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Cemetery at Aleppo, Syria
The Cemetery at Aleppo is located west of the city, in today's Sulaymaniyya neighborhood. This communal cemetery supported the entire Jewish population until the Ottoman Empire released a decree in 1865 allowing Aleppo's Jews to expand their community to match their growing population. At this time, the Jews added a cemetery for community leaders behind their synagogue. Today, both cemeteries have survived, and the Cemetery at Aleppo remains in the town's Shaykh Maqṣūd district [1].
Description
The Jewish community in Aleppo dates back to as early as the Hellenistic period. According to traditional Jewish history, Aleppo is identified as the town Aram Sova (also Aram-Zobah) described in the Old Testament (II Samuel 10:6 ff.). Throughout its history, Aleppo had three synagoges--one for Judeans, another for Babylonians, and one for the Karaites--and a Jewish Quarter in the north, which eventually expanded into the Western Bahsita Quarter. Although Jews held respected roles as physicians, community leaders, and scholars, the Jewish population in Cairo was greatly reduced during the Mongol takeover of 1260. The Jewish population rebounded after the Mamluk conquest of parts of the Middle East and North Africa, but this new regime imposed harsher and more discriminatory rules upon Aleppo's Jewish community. Similarly, Tīmūr Lang's (Tamurlane) takeover of much of the Middle East in 1400 harmed the Jewish community in Aleppo. In 1918, Aleppo became part of the new state of Syria, founded after Allied forces ended Ottoman rule. Syria was ruled by the French until 1946, and Aleppo's Jewish community continued to thrive until much of the population emigrated in the 1990s [2].
Aleppo, Syria
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