Work started to restore historic Jewish cemetery in Damascus, heritage group says

Work has begun to restore a historic Jewish cemetery in Damascus, a heritage fund announced on Thursday, posting a video of graves being cleaned and repainted.

“A vital step for history and cultural preservation: The restoration and renovation of the historic Jewish cemetery in Damascus, Syria has officially begun,” said the Syrian Mosaic Foundation in a post to X.

“​Honoring the past, restoring dignity to sacred grounds, and ensuring this rich heritage is preserved for the future,” said the foundation, a heritage preservation group founded by Joe Jajati, the grandson of a former leader of Syria’s Jewish community.

A video posted with the announcement showed workers cleaning graves and repainting inscriptions on tombstones. The clip included a shot of a recent gravestone, with a death date from 2024.

Reporter Roi Kais of the Kan public broadcaster wrote on X that one of the graves being renovated was that of Rabbi Nissim Nadavo, the former chief rabbi of Damascus who was with legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen just before he was hanged in the city’s central square.

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The cemetery is also the resting place of 16th-century Kabbalist Hayyim Vital.

A vital step for history and cultural preservation: The restoration and renovation of the historic Jewish cemetery in Damascus, Syria has officially begun.

​Honoring the past, restoring dignity to sacred grounds, and ensuring this rich heritage is preserved for the future. ????️✨… pic.twitter.com/Ip0UOlDE1o

— Syrian Mosaic Foundation (@SyrianMosaicFDN) June 25, 2026

Kais said that recently there have been two incidents of arson attacks at the cemetery that were dealt with by local authorities and that security at the site has now been increased.

The renovation came after Rabbi David Saperstein, who was US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during the Obama administration, visited Damascus as part of a delegation that toured Jewish heritage sites in the Syrian capital.

The group went to various locations including the ancient Jobar Synagogue, Elfrange Synagogue, and the Jewish cemetery, The Media Line outlet reported on Thursday.

Jajati was involved in organizing the visit, which is among several he has arranged, including a tour in September 2025 that included The Times of Israel’s editor-in-chief, David Horovitz.

Syria’s Jewish community dates back to the time of King David but is now on the very brink of extinction — from perhaps 100,000 people in the 1920s, to 15,000 by the late 1940s, to almost none since the 1990s.

The state, which has been officially at war with Israel since the latter’s creation, severely restricted travel for its local Jewish community after 1948, refusing to allow families to leave the country even temporarily without some of them staying behind to ensure the others’ return.

In the early 1990s, amid US pressure, then-leader Hafez al-Assad allowed the last Jews to emigrate. The remaining dozens have almost all since died or left. Today, fewer than a dozen elderly Jews remain.

Since the fall of the younger Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 after a decade-long civil war, the country’s new leadership — helmed by former jihadist fighter Ahmed al-Sharaa —  has made overtures to expat Syrian Jews, welcoming their interest as the country attempts to transition to a stable democracy.