remarkable Story Of One Woman's Role in the Rescue of Syrian Jews by Harold Troper. 

What's happening  today in Aleppo:  

• Escalating Clashes: Fighting intensified in Kurdish-majority neighborhoods (Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafiyeh) after a brief ceasefire, with shelling hitting civilian areas. (The Kurds are our friends. 
• Why is Syria fighting them?) The recent fighting between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stems from a fundamental disagreement over the SDF-held territories' future: autonomy versus central state control. The long-running Syrian civil war provided the context for this conflict, allowing the Kurds to establish a semi-autonomous region in the northeast.                     
  
                                                       
  
  
  
• Who are the Kurds?  The Kurds are a large, indigenous Middle Eastern ethnic group, numbering 30-45 million, known as the world's largest stateless people, living primarily in Kurdistan, a region spanning parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, united by Kurdish (an Indo-European language) and culture but with diverse traditions, predominantly Sunni Muslim, who have a long history of seeking autonomy or independence amidst persecution and conflict. 
• What is connection of Kurds and Jews?  DNA studies show Kurds and Jews share close genetic ties, with Kurds often being the closest relatives to most Jewish groups, clustering more with populations from the northern Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, Armenians) than Arabs; both groups exhibit common ancestral markers like the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), linking them to ancient northern Middle Eastern populations, suggesting shared deep roots in the region. 
• What side was Israel on?  Israel has provided covert military, intelligence, and financial assistance to the Kurds, primarily in Iraq, since the 1960s, and has offered humanitarian aid and political support for independence in recent decades. 
• Civilian Impact: At least five civilians died, dozens injured, and over 30,000 displaced; hospitals suspended operations, and flights at Aleppo Airport were halted.
• Evacuation Orders: Syrian authorities urged residents to leave contested zones, opening corridors as military operations against the SDF loomed.
• SDF Stance: The SDF claims government forces have besieged Kurdish areas for months and denies military presence in Aleppo, holding internal security forces responsible. 
  
      All he needed was to put on a suit, and the panther  Jolani changed his clothes to Sharaa..  
• Syria seems to be going from bad to worse.  Syria's new president is Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Ahmad al-Shara), a former jihadist who led the rebel offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, becoming president for a transitional period.  Ahmed al-Sharaa, the current de facto leader of Syria, used to be widely known by his jihadist nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (or al-Julani), a former commander for al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, designated a global terrorist by the U.S. before his rebranding and rise in Syrian politics. 
• Trump loves this guy, but we know better. Does a leopard change his  sspots overnight?    
•  He has since rebranded himself as a moderate leader, shedding his past ties to al-Qaeda (formerly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham/HTS), engaging with Western nations, and focusing on rebuilding Syria, though challenges remain in establishing stable governance and addressing the country's humanitarian crisis. 

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2024/10/messages-from-syrian-jew-trapped-in.html

In Israel One Finds Kurds and Even Kurdish Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

   Moses gathering his people, the Israelites and OTHERS, to go on the Exodus

Remember the "OTHERS" included in the Exodus of Jacob's original family of 70 that had grown in Egypt and were rescued by Moses with the Exodus?  Well, Israel has still taken in some "others" in today's revised Israel.  One such group, though quite small, are the Kurds.  Interestingly enough, they are the very closest match of DNA to the Jewish people. 

Genetic studies suggest a close relationship between Kurds and Jewish populations, with some research indicating they share common ancestry in the northern Fertile Crescent. Specifically, these studies have found that Jewish populations, including Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish Jews, exhibit a closer genetic connection to Kurds than to some other Middle Eastern groups like Arabs. 

 The changing of populations caused by Assyria in 721 BCE and then almost a repeat over 100 years later by Babylon  in 586 BE brought in new DNA as well as taking our people to other places in the Middle East.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact number of non-Jewish Kurds living in Israel, but it is generally understood to be a small community, likely in the hundreds. While there is a significant population of Kurdish Jews in Israel, the number of non-Jewish Kurds is much smaller, consisting mainly of refugees and their descendants who fled conflict in Turkey and Iraq.  (You see, there are refugees that get out of the UN facilities and try to make a life for themselves.  )

The Kurdish population in Israel is small and is mainly composed of individuals and families, who fled Iraq and Turkey during the Iraqi–Kurdish and the Kurdish–Turkish conflicts during the 20th century. In 2006, the number of Kurdish refugees from Turkey was estimated at 200. Another estimate for both Iraqi and Turkish Kurds was 150 persons in 2007.

