These days, the main problem for Jews in Syria is that they are not permitted to leave. In that respect, they are unique among communities of Jews that live within the Arab nations. Almost all the rest – Egyptian, Moroccan, Yemeni, Lebanese, Algerian and Iraqi Jews – have been allowed or even forced to leave their nations.

In many ways, though, this is the best of times for the Jews of Syria. The government has eased restrictions dramatically during the last three years.

Although Jews still are not permitted to emigrate, they are now allowed to travel freely within Syria. Until 1976, Jews needed written permission to travel more than six miles from their ghetto quarter.

In the last two years a number of Jews were allowed to travel out of Syria on temporary permits. A bond of about $6,000 must be deposited and the Jewish applicant must leave behind members of his immediate family as hostages. Nevertheless, the issuance of any temporary exit visas for business or health reasons marked a major step forward. Syrian Muslims point out that they too are often restricted in travel outside Syria.

The easing of travel restrictions was accompanied by other changes for the better for Syrian Jews.

Although the secret police still hang about everywhere in the Jewish quarter – they have be invited to a gathering of any size – there are no allegations of torture these days and no Jews have been killed since 1974.

Although mail to the quarter is still opened by the government intelligence service, the aid from French and American Jews that supports the schools and half of the Jewish population here appears to be getting through.

No one knows for sure why President Hafez Assad suddenly eased the restrictions on Jews in 1976. Most of the theories developed at the time attributed the change to a wave of bad publicity and to the implicit threats in President-elect Jimmy Carter's international human-rights rhetoric.

Assad's Syrian supporters point out that the change was in line with the ideology of the Baath (Renaissance) Party, which Assad leads.

‘The Baath philosophy is totally nonsectarian," said a government spokesman here. "In Syria, we do not look who is Jewish, who is Christian, who is from this population group or who is from the other."

Whatever the reasons, Syria's Jews are unanimous in their gratitude to Assad. His picture may adorn their shops for form's sake, but the comments are volunteered by all.

"This is the best president we have had since we were born," says a metal worker engraving an American artillery shell with complex paisley patterns. "We never thought it would be like this. We are heard in our sorrow. This is far better than before."

And yet, would he leave if he could?

"Of course," he says, and stops himself. "No, you cannot write that. Please. But you can say I am a man who always likes to look for something different." and he grins as he bends once again to the brass shell casing.

"Someplace, perhaps not very far," he says as he taps his chisel. But, I think, quite different."

Rabbi Avraham Hamra has the build of a linebacker, a big square face and a chin that looks strong enough to knock down a wall. He is a shocker. It is a rare rabbi that makes your hand hurt when he shakes it.

Now, in the temple, the chin is covered with six days of stubble. It is a custom among the devout to stop shaving from the night of the seder, the Passover feast, until the morning when Moses began the long trek out of Egypt and into Israel.

Still, at the altar, he looks younger than his 35 years as he leads the older men in prayer. In his sitting room after the services, with his 2-year-old daughter on his knee and his 3-year-old son playing at his feet, he seems the picture of a hopeful and vigorous young family man.

Yet it seems to be his fate right now, a fate he acknowledges without sadness, to preside in a time when there is no hope, to preside over the demise of one of the world's oldest Jewish communities.