Syrian Regime Presents Jews With Crisis: Leave or Stay? Will Community Survive? : Mideast: Exit visas are now permitted by Assad. But families are being split by debate over what to do.

DAMASCUS, Syria — In the midst of the land of Israel’s worst enemy, they are one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Their ancient synagogues languish along the banks of the Euphrates River, and the sound of their prayers can be heard in the old cobbled streets near the tomb of the Islamic warrior Saladin.

Their kosher butchers stand quietly next to mosques. Goldsmiths with the traditional yarmulkes on their heads bicycle past posters of Syrian President Hafez Assad, his presidential face beaming next to a bouquet of missiles and fighter planes.

Four decades after Syria declared war on Israel, the Jewish quarter here, a neighborhood of 22 synagogues, tiny tailor shops, kosher groceries and gracious old houses, is one of the most thriving in Damascus. Its inhabitants are largely indistinguishable from other Damascenes except for the identity cards they carry, stamped mussawi-- “follower of Moses.”

But now, bowing to years of pressure from worldwide Jewish organizations who called Syria a prison for its Jews, a new communique from Assad permits Syrian Jews for the first time to leave the country without restrictions. The decision has plunged the 4,000-member community, one of the most substantial in the Arab world, into a crisis.

After the horrors of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when angry Muslims were allowed unchecked access to the streets of the Jewish quarter, and the years after, when Jews were prohibited from venturing outside the capital and jailed if they went to Israel or attempted to leave the country illegally, the Jews of Syria today again are a prosperous, relatively free community.

But they wonder: Is now the time to leave behind everything they have built and strike out for a new life in America or Israel? With the troubled political climate in the Middle East, many fear that if they do not leave now, the door may be shut again--this time forever. Whole families are being split by the debate: Stay or go?

“It’s the chance of a lifetime, but we don’t know how long it’s going to last,” said one young merchant. “For our family, leaving would be a disaster. Where else could we have a life like we have here? But the community depends on each other. If everyone else goes, how can we stay?”

Jewish leaders say 200 members of the community have applied to leave already and applications are being processed at the rate of 10 a day. But Western diplomats who have pushed for the new policy say at least 2,500 are expected to seek exit visas, and most, they say, probably will not return.

“It means a few hundred Jews will remain here in Damascus, a few dozen in Aleppo, and very likely they eventually will leave as well,” said one envoy with close ties to the Jewish community. “Probably, the end of the Jews’ history in Syria is here.”

The story of the Jews in Syria has been mired in the politics of the Middle East for years, with each side using the community as a bargaining chip to gain advantage in the long-running conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis.

For Assad, the 3,000 Jews in Damascus and the 1,000 more in Aleppo and Qamishli have been insurance against an Israeli attack. “Assad wanted them as a weapon. If Israel would like to bomb Damascus, they would have to kill a few thousand Jews,” said one diplomat.

At the same time, Jewish organizations around the world have exaggerated claims of mistreatment of the Jews--in the view of most diplomats and Jewish community leaders here--as a way of whipping up international hostility to the Syrian regime. A $400-million aid package was blocked several months ago in large part because of the issue. International organizations have repeatedly raised claims that Jews in Syria are prevented from exercising their religion, are closely watched by the secret police and are often imprisoned and tortured.

In fact, most restrictions on the community have been lifted since 1976, including barriers to freedom of worship, and two of the only three Jewish prisoners in Syrian jails--two brothers held on charges of traveling to Israel--were freed late last month. (A third individual is still imprisoned for alleged violations of currency exchange laws.)

“Before 1976, members of the Jewish community couldn’t travel, couldn’t leave, couldn’t even move inside Syria,” said Nassem Hasbani, a physician and member of the Jewish community council. “We couldn’t import, we couldn’t export. It was very difficult.” But now, he said, “All that has changed. Of course we hear these reports from outside. We argue with them, we try to refute them, and we try to explain the truth.”

The Jews here, one diplomat said, “are not treated any worse than anyone else in Syria. . . . (Outside groups) talk about how their phones are bugged, their rubbish is gone through. I mean. . . .” He pointed to his own telephone and garbage can and shrugged. “Go down and cordon off 4,000 Christians or 4,000 Muslims, and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

The principal problem facing the community in recent years has been the Syrian government’s practice of preventing entire Jewish families from obtaining exit visas--essentially requiring some family members to remain as hostages.

Further restrictions required Jews to obtain police clearance before transferring property in Syria.

Assad’s surprise announcement that entire Jewish families would be allowed to travel came last month during a meeting with Jewish community leaders and was largely in response to American urging in advance of the last round of Mideast peace talks in Washington, sources here said.

“He wouldn’t have done it without American pressure,” said one Western envoy. “It was a gift to the West in the context of the peace process. I think he came to realize he was doing more harm to Syrian interests by continuing the . . . restrictions than by lifting them.”

Ibrahim Hamra, chief rabbi and head of the Jewish community, admitted that the Jews never expected to get the meeting that they had requested with the president. His announcement that the restrictions were being lifted was an even bigger surprise.

“The meeting was historical. We dreamed of it . . . ,” he said in an interview in the vine-covered Efrange Synagogue, where the sound of Muslim muezzins’ call to prayer echoed through the courtyard at midday. “We hope this will not be just a short dream for us.”

The Syrian government has emphasized that it is granting permission for temporary travel only, not for permanent emigration. Under Syrian law, no one is allowed to emigrate, nor can any Syrian travel to Israel and return. But most diplomats here said it is widely expected that many Jewish families will not return.

The overwhelming majority are expected to go to Brooklyn, N.Y., where there is a large contingent of Syrian Jews.

Jewish leaders say there are about 20 families, split across continents by the restrictions, who will soon be reunited. Also expected to travel in two weeks are 125 young women, who, because of demographic imbalances in their community, have been unable to find husbands in Syria.

Jamil Loz, 41, a kosher butcher who applied the other day, said he wants to leave because he wants “to see the world, to travel. Everyone is leaving to New York. I have to follow them so I can sell to them.”

The dilemma for many of Syria’s Jews is threefold: While Assad has been relatively good to the Jews, what would happen if he were replaced by a Muslim fundamentalist government? And in a community made up of some of Syria’s largest landowners and wealthiest merchants, what do those who decide to leave do with all their property?

Even in the comparatively freer climate since the 1970s, it is not easy to live in Syria as a Jew, many say privately. Muslims often seem envious of the Jews’ financial successes, and the conflict with Israel is a bitter reminder of the different political realities of the two communities.

A university drama festival in the city of Aleppo opened late last month, as required by the government, with a play calling for the liberation of Palestine. As a group of Jews sat quietly in the theater, several members of the audience began shouting, “Kill the Jews,” one of them recalled. “I guess everybody was used to it and so they pretended not to notice.”

These are the kinds of sentiments, Jewish community leaders say privately, that ultimately may drive away Syria’s Jews for good.

“We are not Israelis, we are Syrians,” said a Jewish businessman. “The government knows that. But the people don’t always seem to know that. Believe me, if there were only peace, Syria would be the greatest country in the world to live in.

“But without peace . . . ,” his voice trailed off. “Deep in our hearts, we’d like to go. Everyone wants to go. The whole community wants to go.”