Report from the Mideast: A human drama
Damascus
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The Jews of Syria live better now but pray for deliverance
For a moment, he breaks into Hebew again. "Yisrael lo aiman," he says. The Jews will survive.
And what about him?
"He might be the last," a relative says. "That's just his way. As long as there is one young person left, he will stay."
Hamra himself greets the question with a smile.
"Will I go?" he repeats, and strokes for a moment the huge fuzzy chin. "Well, Moses was not at the back of the line when the Jews came out of Egypt.
It is hard to talk to anyone here about the status of the Jews. The government does not talk much about any of the minorities in Syria. The ministry of information confines itself to assurances that the Jews are well treated and the assertion that the many police in the quarter are there at the request of the Jews for protection.
The Americans do not want to talk too much for fear of removing the emigration question from the realm of human rights. In fact, they wish the Israelis would keep quiet on the issue.
"Every time Begin brings up this case," a U.S. official says of the Israeli prime minister, "It becomes a political question here, like a bargaining chip almost. What we'd like to see is a treatment on strict humanitarian grounds."
In the quarter itself, among the men the fear is a palpable muzzle.
"We are only small men," says one at a sewing machine on The Street Called Straight, before the first question is asked.
"We have no views on political matters," his partner says from the next table.
Some of the reasons are obvious. Despite the relaxation of restrictions, the police are not an idle threat. Within days of the arrival of the 14 brides in New York last year, almost all the Jews who had been allowed to leave the country on temporary emigration permits were detained for questioning by police.
After questioning, 26 Jews confessed to having visited Israel while abroad. Their cases still are pending.
The police are not the only fear among the Jews of the quarter. So many Jews have been turned into informers that residents will not talk frankly even if the police are not around.
A shop owner presses into the hands of a visitor a little packet of matzoh, the ceremonial Passover bread.
"Please," he says. "You must tell no one where you got this. Not even the others here, not even among ourselves. Just say you got it from a family."
A young man in another shop urgently requests a conversation in the backroom.
"I want to tell you about some of the problems we have. I want to tell you some things about the leaders of our own community," he says. "But I cannot tell you here."
"Not even in the backroom?"
