http://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Last-vestiges-of-Syrian-Jewry-clinging-to-community-444906#article=6017QUFCMzdBNkRBMDRBQkM0RTAyREI2RjQwNUREMTkyOUY=
The last Jews in Damascus
Expert: As long as Assad controls Damascus, their lives will remain protected.
Photo by: Courtesy
Israeli experts and an activist in contact with the remaining Jews in Damascus painted a bleak picture to
The Jerusalem Post.
“All of the Jews that wanted to leave Syria left some time ago,” Prof.
Eyal Zisser, a leading expert on Syria from the Moshe Dayan Center at
Tel Aviv University, told the
Post.
Most of them left in the 1990s as part of an agreement between the US
and Syrian governments, he said. “Those that remained are elderly Jews
due to the difficulty of changing places along with their environment.
They requested to end their lives in Damascus and now they found themselves stuck in a war,” continued Zisser.
Asked if their lives are at risk, Zisser responded that he did not
think the Jews in Damascus are in immediate danger as “surely the
regime has no interest in dealing with them.”
“As long as the regime controls Damascus their lives are assured,” he
said, noting that of course daily life is difficult because of the war.
“But it was their choice to stay in Syria at the time.”
Mendi Safadi, an Israeli Druse political activist in touch with the
dwindling Jewish community of Damascus, shared pictures and messages
from them with the
Post.
“There remain around 16 elderly Jews over 70 in Damascus that are
suffering from food shortages and economic difficulties because of the
war,” he said. “Their health and economic situation as well as the
risk, make it very difficult for them to leave.”
He said that his contact in the Jewish community told him the synagogue
in the Jewish quarter of Damascus only opens for two hours on Shabbat.
In addition, Safadi said his contact told him about internal strife
with one member of the community allegedly trying to sell the
community’s assets.
Prof. Yaron Harel, an expert of the history of the Jews in Syria from
Bar-Ilan University, told the Post that just last week UNESCO recognized
Israel’s Aleppo Codex as a world treasure and that it had been kept
for centuries in the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, “now in danger of being
destroyed.”
Written in northern Israel around 930 CE, the codex has a storied and
transient history. It was smuggled into Israel from Syria 60 years ago,
and since then 200 of the original 500 pages have mysteriously
disappeared.
Harel noted that according to tradition the Aleppo synagogue was built
around 3,000 years ago by the commander of King David’s army, Yoav
ben-Zeruyah.
The synagogue has been empty for almost 20 years and Harel is afraid it
is going to be destroyed amidst the ongoing war just as another
historical synagogue in the Damascus suburb of Jobar was destroyed in
2014.
“As far as I know, there are no Jews left in Aleppo. Historically, Jews
lived in the two main Syrian cities of Aleppo or Damascus,” he said.
Asked about the Jews of Damascus, Harel responded, “For centuries, Jews
lived in the poorest quarter of Damascus. Even when the Ottoman Empire
sought to develop the country at the beginning of the 20th century it
did not touch the Jewish sector.”
Jews that had lived in Syria since before the edict of expulsion of
Jews from Spain in 1492 and those Sephardic Jews that came to Syria in
small numbers afterwards ended up taking over from the local Jewish
tradition and prayer, he said.
Unlike Sephardic Jews that went to Turkey, he continued, those that
settled in Syria did not continue speaking the Spanish-Judeo language
of Ladino, but adopted Arabic.
On the other hand, the local Jewish population adopted the Sephardic halakha.
“Torah scholars came from Spain and their level was much higher than
the locals. They also were very educated in the sciences and general
knowledge,” added Harel.
JTA contributed to this report.
http://news.trust.org/item/20160219153053-oudqm/
Fridges and flour: Syrian refugees boost Turkish economy
Source: Reuters - Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:28 GMT
Author: Reuters
A Syrian boy looks through a
gate as others wait to cross into Syria at Oncupinar border crossing in
the southeastern city of Kilis, Turkey February 11, 2016. REUTERS/Osman
Orsal
* Refugees fuelling growth through consumer spending
* Ankara has told EU it will stem migrant flow to Europe
* Refugee influx has also raised prices and job competition
By Nevzat Devranoglu
ISTANBUL, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Turkey's 2.6 million Syrian
refugees may be straining the housing and jobs systems, but they're also
fuelling economic growth.