Based on the information available, precisely determining the number of non-Jewish Kurds in Israel in 2024 is challenging due to several factors:

• Overlap with Arab Population Statistics: Many non-Jewish Kurds in Israel have assimilated into Arab culture and may be included in the overall Arab population figures, which stand at approximately 2.1 million, constituting 21.1% of Israel's population in 2024.

In March 2001, a group of 19 Kurdish men entered Israel via Lebanon, asking for asylum, but were denied. In mid-2001, a group of 42 Kurdish refugees attempted to enter Israel via Lebanon, illegally crossing the Israeli–Lebanese border, but were returned to Lebanon.

In 2007, 40 Iraqi Kurdish children, mostly from Iraqi Kurdistan, were hosted with their parents and medically treated in Israel, as part of the project initiated by Israeli Save a Child's Heart Organization (SACH). In 2013, it was reported that Israel accepted three Kurdish children from Iraqi Kurdistan for medical treatment. The children were settled into Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, southern Tel Aviv area. They were some of the 183 children with Iraqi nationality, entering Israel for medical treatment since the establishment of the program.

The majority of Kurds are Muslim, with a large portion adhering to Sunni Islam, specifically the Shafi'i school. However, there's also a significant minority of Kurds who follow Alevism and Shia Islam. Additionally, some Kurds practice other religions like Yazidism, Yarsanism, and Zoroastrianism, or have no religious affiliation.    

However, The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at between 30 and 45 million, with another one or two million living in the Kurdish diaspora. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18 to 25% of the population in Turkey, 15 to 20% in Iraq; 10% in Iran; and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia after Arabs, Persians, and Turks.

The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 24% in Iran, 18% in Iraq, and 4% in Syria.

Recent emigration accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries, about half of them in Germany.

A special case are the Kurdish populations in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, displaced there mostly in the time of the Russian Empire, who underwent independent developments for more than a century and have developed an ethnic identity in their own right. This group's population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990.                               

Views of the solidarity protest for Rojava organized by Kurdish Jews on October 12th 2019 in Jerusalem.  Rojava was the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), also known as Rojava,which is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, and Deir ez-Zor.

We have Kurdish Jews.  According to tradition,  the 1st Jewish settlers went to Kurdistan as early as the time of Ezra.  The early beginnings of Jewish immigration are attested by the Aramaic dialect spoken by Kurdish Jews up to modern times.  It is close to the language of the Babylonian Talmud and the speech of the Nestorian Christians in Kurdistan.  At the end of the 19th century, the Jewish community was estimate to number 12 to 18,000 scattered innumerous villages and townlets and living as merchants, peddlers and craftsmen.  In the 20th century they increased in Persian Kurdistan to 12-14,000.  After 1948, the great majority emigrated to Israel living in or near Jerusalem. 

Israel is now a home to some 200,000 Jews of Kurdistani origins, who are mostly descended from nearly 50 thousand Kurdish Jews evacuated from Iraq during Operation Ezra and Nehemiah in the early 1950s. Israeli Jews of Kurdistani background preserve ties with the ethnic Kurdish communities in the Middle East, including with the Kurdish individuals residing in Israel.

Kurdish Jews in Israel are descendants of Jewish communities from Kurdistan who immigrated to Israel. They are part of the larger Mizrahi Jewish population and number around 300,000 in Israel according to Wikipedia. Many live in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other cities.  

Jews are divided into Ashkenazi (speaking Yiddish-from German,Eastern Europe); 

 Sephardi-Spain, Portugal, etc speaking Ladino, and Mizrachi-from Egypt, Middle East speaking Arabic, etc.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds_in_Israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Autonomous_Administration_of_North_and_East_Syria

Erdogan Claims Cutting Ties of Diplomacy and Trade With Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, age 70;  (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014.

In the wake of criticism in local media of Turkey's 'secret financial ties', Turkish president – who has spoken out harshly against Netanyahu since the beginning of the war – tells reporters that his country has severed relations with Israel; Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv is still operating and Jerusalem says not informed about cut in ties.  

The Ottoman Empire (Turkey)  took over the land of modern-day Israel in 1516 and ruled it until 1917-end of WWI: holding it for about 400 years.  No, Turks are not Arabs; they are a distinct ethnic group with their own language and cultural heritage, completely separate from Arabs, although they may share geographical proximity and some historical interactions due to the Ottoman Empire; the Turkish language belongs to the Turkic language family while Arabic is a Semitic language, making them linguistically different as well. However, they are both Muslims.  According to the state, 99.8% of the population is initially registered as Muslim. The remaining 0.2% are Christians and adherents of other officially recognized religions such as Judaism. As much as 90% of the population follows Sunni Islam.

