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Convicted of Being a Jew in Syria
(National Post-Canada) Michelle Devorah Kahn - From 1948 to 1950, my grandfather was a prisoner, convicted of being a Jew in Syria. Joseph Avraham Esses grew up side-by-side with his Muslim Arab neighbors in Aleppo. At the end of the 1940s, everything in Syria changed and the attitude towards the Jewish people, who were once the "brothers and sisters" of the Muslim Arabs, shifted greatly. Friends and family members often disappeared, never to be heard from or seen again, or were slaughtered during broad daylight for all to see. One incident involving a Jewish family man who was hiding from the Muslims, lead to his three young daughters being kidnapped from the marketplace and held captive for days, where they were tortured and ultimately killed. A few days later, their cut-up bodies were delivered to the family's home and left on their doorstep in a sack. Being Jewish became a crime. Men, women and children were often hung for this crime in the town square, as the Arabs cheered. My grandfather was luckier than most.