The world's largest refugee population has had a positive
impact on Turkish output, economists and government officials say. It
may be partly responsible for an unexpected rise in third-quarter growth
and stronger forecasts for 2016 output.
The migrants, fleeing a civil that has raged for five years,
have bought goods such as refrigerators and cookers, a well as cooking
oil, bread, flour and building materials.
While most Syrians have not been given work permits and end
up working illegally, the money they spend nevertheless feeds into the
economy. The government also says it has spent almost $10 billion since
the start of the conflict, mostly on refugee camps, pumping more cash
into goods and services.
Much of the public debate in Turkey about the economic
effects of the influx has so far centred on negative aspects such as how
it has increased competition for low-paid work in a country with a
jobless rate of over 10 percent, and driven up food prices and rents.
Signs that refugees are beginning to boost growth,
potentially creating jobs in the long term, would be welcome news for a
government struggling to integrate the migrants and seeking to make good
on promises to stem their flow to Europe in return for cash and a
revival of EU accession talks.
"We have reasonable facts and evidence that either spending
by 2.6 million Syrian refugees or by government has been one of the key
drivers behind the positive surprise in economic growth in 2015," said
Muammer Komurcuoglu, an economist at Is Investment.
A senior economy official also told Reuters the Syrian refugees were supporting growth via consumer spending.
The government is due to release its official 2015 growth
figures in March. Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek has referred to
third-quarter growth figures of 4 percent as a "positive surprise".
After the release of the third-quarter figures, the government later
revised up its expectations for 2016 growth to 4.5 percent from 4
percent.
'NO FREE LUNCH'
Assessing the contribution of Syrian migrants - who mostly
fend for themselves outside refugee camps - is difficult since at least
some of their spending is rooted in the cash-based, informal economy.
One way it can be loosely estimated, say economists, is by
using the "starvation line", which is set by the Turkish Trade Union
Confederation and represents the bare minimum the average person would
need to spend to avoid starvation - 346 lira ($117) a month.
Based on this, Turkey's 2.6 million Syrians are spending at
least 346 lira a month, equivalent to 0.5 percent of gross domestic
product (GDP). That would rise to as much as 1.7 percent of GDP if
calculations were based on the "poverty line" of 1,128 lira a month - a
measure of the minimum income deemed adequate, including access to
resources considered essential such as clothes, electricity and basic
transportation.
But the influx of refugee is pushing up prices, particularly for food and rent and in areas with large refugee populations.
Annual consumer prices rose to 9.58 percent in January in
Turkey as a whole, but in border areas such as Gaziantep, Adiyaman and
Kilis the rate was 10.67 percent.
"There is no free lunch in the economy," Komurcuoglu said.
"This positive growth surprise comes at a cost on the inflation and
unemployment fronts."
Simsek has said the main economic challenge this year would
be battling inflation, a task made more difficult by a 30 percent rise
in the minimum wage that went into effect this year.
JOBS AND WAGES
Until recently refugees have not had the right to work
legally. Now a new law has been enacted to give them permits with
certain limitations over where and in which sectors they can work. In
addition, refugees cannot make up more than 10 percent of a company's
workforce.
Some refugees with access to money when they arrived have
set up their own firms, but many more - an estimated 300,000 - are
thought to be working informally. That has lowered some wages and pushed
some Turkish labourers out of the work force.
"The inflow of informally employed Syrian refugees leads to
large-scale displacement of Turkish workers from the (large) informal
sector, around 6 natives for every 10 refugees," the World Bank said in a
recent paper.
However, the lower production costs should eventually help
boost output and increase the demand for formal workers, leading to an
extra three Turks employed for every 10 refugees, it said.
