For more than six hundred years the Jews of Aleppo guarded the Aleppo Codex, the most authoritative medieval manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. Syria’s Jews were among the oldest communities of the Middle East, and from 1492 Sephardi exiles joined them, especially in Aleppo. Almost all left in the 20th century, and their descendants now live mainly in Israel, Brooklyn and Latin America. See also Lebanese Jews and Egyptian Jews, communities closely tied to Syria’s by family and trade.
Origins
In Roman times about 10,000 Jews lived in Damascus, governed by their own ethnarch. Aleppo’s community is just as old in tradition; the oldest part of its Central Synagogue dates to the 5th or 6th century, and its earliest surviving inscription to 834 CE. Near Damascus, the synagogue of Jobar was linked by tradition to the prophet Elisha.
These Arabic-speaking Jews were later called Musta’arabim, “Arabized” Jews, to distinguish them from the Sephardim who arrived after 1492.
The Sephardi connection
After the expulsion from Spain, Sephardi exiles settled in Syria, more in Aleppo than in Damascus; in Damascus they built their own synagogue. For a time Aleppo had two communities, Musta’arabi and Sephardi, each with its own rabbis and customs. Over generations they merged, and the Sephardi rabbinic tradition shaped the combined community, while Arabic remained its language.
From the 17th to the 19th century, Sephardi merchants of Spanish and Italian origin, known as Francos, also settled in Aleppo for trade, many of them from Livorno. They often held European consular protection and stood somewhat apart from the local Jews.
- The Aleppo Codex. Written in Tiberias around 920 and vocalized by Aaron ben Asher, the Aleppo Codex reached Aleppo by the late 14th century, by tradition brought by a descendant of Maimonides. It was kept in the Central Synagogue for about 600 years.
- Pizmonim. Aleppo’s Jews set Hebrew hymns, or pizmonim, to the melodies and modes (maqamat) of Arab classical music, a tradition still sung in Brooklyn and Israel.
Modern era and departure
- 1840. In the Damascus Affair, Jews were falsely accused of ritual murder after the death of a Capuchin monk. Community leaders were arrested and tortured, and 63 children were held to force confessions. The case drew protests from Jewish leaders in Europe.
- Emigration. From the late 19th century, Syrian Jews left for Egypt, Manchester, New York, Mexico and Argentina. The first Aleppo Jews reached New York in 1892.
- 1947. In December 1947, after the UN vote to partition Palestine, rioters in Aleppo killed about 75 Jews and burned homes, shops and synagogues, including the Central Synagogue. The Aleppo Codex disappeared; in 1958 it was smuggled to Israel, with about 40% of its pages missing. It is now at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
- 1948–1992. About 15,000 Jews lived in Syria in 1947. Afterward the state banned the sale of Jewish property, froze Jewish bank accounts and, from 1964, restricted Jews to within 5 km of home. Emigration was mostly forbidden.
- 1992. From Passover 1992, the remaining Jews, about 4,000, were given exit permits. Most went to New York; others reached Israel. By 2025 fewer than ten Jews remained in Syria.
Religious life
Syrian Jews pray in the Aleppo (Halabi) rite, a Sephardi rite with its own melodies and the Shabbat morning tradition of pizmonim. The community is known for its rabbinic families, among them the Dayan, Attiya and Kassin families, and for close-knit religious life. In 1935 the rabbis of the Syrian community in Brooklyn issued an edict against accepting converts, which the community still upholds.
Language, music and food
Syrian Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic; Alliance Israélite Universelle schools added French. Their kitchen is among the best known in the Sephardi world: kibbeh (bulgur shells filled with meat), yebra (stuffed grape leaves in a sweet-sour tamarind sauce), lahmajeen (small meat flatbreads), ka’ak (ring biscuits) and mamoul (filled date pastries). See our Sephardic recipes.
The community today
The largest Syrian Jewish community in the world is in Brooklyn, New York, with a summer community in Deal and nearby towns of the New Jersey shore; together they were estimated at about 90,000 people in 2007. There are large communities in Israel, Mexico City, Panama, Buenos Aires and São Paulo. In Aleppo the Central Synagogue stands in ruins; a restoration begun in 2016 is ongoing.
Notable people
- Ezra Attiya 1885–1970 · Aleppo Head of the Porat Yosef yeshiva in Jerusalem for 45 years.
- Isaac Shalom 1887–1968 · Aleppo Textile manufacturer in New York; founded the Ozar Hatorah school network in 1945.
- Jacob S. Kassin 1900–1994 · Jerusalem, Aleppan family First chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, from 1933.
- Eli Cohen 1924–1965 · Alexandria, Aleppan father Israeli intelligence agent in Damascus; executed there in 1965.
- Jerry Seinfeld b. 1954 · Brooklyn, Aleppan mother Comedian; his mother’s family were Syrian Jews from Aleppo.
Sources and further reading
- Walter P. Zenner, A Global Community: The Jews from Aleppo, Syria (Wayne State University Press, 2000).
- Yaron Harel, Syrian Jewry in Transition, 1840–1880 (Littman Library, 2010).
- Matti Friedman, The Aleppo Codex (Algonquin Books, 2012).
- “History of the Jews in Syria”, Wikipedia.
- “Aleppo Codex”, Wikipedia.
- “Syrian Jews in the United States”, Wikipedia.
Revised October 2026 to correct errors in an earlier version of this page.
