Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 33, No. 37, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 13, 1979 Page: 2 of 56
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TEXAS JEWISH POST NEW YEAR ISSUE THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1979 PAGE 2
Syrian Regime Distrusted
By Jewish Population
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Arafat and Syria’s President Assad last week at Cuban Conference.
JERUSALEM [JTA] -
The 4500-member Jewish
community in Damascus is
dominated by an 80-year-old
Jewish supporter of the
Syrian regime who is re-
garded with distrust by the
Jewish population, two
American Jewish students
recently told the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency.
The two, Terry Magady,
23, and Dan Weiner, 22, both
of California, spent five days
last month in the Syrian
capital as part of a personal
“fact-finding” tour of the
region, including Egypt,
Jordan and Israel. They
were put in touch with the
JTA by an official of the
Jewish Agency student de-
partment.
“Every official transac-
tion, including applications
to go abroad, must go
through a man called Mr.
Totah,” they explained. “He
acts as a liaison between the
government and the Jewish
community. Unfortunately,
he acts largely out of
self-regard and sells infor-
mation to Syrian officials
about the comings and
goings of the community.”
Viewed With Distrust
And Fear
The figurehead leader, as
however, from other, more
forthcoming community
members.
“We found an extremely
affluent community, with
surprising strong Jewish
values and a strong Jewish
identity, spiritually led by
the well-liked and young
Rabbi Albert Hamrah,” Ma-
gady said. “But this com-
munity is denied even
minimal political freedoms
and is subject to an
ever-present feeling of ten-
sion that things could get
worse at any point.” Specifi-
cally, those concerns center
on a political take-over by
Islamic radicals or another
war with Israel. Most
important, all want out of
Syria.
Magady and Weiner re-
ported that community
members branded the con-
troversial screening of a
CBS-TV “60 Minutes” pro-
youth hostel at which they gram on Syrian Jewry a few
were staying, telling them years ago as a “total farce.”
Magady and Weiner describ-
ed him, is regarded by the
Jewish community, who call
him ‘a 50-50 Jew,” with a
mixture of distrust and fear.
“Talk to Mr. Totah first,”
they were told. ‘Totah will
make a phone call and
everything will be OK.”
Totah is also reportedly in
regular contact with the
American Embassy in Da-
mascus.
“We avoided Totah for as
long as we could, because we
knew that meeting with him
might prevent us from
reaching the community at
large,” they said. Totah,
however, “caught up” with
them on the fourth day of
their visit, greeting them by
name at one of the local
synagogues. The next day,
which was by coincidence
their last, two “well-dressed”
men visited them at the
“to be sure they were on
their scheduled flight to
Amman the next morning.”
They were.
Totah presented the two
students with what they
termed a “white-washed”
overview of Jewish life in
Syria, denying any problems
and minimizing the political
oppression to which Syrian
Jews are subjected. They
received a different picture,
They pointed to the pre-
sence of Svrian officials who
accompanied the television
crew at all times as ample
evidence of the one-sided
picture of contentment and
freedom which resulted. N
Syrian Jews Want To Leave
“We would give up every-
thing we have here, all our
possessions and money, if
we could just get out,”
community members told
the two students, with many
expressing a desire to
immigrate to Israel. “All we
want is to be with our family
and to keep our Jewish
identity — anywhere but
here.” Time and again, the
two students heard expres-
sions of bewilderment over
the fact that many Iranian
Jews chose to remain in Iran
after the Shah was deposed.
For them, the implications of
the ascent of an Islamic
republican are all too clear,
Weiner and Magady related.
For this reason, as well as
one of safety, the Jewish
community in Damascus is a
cohesive one, clinging to
remnants of Jewish tradi-
tion as a means of retaining
their heritage. All shops
close on the Sabbath, some
of the community observes
kashrut, and attendance is
high at two Jewish day
schools and three syna-
gogues.
Six men are studying for
their rabbinical ordination
and religious artifacts are
freely brought in from
abroad. Daily life for many
of the community members,
most of whom are brass and
copper merchants, is a good
one, and Weiner added that
the impressive Jewish com-
munity center is reminiscent
of a local Jewish community
center back in the U.S.
Arbitrary Acts Cited
Tensions between the
Jewish community and Mos-
lems have largely died down
since the 1973 Yom Kippur
War. But Magady and
Weiner reported that it is an
enforced, and perhaps illu-
sory picture of harmony.
Entire families are arbitrari-
ly punished for the act of one
individual and only family
heads are allowed to go on
periodic trips abroad, pro-
vided they leave their family
and a $7000 deposit behind.
