Walter P. Zenner, A Global Community: The Jews from Aleppo, Syria
Yaron Harel, Syrian Jewry in Transition, 1840-1880
Overview
When Iberian refugees reached Aleppo, they encountered an established Arabic-speaking Jewish population commonly described as Musta’arabi. The two groups initially maintained differences in liturgy, communal leadership, marriage customs, and institutional affiliation. Their relationship involved cooperation, rivalry, negotiation, and gradual integration rather than immediate absorption. Later arrivals from Europe added further complexity to the city’s Jewish population. Aleppo’s history demonstrates that Sephardic settlement in the Middle East did not occur within an institutional vacuum. The community that emerged combined older Syrian traditions with Iberian, Ottoman, Italian, and wider Mediterranean influences.
