Sources: Syrian community testimony; records from Aleppo and Damascus; human rights reports on travel restrictions; accounts of the 1992 exit permissions.

The Syrian Jewish Exodus unfolded over decades rather than through one airlift. After 1948, Syrian Jews faced severe travel restrictions, surveillance, property limits, and periodic violence. Aleppo’s ancient community suffered a major riot in 1947 that damaged synagogues, homes, and manuscripts, including traditions surrounding the Aleppo Codex. Many families escaped through Lebanon, Turkey, or clandestine routes, while others remained under tight state control until the early 1990s.

In 1992, under international pressure, the Syrian government allowed most remaining Jews to leave on condition that they not go directly to Israel. Many settled in Brooklyn, Mexico, Panama, and Israel after indirect movement. The exodus dispersed one of the oldest Levantine Jewish cultures, known for Aleppan and Damascene liturgy, piyyut, commerce, rabbinic authority, cuisine, and strong communal endogamy. Its history combines endurance under restriction, careful preservation of identity, and a late twentieth-century opening that effectively ended the old Syrian Jewish presence.