What's left of Jewish material history in Syria?

SEEKING A RECKONING: What happened to relics of Syria’s Jewish history? Assad’s collapse spurs efforts to assess the damage. Bombardment, looting and disuse have wreaked an uncertain toll on the country’s former synagogues and Jewish sites (Shira Li Bartov).

(JTA) — The fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has opened up a sea of uncertainty about Syria’s future — and about the treasures of its past, including the remnants of its Jewish history. ...

Scholars also worry about the ruins of Roman-era synagogues in Syria’s ancient cities, such as Apamea and Dura-Europos. Satellite imaging has shown that Dura-Europos was heavily looted while being held by Islamic State forces, according to Adam Blitz, a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Remnants from the synagogue of Dura-Europos are treasured by museums, including the Yale University Art Gallery, which displays 40 tiles from the synagogue’s ceiling. But Blitz said other artifacts from the site are feared to have been pilfered by combatants.

“There has been tremendous fear about mosaics being looted,” he said. ...

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Jobar Synagogue in Damascus, which was destroyed in 2014, start here and follow the links. For more on Apamea, see here. And for a great many posts on Dura-Europos, start here and follow the links.

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