In addition, some 400 women
lack partners for marriage;
emigration is a forbidden
topic of discussion; and a
plain-clothes policeman reg-
ularly patrols the shops in
the Jewish quarter.
iewish-Sponsored
Aid Plan
Has Spinoff Benefits
index
PAGE
Syrian Regime Distrusted By Jeyrish Population.........2
Dallas Doings......................................... 3
Postorlal: An Essential Point.......................................4
Some Blacks Against Aiding PLO................................4
Between You and Me..................................................4
Anti-Defamation League To Present Award................8
Common Sense..........................................................12
Quiz Box...................................................................13
Dallas Holiday Services.............................................13
Study Finds Kosher Process Superior.........................13
Torah Readings Focus on Abraham...........................14
Fiftieth Anniversary Milestone..................................18
Jewish Flag at St. Louis World's Fair..........................20
KKK - On the March Again................................... 21
Dallas Dining and Entertainment.........................22-24
Committed Jewish Feminist Strives For Equality.......26
Dallasites Attending Bond Conference.....................27
PAGE
Holiday Recipe Treats................................................30
Kosher Korner.................................................... 31
Synagogue Services..................................................32
Young Leadership Winners Named...........................33
Renaissance Portrait Acquired By Kimbell................35
From Saint-Paul-De-Vence to Dallas..........................35
Rosh Hashana Anniversary of Creation.....................36
Time To Review Past, Plan Future..............................37
Spotlight on Dayan....................................................39
Joining Chaim Potok's Caravan.................................40
What Hath Andy Young Wrought?............................42
New Southwest Consul General Named...................44
Around the Town.......................................................45
Fort Worth Holiday Services......................................45
5739's Ten Best Jewish Books...................................48
Fort Worth Dining and Entertainment..................50-51
That Kreisky-Arafat Handshake................................52
Community members, the
two students said, praise the
pressure exerted on the
Syrian government by
American officials and world
Jewry, contending that it is
largely responsible for the
fact that acts of violence
committed against them are
now at a minimum. But all i
fear that this respite is i
temporary and that time
works against them.
They look to Israel with
great pride, listening regu-
larly to Israel Radio’s,
Arabic-language broadcasts
and tending to glorify Israeli;
military prowess. “If only
Israel would destroy this
regime and free us,” Magady
and Weiner said one person
told them. “For this we wait,
because it is the only way we
will ever get out of Syria.”
BY BEN GALLOB
[Copyright 1979, Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, Inc.]
If there is any American
city where appeals to Jews
and Blacks to avoid divisions
over Ambassador Andrew
Young’s resignation are
needless, it is almost certain-
ly San Francisco which has a
long history of positive
relations between the two
communities.
Some 10 years ago,
officials of the Northern
California region of the
American Jewish Congress
noted with deep concern the
widely-publicized deteriora-
tion in relations between
New York City Blacks and
Jews stemming from a
battle over community con-
trol of elements of the New
York City public school
system.
Out of that concern came a
meeting between Lawrence
Myers, a San Francisco
Jewish Welfare Federation
leader and local American
Jewish Congress president,
and Joel Brooks, AJCon-
gress area director. From
that meeting emerged a plan
to create a unique economic
development program — the
Experience Reserve Bank
(ERB).
The purpose of the ERB
was to make available free
management and technical
counsel to aspiring minority
group entrepreneurs who
wanted to own and operate
their own businesses, Myers
said. The skills and energies
of more than 400 active and
retired Jewish businessmen
and women volunteers were
enlisted for the program.
Funded over the years by
a variety of sources, the
ERB has been responsible
for the successful develop-
ment of many new enter-
prise ranging from “mom
and pop” stores to one of the
largest Black-owned manu-
facturing firms in the United
States.
The current chairman of
the project is Arthur Eisen-
drath, a brother of the late
I Reform leader, Rabbi Mau-
rice Eisendrath. Starting
with the program as a
volunteer assistant, Arthur
Eisendrath has helped doz-
ens of clients achieve finan-
cial independence.
In addition to the goal of
creating more minority bus-
iness enterprises in San
Francisco’s inner city, the
unusual American Jewish
Congress project also has
fostered positive social rela-
tionships. In several in-
stances, Brooks said, Jewish
and Black entrepreneurs
have joined forces to create
new enterprises as equal
partners.
Each ERB client has
indicated little knowledge
about Jews, other than the
usual stereotypes before
becoming involved in ERB
activities. Similarly, most of
the Jewish businessmen and
women had limited contact
with minority group mem-
bers before joining the
program.
Brooks said it is not at all
unusual now to learn that
friendships have developed
between Jews and Blacks
from these business con- j
tacts. Black families attend
Jewish social functions and!
ERB volunteers have par-
ticipated in Black commun-
ity social activities.
A few years ago, when the
infamous “Zionism is ra-
cism” resolution was ap-
proved by the United
Nations General Assembly,
the local AJCongress office
received many telephone
calls from minority group
members who had been
helped by the ERB program
and who offered their help in
publicly denouncing the UN
resolution.
Now in its tenth year, the
Experience Reserve Bank
will soon become an inde-
pendent non-profit organi-
zation with its own board of
directors, separate from the
American Jewish Congress,
Brooks said.
Texas Jewish Post
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Wisch, J. A. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 33, No. 37, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 13, 1979, newspaper, September 13, 1979; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753335/m1/2/?q=architectural+drawings: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .