Jobar

History

One of the earliest sources mentioning the existence of the village is from the Talmud, which states that the village was one of ten surrounding Damascus inhabited by Jews. Rabbi Rafram bar Pappa was recorded as having prayed in the synagogue of Jobar. During the medieval period, it was "the most important and longest lasting Jewish community outside of the old city walls." An anonymous Jewish traveller who arrived a few years after the Spanish immigration (1522) found 60 Jewish families living in the village of Jobar, who had a "very beautiful synagogue." Ibn Tulun (died 1546) mentions that "Jobar is a Jewish village with a Muslim presence." The "Chronicle" of Joseph Sambari (1672) says that the Jewish community of Damascus lived chiefly in Jobar and in 1735 the village was populated solely by Jews.

Documents from the early 19th century describe properties in the village that belonged to Jewish wakf (religious endowment) and were leased to members of other communities. In 1839, the village was described as "...prettily situated on a green fertile spot," that formed part of the Garden that surrounds Damascus. The inhabitants were reported as numbering 1,000 and seeming to be in a "tolerably prosperous state." Its population was "wholly Hebrew" and governed by local Jewish institutions with a "little hierarchy of rulers and subjects." During the rioting following accusation of ritual murder against the Jews of Damascus in 1840, the mob fell upon the synagogue, pillaged it and destroyed the scrolls of the Law.

There are conflicting reports from the mid-19th century onwards as to the ethno-religious makeup of the village. In 1839, it was reported that the village "is entirely peopled by Jews." But an account a few years later in 1847 stated that the village was home to three to four thousand Muslims, with the exception of one Jewish family who took care of the synagogue, and according to a certain Mr. Graham, "the village, the people, the synagogue and the family that inhabit it, are wretched and miserable in the extreme." In 1869, a visitor, while acknowledging the existence of the old synagogue, questions if there was ever a permanent Jewish presence in the village. She goes on to reveal that the village is, however, a "favourite resort of wealthy Jews...It is their park and café. There they spend their long summer afternoons, often the entire night, under the bower of vine and jasmine." A publication in 1874 makes a claim to the contrary, that the village is "principally a colony of Jews". It is probable that the Jewish population must have dwindled, since by 1893, Richard F. Burton writes "it is a Muslim village with a synagogue dedicated to Elijah and is a pilgrimage for Damascus Jews", and the 1907 edition of Cook's handbook for Palestine and Syria states that "Jobar is only a Muslim village." However, during these years, Jewish visits to the village persisted, and on festival days many of the Damascus Jews assembled at the synagogue to worship.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews in Syria faced greater discrimination as the Syrian government enforced tighter restrictions. Jewish property could not be sold and those that had been abandoned were confiscated. A religious centre in the neighbourhood was taken over by Palestinian Arabs and the old synagogue was converted into a school for displaced Arabs.

The neighbourhood is the burial-place of a wonder-working sage of the 16th century, the patriarch of the Abuhatzeira rabbinical dynasty, Rabbi Shmuel Elbaz-Abuchatzira. The fate of the synagogue remains a source of controversy.

Conservation project

On July 28, 2010, a number of TV satellite dishes were removed by municipal workers enforcing a conservation project in the neighborhood.