A senior economy official confirmed that more than 2.5
million refugees were supporting growth via consumer spending, hoping
that with increasing numbers actually producing in the economy, the
pressures on inflation may be alleviated.
"Migrants from Syria were consumers only until recently.
This was creating inflationary pressure," the senior economy official
said. "Now they are being given the right to work, and this will cause
unemployment but also ease the pressure on inflation because they will
be in the production process."
($1 = 2.9687 liras) (Writing by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by David Dolan and Pravin Char)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/12171785/Yemen-is-becoming-the-new-Syria-and-Britain-is-directly-to-blame.html
Yemen is becoming the new Syria – and Britain is directly to blame
Our support for the brutal Saudi Arabian intervention is creating a lawless
wasteland where extremist groups like Isil can thrive
A boy shouts slogans as he raises a gun
during a rally against US support to Saudi-led air strikes, in Yemen's
capital Sana'a, February 19, 2016 Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
By Nawal al-Maghafi
3:17PM GMT 24 Feb 2016
"Tell the world!” the old lady pleaded with me. “We are being slaughtered!”
A few feet away from us, in the heart of the Yemeni capital Sana’a,
stood the remains of an apartment complex. It had been hit by two
successive
airstrikes only minutes earlier.
“They have destroyed our homes, killed our sons…what did we do to
them?” the woman cried before collapsing into my arms, her embrace
growing tighter as she wept.
"Despite horrific human rights abuses this war has not captured
the attention of the Western public at anywhere near the level Syria
has"
Everywhere I went, from
the Internally Displaced Persons camps to primary schools that had been
turned into makeshift shelters, I was quickly surrounded as soon as
people spotted my camera. Everyone offered the same plea: for someone to
tell their story to the world.
This
broke my heart, because I didn’t have the guts to tell them the simple,
blunt truth: that beyond its borders, very few people care about Yemen.
Despite horrific human rights abuses, including war crimes committed by
all parties to the conflict, being documented for months, this war has
not captured the attention of the Western public at anywhere near the
level
Syria has.
Yemen is under siege.
A Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the country on a daily basis for
nearly a year. For months now, a battle has been raging in Taiz, where
the UN has accused Houthi fighters and their allies of blocking
desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the town of 200,000.
Meanwhile, Aden, the only area coalition forces have so far managed to
“liberate” (in July last year), is beset by lawlessness. The conflict
has spread across the entire country. Today, civilians are suffering in
the fighting tearing Yemen apart, with casualties now topping 8,100,
more than 60 per cent as a result of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.
Twenty of Yemen’s 22 governorates are precariously poised on the verge
of devastating famine.
"Unlike in Syria, the UK and US are two of the primary causes of the problem in Yemen."
And yet, while the Syrian tragedy occupies front
pages and news bulletins worldwide, the humanitarian catastrophe
engulfing Yemen for the past year continues to meet with indifference.
It's not hard to find news stories about what is happening there, but it
is difficult to find a politician who puts it on their agenda or a
voter who views it with any concern.
This is hardly surprising.
Unlike in Syria, the UK and US are two of the primary causes of the
problem in Yemen. Put simply, a coalition of the wealthiest Arab states
have joined forces to bomb and starve one of the poorest, with the
assistance of two of the world’s richest and most powerful powers.
In my five years of covering Yemen, international headlines have
morphed from optimism to despair. In the early weeks of the Arab Spring,
everyone was hailing “Yemen: the peaceful revolution”. Today, as the
country reckons with its gravest crisis in decades, the main story has
become “
Yemen: the forgotten war.”
Refugees and IDPs
I’m continuously asked: if the situation is so catastrophic, why
haven't we seen Yemenis fleeing in their millions, like the Syrians? The
short answer is that Yemenis are trapped. When the war began on March
26th, all of the country’s exit ports were instantly closed and a
blockade imposed on the movement of people as well as goods, both in and
out of the country.
Countries that once welcomed Yemenis
without a visa, such as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, have closed their
doors. Anyone seeking a visa will soon discover none of these countries
have functioning embassies in Yemen today.