Turkey, the one time Ottoman Empire, has a leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,  that is envious of their previous position in the world and keeps wishing to go back into history, no doubt.  He has severed relations of a sort with Syria so far. In January 2018, the Turkish military and its allies Syrian National Army and Sham Legion began Operation Olive Branch in Afrin in Northern Syria, against the Kurdish armed group YPG. In October 2019, the United States gave the go-ahead to the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, despite recently agreeing to a Northern Syria Buffer Zone. U.S. troops in northern Syria were withdrawn from the border to avoid interference with the Turkish operation. After the U.S. pullout, Turkey proceeded to attack the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Rejecting criticism of the invasion, Erdoğan claimed that NATO and European Union countries "sided with terrorists, and all of them attacked us". 

Erdoğan then filed a criminal complaint against French magazine Le Point after it accused him of conducting ethnic cleansing in the area. With Erdogan's control of the media fanning local nationalism, a poll by Metropoll Research found that 79% of Turkish respondents expressed support for the operation.

                                   Turkish guards in Jerusalem 

What early Jews making the move to Palestine in the late 1800s met up with from Ottoman Empire;  their army.  

 The Empire captured Salonica in 1430 and Constantinople in 1432.  After 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the Ottoman Empire was a refuge for  Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal.  Salonika is Greece's second largest city and the capital of Macedonia. It's located in northern Greece and is one of the oldest cities in Europe.  Constantinople is in modern-day Turkey and is now known as Istanbul: Istanbul is located in both Europe and Asia, straddling the Bosporus strait. The city was originally settled by ancient Greeks in the seventh century B.C. as Byzantium. It was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and later the Ottoman Empire. The city was officially renamed Istanbul in 1930.

Erdoğan visited Israel on 1 May 2005, a gesture unusual for a leader of a Muslim majority country. During his trip, Erdoğan visited the Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. 

The President of Israel, Shimon Peres, addressed the Turkish parliament during a visit in 2007, the first time an Israeli leader had addressed the legislature of a predominantly Muslim nation.

                     Map showing Turkey and Israel, both on the Mediterranean

Relations between Turkey and Israel began to normalize after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu officially apologized for the death of the nine Turkish activists during the Gaza flotilla raid. However, in response to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Erdoğan accused Israel of being "more barbaric than Hitler", and conducting "state terrorism" and a "genocide attempt" against the Palestinians.  This is like the pot calling the kettle "black."  Israel, the target/victims  of terrorists-PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah, has become the aggressor of the terrorists, now the victims in Erdogan's eyes, as well of the eyes of other neighbors.  It just happens that the victim is the only Jewish country while the terrorists are all representatives of the Islamic persuasion.  Israel, like a sore thumb, stands out as the only Jewish nation in the world.  

Turkey, a NATO country, has given Netanyahu a bad time over Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, claiming them all for the Arabs. However, some have questioned Turkey's membership in NATO, noting that Turkey has been courting adversaries of the US, such as Russia, Iran, and China. Some say that Turkey's membership in NATO no longer serves its goals, and that NATO members should suspend cooperation with Turkey and work to secure its departure.

 Erdoğan condemned the Israel–UAE peace agreement, stating that Turkey was considering suspending or cutting off diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates in retaliation.  The relations shifted back to normality since 2021, when the two countries started improving relations. In March 2022, Israeli president Isaac Herzog visited Turkey, meeting Erdoğan. The two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations in August 2022.

Erdoğan condemned the Israeli attacks in the Gaza strip during 2023 Israel–Hamas war, saying they are a violation of human rights, which led to accusations of hypocrisy as Turkey itself severely bombed Kurdish areas at the same time, including many civilian targets. Erdoğan said that Israel's bombing and blockade of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas’ attack was a disproportionate response amounting to a "massacre." On 25 October 2023, Erdoğan said that Hamas was not a terrorist organization but a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands and people. On 15 November 2023, he condemned Israel as a "terrorist state" and accused it of committing genocide against the Palestinians.

You can always depend on people like Erdogan to turn a situation completely around

 and favor the enemy, instead.  They do it at every opportunity.  

Resource:

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1hqygfgye

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Turkey#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20state%2C%2099.8,the%20population%20follows%20Sunni%20Islam.