Syrian Jew: my co-workers wanted to kill me
After the Aleppo anti-Jewish riots in 1947, all but 5,000 Jews of Syria’s 30,000-member community left. Haroun Abadi’s family remained. Seven-minute video clip on Themizrahistory (with thanks: Edna):
Haroun (Harry) Abadi was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria to a Jewish family and escaped the country through Lebanon on the back of a sheep wagon in the 80s. Harry recounts just some examples of antisemitism he and his community experienced, both systemically and by ordinary people in society, prompting him and many others to plan an exit route.
Common courtesies were not reciprocated, and Abadi felt embarrassed to be a Jew. His Jewish maths teach advised him not to resist if he was beaten up. Children threw stones to the extent that his synagogue was not permitted a protective wall. The government advised windows at high level. Abadi, who escorted a Christian girl to school, found that she never spoke to him after he told her she was Jewish.
Jewish families would disappear, having escaped the country. But any relative who stayed behind would be jailed.
Abadi qualified as an electrical engineer but most jobs were barred from him as a Jew. When his co-workers found out he was Jewish they wanted to kill him. He lasted just 17 days in his job.
Haroun Abadi escaped in the mid 1980s and now lives in the US.
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