The 1947 anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo were a mob attack on

Syrian Jews Syrian Jews ( ''Yehudey Surya'', ''al-Yahūd as-Sūriyyūn'', colloquially called SYs in the United States) are Jews who live in the region of the modern state of Syria, and their descendants born outside Syria. Syrian Jews derive their origin ...

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

in December 1947, following the United Nations vote in favour of partitioning British Palestine. The attack was part of an anti-Jewish wave of unrest across the Middle East and North Africa at the time of the

1948 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...

. Yaron Harel describes extensive

looting Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

and

property damage Property damage (sometimes called damage to property) is the damage or destruction of real or tangible personal property, caused by negligence, willful destruction, or an act of nature. Destruction of property (sometimes called property de ...

, but writes that soldiers and police officers "prevented the mob from injuring and murdering Jews." According to Jacob Freid, the riots resulted in some 75 Jews murdered and several hundred wounded. In the aftermath of the riots, half the city's Jewish population fled the city.

History

Syria gained independence from France in April 1946. The

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

illegal immigration Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, wi ...

operative Akiva Feinstein wrote in 1947 that the new Syrian government then commenced persecuting the Jewish minority, that all Jewish clerks working for the French bureaucracy were fired, and the government tried to stifle Jewish businesses. At the time of the United Nations vote on November 29, 1947, the Jewish community in Aleppo numbered around 10,000 and went back around two thousand years. After the vote in favour of the

partition of Palestine The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations to partition Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. Drafted by the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on 3 September 1947, the Pl ...

, the government abetted and organised Aleppo's Arab inhabitants to attack the city's Jewish population. The exact number of those killed remains unknown, but estimates are put at around 75, with several hundred wounded.Daniel Pipes
Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) p. 57, records 75 victims of the Aleppo massacre. Ten synagogues, five schools, an orphanage and a youth club, along with several Jewish shops and 150 houses were set ablaze and destroyed. Damaged property was estimated to be valued at US$2.5m. During the pogrom the

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex () is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides. ...

, an important medieval manuscript of the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

, was lost and feared destroyed. The book reappeared (with 40% of pages missing) in Israel in 1958. Following the attack, the Jewish community went into a steep decline. Wealthy Jews escaped the day after the pogrom and many more fled in small groups in subsequent months. Their property was forfeited and on December 22 the Syrian Government enacted a law forbidding Jews from selling their property. As of 2012, no Jews live in Aleppo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleppo, 1947 Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Middle East Riots and civil disorder in Syria 1947 in Syria Antisemitism in Syria Mass murder in Aleppo Jews and Judaism in Aleppo Military history of Aleppo 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine December 1947 in Asia 1947 riots 1947 in Judaism Massacres in 1947 Syria in the Arab–Israeli conflict 20th century in Aleppo Attacks on schools in Syria Attacks on buildings and structures in Aleppo Attacks on shops in Syria Attacks on orphanages 20th-century attacks on Jewish institutions Synagogue arson Arson in Syria Arson in the 1940s 1947 fires 1940s fires in Asia School arson fires in Asia Residential building arson attacks in Asia Attacks on religious buildings and structures in Asia Attacks on schools in the 1940s Looting in Syria Attacks on residential buildings in Syria

History

See also

References