Thousands of Yemenis
have managed to flee to Djibouti by boat. Many do not survive the
extremely perilous journey, while those who do are met with the most
tepid of welcomes. With no official
refugee camps in the country and hotels charging exorbitant rates, the majority return.
Yemeni supporters of the southern seperatist movement fire towards Huthi rebels during clashes in the city of Aden Photo: Saleh Al-Obeidi/AFP/Getty Images
Rampant militarisation
Some have ascribed the international focus on Syria to the presence of
Al-Qaeda and Isil in the country. These are headline-grabbing
organisations which capture the attention of the Western public. But
this is precisely where the situation in Yemen is heading too.
"Today, the country has become a lawless wasteland where militarised extremism is flourishing at an alarming rate."
The same short-sighted mistakes that have brought
Syria to the brink of collapse are now being repeated in Yemen. For
instance, since the start of the conflict, the Saudi-led coalition has
been arming the Popular Resistance group in Aden and in Taiz. Although
the media keeps calling them "Hadi loyalists" (in reference to the
Yemeni president, currently in exile in Saudi Arabia), evidence suggests
many of their members are actually from groups such as Isil and AQ.
Supporters of the separatist Southern Movement hold a position during clashes with Shiite Huthi rebels in Aden, Yemen Photo: Saleh Al-Obeidi/AFP/Getty Images
Indeed, as the war rages on, the country’s infrastructure and
institutions are falling apart. Unemployment rates are at a record high,
with business at a standstill jobs have disappeared, while almost half
the country’s university students have dropped out, offering fertile
recruitment opportunities for
extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the newly-emerged Islamic State in Yemen.
Today, the country has become a lawless wasteland where militarised
extremism is flourishing at an alarming rate, and it won’t be long
before this turns into an international headache rather than a local
one. After a decade during which Yemen was a main battleground of the
US’s War on Terror, regularly held up as a success story in the media,
the dark irony of the country’s descent into chaos, and out of the
headlines, has not been lost on local observers.
Soldiers loyal to Yemen's government jump off a truck during a training exercise in the country's southwestern city of Taiz Photo: Reuters
Complicity in war crimes
The media disparities between Syria and Yemen were highlighted again
this month. When a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Northern
Syria was hit by Russian bombs, the uproar in the Western media was
deafening, and rightly so. “It is certainly a war crime.” declared
Andrew Mitchell, formerly Secretary of State for international
Development, on the Today Programme the morning after. “Everyone knew it
was an MSF hospital,” he continued, ”and so undoubtedly this goes
against international humanitarian law.”
"Last October, Britain and the US successfully blocked plans for a
UN independent investigation into potential war crimes committed by
Saudi Arabia in Yemen."
He was right, of course, but I could not help but
note that no less than three MSF Yemeni hospitals had been hit by
airstrikes in the past few months, one of which the Saudis have already
admitted to. There was little coverage of them in the West, let alone
outright outrage and condemnation.
A Saudi soldier fires a mortar towards Houthi movement position at the Saudi border with Yemen Photo: Reuters
Alas, this is not merely about Western indifference but about
complicity and collusion. Last October, Britain and the US successfully
blocked plans for a UN independent investigation into potential war
crimes committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. This was a unique opportunity
to hold all sides of the conflict accountable for their actions.
Instead,
Saudi Arabia has been allowed to investigate itself through its own internal commission.
Of course, this is not about denigrating the suffering of Syrians,
which has been immense, but to highlight the forgotten, ongoing tragedy
in Yemen and how the failure of the media to inform the public of the
nature and extent of their government’s role in
one of the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophes today has made it much easier for the US and Britain to pursue their disgraceful support for an indefensible war.
So the next time you hear British and US diplomats express outrage at
the heartless carnage in Syria – as they should – remember what they
want you to ignore: that there is another nation, and another people,
suffering just as much. Except that when it comes to Yemen’s tragedy,
both Britain and the US are partly, but directly, to blame.
[compartilhado por Fabricio Souza]
