The History of Aleppo
Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the whole world. Located between the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia and Persia made it an important centre for trade for thousands of years. Throughout its history, Aleppo has been ruled by many different empires including the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans as well as several Muslim rulers.
Aleppo became famous as a merchant city, connecting traders travelling between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Its great souks and its Citadel reflected the wealth and importance of the city. For centuries, Muslims, Christians and Jews lived alongside each other, each developing their own religious and cultural communities.
The Atmosphere in Aleppo
The life of Aleppo was in its lively souqs, courtyards and bustling narrow streets. Despite their differences, Muslims, Jews and Christians developed a shared culture and identity creating an atmosphere, unique to Aleppo. This meant that the Halabi Jews of Aleppo were unlike other Jewish communities around the world.
Aleppo’s architecture was a strong display of its rich culture and heritage. The traditional homes were centred around courtyards with intricate stonework and lots of shaded areas to protect the people from Aleppo’s hot climate.
The famous Aleppo Citadel, markets, mosques, churches and synagogues created a cityscape that connected Aleppo’s everyday life with its long and rich history. These streets, homes and markets were more than just functioning places, it was from here that Aleppo's identity developed.
The Diaspora
During the 20th century, political upheaval and increasing hostility towards Jews brought this ancient community in Aleppo to an end. Most Halabi Jews left Syria and sadly very few Jews remain in Aleppo today. Thankfully, their descendants have continued many of the traditions that developed there.
In this section, we're going to go through when, why and where they migrated.
When?
In the early 1940s, small numbers of Jews started moving out of Aleppo in hundreds, towards places like Beirut, New York and a lot to Latin American countries like Brazil.
Then in December 1947, there was the more decisive and larger exodus, where about 5,000 to 6,000 of the remaining Jews in Aleppo fled; most escaping through Lebanon or Turkey and eventually settling in Europe or America.
In the later decades, a few thousand Jews remained in Aleppo as Syria made legal emigration very difficult.
Finally, in 1992, most of the remaining Halabi Jews in Aleppo left for places like Brooklyn.
By 1994, the Jewish community in Aleppo was essentially non-existent.
Why?
Before the mid to late 1930s, Jews in Aleppo lived relatively happily. In the late 1930s, the Palestine conflict and Arab nationalism caused the security of the Jews in Aleppo to decrease; this marked the beginning of the hate towards the Jewish community that eventually caused them to leave.
Throughout the early to mid 1940s, economic and political tensions between the Arab and Jewish communities in Aleppo started to rise and emigration accelerated steeply. In 1944, 510 Jews fled Aleppo.
In 1947, after the UN's decision to partition Palestine, anti-Jewish riots and violence erupted. Attacks on Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues and even schools started pushing Jewish families to emigrate; as a result, roughly 60% of the Jews in Aleppo were forced to flee. After this, the Syrian government forbid Jewish property sales and Jewish bank accounts were frozen.
By the 1990s, when the restrictions on the emigration of Jews were lifted, there were essentially no remaining Jews in Aleppo.
Where now?
The main places that the Halabi Jews migrated to were Milan, New York, Mexico City, São Paulo, among a few other main cities.
Now, around 70 years later, there are small communities of Halabi Jews from Aleppo all around the globe; today, some of the largest communities are in London, New York and Monaco.
The Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, is considered one of the most cohesive and economically successful immigrant communities in modern history.
A lot of originally Aleppan Jews are now successful businessmen in industries such as banking, retail, real estate and art.
“There is one city alone and it is Halab in which there are those who are
truly devoted to the Jewish religion and the study of Torah"
Maimonides, 12th century
A Rich Religious Heritage
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Aleppo has always been an extremely important core of Jewish religious learning, trade and tradition. Extremely respected Rabbis and scholars lived in Aleppo and it has always been a base for a rich tradition of Torah study.
The Halabi Jews in Aleppo developed distinctive religious customs, music, food and traditions that became an important part of their Halabi identity. They had extremely rich traditions of prayer and liturgy that also live on in Halabi homes to this day.
The Aleppo Codex
Aleppo was able to be so important thanks to the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, where the famous Aleppo Codex or Keter Aram Tzova ('Crown of Aleppo') lived. The Aleppo Codex is one of the most important manuscripts in Jewish history. It is thought that The Aleppo Codex was written around 930CE in Tiberias and it's one of the most accurate surviving versions of the Hebrew Bible. It eventually arrived in Aleppo, where the Jewish community guarded it at the Great Synagogue for some six hundred years.
In 1947, after the anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo, the Aleppo Codex disappeared and many thought it had been sadly destroyed, but much of it was smuggled out of Syria into Israel. In 1958, what remained of the Aleppo Codex arrived in Jerusalem and the surviving pages are now on display at the Israel Museum. The fate of the missing pages is one of the great mysteries of Jewish history!