Syrians During Their Time of Need and Why Western Countries Are Frugal About It

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

A 9th-century b.c.e. celebratory inscription belonging to Syria’s King Hazael, a glorification of his triumphs over Israel’s King Jehoram and Judah’s King Ahaziah. What was “wrong” was the mention of another name on the stele.The inscription reads (emphasis added):And I killed two [power]ful kin[gs], who harnessed two thou[sand cha]riots and two thousand horsemen. [I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and I killed [Ahaz]yahu son of [Joram kin]g of the house of David. And I set …This was shocking to many researchers who thought that Jewish history was just a fable.  Here it is being vetted by a Syrian king! 

Phoenicians lived mainly in Arvad, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Gebal (Byblos), Simirro and Sin.  Their language was similar to Hebrew.  Inscriptions found tell us their history.  Egyptians controlled Phoenicians from about 1500 BCE to Rameses III.  King Hiram of Tyre had close relations with King Solomon of Israel while Ethbaal in Sidon had cooperation with King Omri of Israel.   

Syria was called Aram in the Bible.  Their kings had a hard time creating a state of one people as they find it also difficult to impossible today.  Their coastline was settled by the Phoenicians.  The kingdoms of  Israel and Judah fought with them until the 8th century BCE, when Syria was run over by the same Assyrians who ran over Israel.               

The Arab conquest took place in 634-to 637 after Mohammad had died in 632.  By the 12th century, the city of Aleppo had 5,000 Jews and Damascus, the capital, had 3,000 with Palmyra having 2,000.  After 1492's Spanish Inquisition, the Jewish population of Syria increased with Spanish and Sicilian Jews.  They helped Syria in their trade between Europe and Asia.  

Jewish prisoner preparing his defence, a Capuchin distant in the doorway. Painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim.

The Damascus Blood Libel in 1840  was a very strong anti-Semite act.  Jews of Syria had to wait till 1920 when under the French Mandate-something that was created after WWI, for Jews to have equal rights, but then these were infringed during WWII under the Vichy regime.  So Jews started immigrating to the United States, Lebanon and Israel.  This reduced the Jewish population in Syria from about 30,000 in 1943 to about 14,000 in 1947.  Terrorism there against Jews during Israel's War was the cause of the decline, along with a material decline and moral isolation.  Jews of today in Syria have been confined to their own quarter, mainly in Damascus on Jew Street.  By 1973, the Jewish number was 4,000.  

Syria continues its program of  virulence of its anti-Israel policy and has continued acts of hostility since it joined the Arab invasion of 1948.  They were partly responsible for the Six Day War with Israel where they lost, even backed with all the other surrounding Muslim states.  In that war, Israel  took over the Golan Heights.   which the Syrians had been bombarding Jewish settlements below.  

Bashar Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: بَشَّارُ ٱلْأَسَدِ, born 11 September 1965) now 57,  is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the Secretary-General of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafez al-Assad, whose presidency between 1971 to 2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a dynastic dictatorship tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat (secret services), who are loyal to the Assad family.                                   

                    Assad is now a puppet of Iran and Russia. 

Born and raised in Damascus, Bashar al-Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988 and began to work as a doctor in the Syrian Army.  He graduated as an ophthalmologist in 1988. He then served as an army doctor at a Damascus military hospital.   Assad's regime functions as a personalist dictatorship, and several political scientists and journalists describe it as a totalitarian police state. Although Bashar inherited the bureaucratic structure and personality cult nurtured by Hafez al-Assad, he lacked the charisma and loyalty received by his father, which led to rising discontent against his rule.

Just who is this seemingly composed, nattily dressed, English-speaking dictator who has been charged with killing more than 1400 of his own people with chemical weapons on August 21? Among the dead: over 400 children were slain.  Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, 47, has denied committing this heinous act of terror, blaming it instead on rebel groups in his country.                                              

                                  Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: حافظ الأسد, 6 October 1930 was a Syrian statesman and military officer who served as President of Syria from taking power in 1971 until his death in 2000.

The Assad family has been ruling Syria for the past 40 years.  On 17 July 2000, Bashar al-Assad became president, succeeding his father Hafez, who had died on 10 June 2000. A series of state elections have since been held regularly every seven years - in 2000, 2007, 2014 and 2021 - which he won with overwhelming majority of votes. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and some twelve million people—more than half the country’s prewar population—have been displaced. 

        Syria with major cities;  Aleppo used to be a major Jewish city of business, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world.  Their Al-Hayyat Mosque was formerly a synagogue dating from the 6th century.  It was the home of many men of learning.  400 Jews remained in 1991.  They were probably the oldest.  

People receive aid at a make-shift shelter near the rebel-held 

town  of Jinidayris, Syria.  Rami al Sayed/AFP via Getty Images

An aerial view shows rescuers searching the rubble of buildings for 

casualties   and survivors in the village of Azmarin in Syria's rebel-held

 northwestern Idlib  province on Tuesday.  Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

Today Syria and Turkey have been hit several times by earthquakes only hours apart of 7.8 and 7.7 strength with a loss so far of 17,000 people.  Rescuers from Israel are sending food, clothing, medical supplies but are not apt to enter Syria as they are enemies.  Syria is full of terrorists.  Israel has sent aides into Turkey.  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Homefront Command dispatched the 150-person search-and-rescue team to Adana shortly after Monday's earthquake, which has killed thousands in southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. Countless victims were trapped in rubble, with harsh winter conditions exacerbating their plight.

  An aerial view shows an excavator lying in a flooded area after the collapse of a dam on the Orontes or Assi river near al-Tulul village in Salqin, in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province.  Abdulaziz Ketaz/AFP via Getty Images

A Syrian family who lost their home during the deadly earthquake rest in a 

make-shift shelter at a camp for internally displaced people, in the Afrin 

region   of Syria's rebel-held northern Aleppo province. Rami al Sayed/AFP via Getty Images

Separately, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that Israel was prepared to send aid to Syrian victims of the quake after receiving a request through a “diplomatic official” whom he did not identify.

Workers unload an airplane with aid sent from Iran, at the Aleppo airport in 

Syria early on Wednesday.  AFP via Getty Images

Israeli media said the intermediary was Russia — implying that 

the request was from the Moscow-backed regime of Syrian 

President Bashar al-Assad, rather than rebel groups. Russia 

declined comment, while the pro-Damascus newspaper Al Watan 

quoted an unnamed regime official as   denying that Syria had 

made such a request of Israel.

    Members of the Syrian civil defense, known as the White Helmets, warm themselves by a fire next to the rubble of a collapsed building late on Tuesday in Jandairis, as search and rescue operations continue following a deadly earthquake.  Rami al Sayed/AFP via Getty Images

There is a very high threat of kidnapping throughout Syria. Kidnappings can be for financial or political gain, and can be motivated by criminality or terrorism. There have been a number of kidnappings, including of British nationals and other Westerners. Some hostages have been killed.

Terrorist groups operating in Syria routinely use kidnapping as a tactic. Westerners continue to be targeted and any Western presence in Syria would be at high risk. British nationals are viewed as legitimate targets, including those engaged in tourism, humanitarian aid work, journalism or business sectors. If you’re kidnapped, the reason for your presence is unlikely to serve as a protection or secure your safe release.

Russia Lands Attack Helicopters, Troops At Former US Air Base In Syria

World News | Reuters | Friday November 15, 2019

Russia landed attack helicopters and troops at a sprawling air base in northern Syria vacated by U.S. forces, the Russian Defence Ministry's Zvezda TV channel said on Friday.  

So what have we learned?  Russia and Iran have sent aid.  Well, so has Israel.  USA has a base in Syria.  

Resource:

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/02/08/israel-saves-lives-in-turkey-offers-syria-aid-after-earthquake/#:~:text=The%20Israel%20Defense%20Forces%20(IDF,winter%20conditions%20exacerbating%20their%20plight.T The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security. FDD does not accept donations from foreign governments.

