Restoration work begins on main Damascus Jewish cemetery

An organization has begun restoring Damascus' main Jewish cemetery, the group's founder told AFP on Tuesday, as members of Syria's dwindling community seek to revive their heritage after ex-ruler Bashar al-Assad's ouster.

At the cemetery located along the airport road near the capital, an AFP correspondent saw rows of stone graves bearing inscriptions in Hebrew, as workers inspected the site.

Syrian-American Joe Jajati, founder of the Syrian Mosaic Foundation that is overseeing the restoration, said the cemetery contains hundreds of tombs.

The businessman, whose grandfather was a Syrian rabbi, said work had begun to clean up the cemetery and shore up some dilapidated graves, while "restoration work on the outer walls and the installation of lighting and surveillance cameras" would be completed next month.

"The cemetery wasn't damaged during the war," he said, referring to Syria's civil war that began in 2011, adding that "the last burial was around a year and a half ago".

Jajati, who lives in the United States and has come to Damascus repeatedly in recent months, said visits to the cemetery had largely halted for several decades.

But they restarted after Assad's December 2024 ouster, with members of the Syrian Jewish community abroad returning to inspect their properties, visit synagogues and family graves, he added.

Syria's long-standing Jewish community was able to practice their religion under former president Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, but was prevented from leaving the country until 1992.

After that, their numbers plunged from around 5,000 at the time to just a handful now.

When the civil war erupted, synagogues shuttered and the number of Jews visiting plummeted.

Since Assad's ouster, the country's Jewish community has been welcoming back Syrian Jews who had emigrated.

The country's new Islamist authorities have sought to reassure minorities that they will be protected, and have pledged to protect the Jewish community's property.

Last December, authorities granted a licence to a Jewish-Syrian organisation that plans to work to return properties confiscated under previous governments.

In February last year, Jews living in Damascus along with others from abroad held a group prayer for the first time in more than three decades in the Faranj synagogue in Damascus's Old City.