Surprise: Jews Were Living in Haiti

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

                        Haiti's president was just recently assassinated. 

                                                                   

 Jovenel Moïse was a Haitian entrepreneur and politician who served as the president of Haiti from 2017 until his assassination in 2021.  Here are officers patroling the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, days after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The police said several of the key figures under investigation had met up in the months before the killing.  Credit...   Federico Rios for The New York Times.                                  

In 1492, the first Jew to ever set foot in Haiti was Luis de Torres, an interpreter for Christopher Columbus on his first expedition. He was the first to set foot in America and the first to have used tobacco.  He was born Jewish but was baptized immediately before Columbus' expedition sailed.  We knew there were a few sailors on his ship known to be Jewish and who needed to get out of Spain being the Spanish Inquisition said that all Jews who would not convert to Catholicism had to leave the country. Columbus may have had a priest on his voyage with him.  It's thought that Columbus himself may have been  a Marrano as he wrote to his son in Hebrew.   

After Haiti was taken over and colonized by the French in 1633, many Dutch Jews (of whom many were Marrano- people who had gone through conversion but remained Jewish in private) emigrated from Brazil in 1634 and became employees of the French sugar plantations and further developed the trade. In 1683, the Jews were expelled from Haiti and all other French colonies, due to the Code Noir (Black Code), which both restricted the activities of free Negroes and forbade the exercise of any religion other than Roman Catholicism. 

However, despite the Code Noir, a limited number of Jews remained in French trading companies as leading officials, including foreign citizens (Dutch Jews, Danish Jews, and English Jews) or holders of special residence permits (lettres patentes). These Jews tended to specialize in agricultural plantations, with Portuguese Jews from Bordeaux and Bayonne settling mainly in the southern part of Haiti (Jacmel, Jérémie, Léogâne, Les Cayes, Petit-Goâve, and Port-au-Prince) and Curaçaoan Jews settling in the northern part (Cap-Haitien and Saint Louis).

In the mid-1700s, many Jews returned to Haiti.

Due to a lack of Jewish community centers, many youth did not grow up with a Jewish education and had to hide their Judaism, as only Catholics were permitted to attend public school. Jews generally preferred to settle on the coastline in port cities, as many were involved in commerce and trade, establishing communities in major industry centers. 

Recently, archaeologists uncovered an ancient synagogue of Crypto-Jews in the city of Jérémie, the only one found on the island; Jérémie was inhabited by many mixed-race families of Jewish descent. Several Jewish tombstones have also been found in port cities such as Cap-Haïtien and Jacmel.

 By the end of the 19th century, approximately thirty mostly Sephardi Jewish families had arrived from Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt; many Jews from the Middle East felt secure emigrating to Haiti, as a law in France had been passed during this period that gave French citizenship to minorities in the Americas.

In 1915, during the United States occupation of Haiti, roughly 200 Jews lived in Haiti at the time. During the 20 years period of occupation, many Jews left Haiti for the United States and South America.

                                               

Haiti was hardly an obvious destination for Jews fleeing Europe in the late 1930s. But they went wherever they could, and Haiti deserves credit for saving the lives of approximately 300 Jews. One of them was Ernst Mohr. He was released from the Dachau concentration camp 83 years ago  – on December 21, 1938 when this was taken .

 In 1937, Haiti was responsible for saving about 70 Jewish families (an estimated total of up to 300 lives) during the Holocaust (according to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), by issuing passports and visas to Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Some were Austrian Jews, Polish Jews, German Jews, and a trickle of Romanian Jew and Czech Jewish descent. Haiti played a small, yet critical role in saving Jewish lives during the darkest chapter in the Jewish story.

 Unfortunately, though, it seems that more Jews were unable to acquire visas to Haiti due to the cost. Professor David Bankier, of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that after 1938, “the cost [of a visa] was outrageous: If you wanted to go to Haiti, you had to pay $5,000.

” Haiti at the time, was still unfairly paying reparations on an exorbitant debt with interest fees to France after the Haitian Revolution that could have hindered their efforts to continue issuing these visas for free.

 There were others apart from this bunch who never came to Haiti at all, but from Germany they were given Haitian passports by the Haitian government that allowed them to flee Germany and into other countries. 

Grateful to the Haitian government, many of these European Jews stayed in Haiti until the late 1950s in which many Haitian Jews left, so that their children could marry other Jews and not assimilate, while finding better economic opportunities.          

                         Jews in Haiti today

Each year on Yom Kippur, Rudolph Dana locks himself in his Pétionville, Haiti, home — protected by guard dogs and security personnel — and passes the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur,  fasting, praying and reciting the traditional liturgy of repentance and forgiveness.

Up until about 10 years ago, Haiti’s tiny Jewish community would gather in a home on Yom Kippur and pray alongside a video recording of a Yom Kippur service that Dana’s brother-in-law, a cantor at a New Jersey synagogue, had mailed to him. But in recent years, the community has become too small and disjointed to warrant even such modest holiday gatherings.

The 1957 Jewish population of Haiti was about 200. The mid-20th century was a time where a continued departure of Jews from Haiti for the United States and Panama because of the economic conditions and civil violence in the country.

Haiti–Israel relations refers to the bilateral and diplomatic ties between Haiti and Israel. Haiti recognized Israel's independence on 17 March 1949.^[1] The Israeli ambassador in Panama represents Israeli interests in Haiti as Israel has an honorary consulate in its capital of Port-au-Prince.^[2]

In 1947, Haiti voted in favour of the UN partition of Palestine that helped create the state of Israel.             

                                                 

Haiti had a terrible earthquake in 2010.  In the wake of the devastating earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, killing more than 300,000 people and leaving nearly a million more homeless and without food, water or shelter, Israel was one of the first countries to send crews to assist in the devastated land. 

                                                

The Israel Defense Forces sent both search and rescue teams that sought remaining survivors, among crumbled buildings and homes as well sending medical teams to help care for the survivors. The medical team succeeded in setting up the first fully functioning field hospital, inclusive of an excess amount of advanced equipment. 

                                                

                          IDF Search and Rescue Team in Haiti

"During its time in Haiti, the delegation treated more than 1110 patients, conducted 319 successful surgeries, delivered 16 births including three by Cesarean sections and saved many from within the ruins." 

On January 27, following the rescue team operations in Haiti, the Israeli government decided to continue its official assistance to Haiti coordinated through MASHAV, Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in part of a global effort to reconstruct the country. Local Jewish Israeli-Haitian businessman, Daniel Kedar, has become the de facto coordinator for Israeli forces in Haiti.

When the catastrophic, 7.0-magnitude earthquake shook Haiti on January 12, 2010, Rudolf Dana happened to be in Miami on business. In the days after the quake — which leveled much of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas, including Pétionville — Dana, 61, who owns a propane-distribution company, had been on the phone and Internet around the clock, trying to make contact with friends and his nearly 500 employees.

                                                             

The president of Haiti has been assassinated.  All have been identified by the Haitian authorities as prominent players in a sprawling plot to kill the president with the help of more than 20 former Colombian commandos. But the ties between them have been murky, at best, and until recently it was not clear how, or even if, they knew one another.  The mystery surrounding the murder of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse deepened Monday as Haitian police arrested a U.S.-based evangelical pastor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, placing him at the center of a murky plot surrounding an assassination that has stunned Haitians and international observers.

Because of Haiti's location, Haiti has the potential to affect the stability of the Caribbean and Latin America and is therefore strategically important to the United States. Historically, the United States viewed Haiti as a counterbalance to Communist Cuba. Haiti's potential as a trading partner and an actor in the drug trade makes the nation strategically important to the United States. Moreover, both nations are tied by a large Haitian diaspora residing in the United States.

Resource:

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

https://forward.com/news/123890/haiti-s-jewish-remnant-keeps-the-faith-and-lends/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti%E2%80%93United_States_relations

https://time.com/6079924/christian-emmanuel-sanon-arrested-haiti-president-assassination/

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/haiti-virtual-jewish-history-tour