00:07 - 00:10
Chammah: We were talking about the identity cards.

00:10 - 00:25
Young: You were saying this is probably considerably more important in a society like Syria than would perhaps be thought by many Americans or even Europeans.

00:25 - 01:03
Chammah: By Europeans, because you need an identity card for practically every transaction, including sending a telegram, ordering something for your store. It’s used consistently and considerably. And therefore it’s likely to be asked for quite often. And it can be seen, that red ink, from pretty far away. So there’s no mistaking. Anyone from far away can tell that the person is Jewish.

01:03 - 01:55
Young: We might also point out in this context that in addition to the identity card itself, there are many situations in Syria in which it is important to have membership cards, and that these cards have the same identifying symbol of 'musawi', so that for example student cards, or cards indicating membership in a profession, or cards indicating membership in any organization, any form of identifying membership card carries the same identifying symbol as the basic identity card itself.

01:55 - 02:13
Young: So that, in almost all walks of life, most daily transactions, it is difficult or indeed impossible for the community to hide, or not to indicate the fact of belonging to this community.

02:13 - 02:25
Young: Is that perhaps enough on identity cards? The next thing I thought we might go to is the question of emigration and travel abroad.

02:25 - 02:31
Chammah: Travel, maybe, outside and within the country.

02:32 - 03:09
Young: The question of emigration of travel abroad. Let’s take that first, leaving the other one. As we said before, there still is, so far as we know, a blanket ban on any form of emigration by members of this community. That is, we have no indication that there’s been any change on the prohibition of members of the Syrian Jewish community leaving the country.

03:09 - 03:17
Young: This, in other words, represents a continuation of the policy, which has been in force since, is it 1960?

03:18 - 03:32
Chammah: I forgot. It’s been lifted for a period of time during the union with Egypt, and it has been continuously on, with exception of a few years, since 1948.

03:32 - 04:24
Young: We were also told, while we were in Syria, by the American ambassador — and we had no reason, on the basis of our other observations to reach any other conclusions — that it seemed at this time highly improbably that this general ban on emigration will be lifted or in fact seriously altered during the foreseeable future. In fact it seems unlikely, according to our information, that there will be exceptions made even for elderly people who might want to leave the country in order to join family members, for example, living in some other part of the world.

04:24 - 04:38
Young: On the other hand, we might distinguish a little bit between the question of emigration as such and the question of travel abroad, that is travel abroad on the part of people attempting to —

04:38 - 05:30
Chammah: But on this question of emigration, just for a second, there was also, when I raised a question with Ambassador Murphy about the recent attempts to have older people allowed to emigrate to see their family in the United States, to emigrate and join their family in the United States, there was some effort along these lines by Quakers and others. When I raised that question he said, 'Well this hope is in the minds of people who think that that’s possible.' But he doesn’t see it as a possibility. This was something that was not put out from the Syrians themselves. It was in the minds of the people who —

05:30 - 06:04
Young: He apparently thinks that the people who hope this would be possible reason in a certain way about the relative harmlessness of letting older people out of the country. He, that is Ambassador Murphy, believes that the Syrian governmental elite simply don’t think that way and that there’s a large conceptual gap. They don’t see a distinction, a significant distinction between the elderly people and the younger members of the community.

06:04 - 06:44
Chammah: Presumably the underlying argument is that younger people might leave the country and instead of going to the United States, for example, would go to Israel and fight on the side of Israel. While under this kind of argument, older people are not likely to be fighting and therefore it doesn’t really matter very much. But apparently, that might not be, it may be one of the reasons why the Syrian government has that prohibition, but certainly not the only one, because they don’t think in terms of letting all the people go.

06:44 - 06:54
Young: Okay now on the question of travel abroad, in contrast to actual immigration.

06:54 - 07:48
Chammah: This has been one of the changes that has happened within the past three years, through the Assad government, which is — while we’re talking about improvement. Jews are allowed — older Jews, as we understand it — are allowed to leave the country for certain periods of time to visit for specific reasons, such as medical, or to visit family. They can leave on the condition of course that they come back, and they put a deposit of thirty thousand pounds. Isn’t that the amount?

07:48 - 07:49
Young: Thirty thousand pounds.

07:49 - 07:55
Chammah: Thirty thousand pounds. At the rate of about 4 pounds per dollar that’s about—

07:55 - 07:57
Young: Seven thousand five hundred dollars

07:57 - 08:14
Chammah: Seven thousand five hundred dollars. There is a discrepancy between that amount and the amount that the Syrian Jewish community itself says it is, it’s twenty-five thousand. But the other five thousand is needed apparently for various bribes.

08:14 - 09:07
Young: So what we understand it that in fact what happens is if you wish to travel abroad, you must put up a sum of thirty thousand Syrian pounds, of which when you return, you will receive twenty-five thousand Syrian pounds back. So that the deposit, per se, is twenty five thousand Syrian pounds, though in fact it costs you an extra five thousand pounds in order to achieve this result. The idea being that the five thousand pounds is a kind of fee, or to put it in another term, a bribe, that you pay in order to get the necessary paperwork and arrangements done.

09:07 - 09:43
Chammah: And as far as I know, from what I understand from the people in Damascus, one person in Syria has done this. There haven’t been that many people, as I understand it, that they know people who are allowed to leave are those who have very strong family ties, so as to make sure that they come back aside from the question of money. And also, there has not been any instance of younger people, younger than —

09:43 - 09:51
Young: Well that depends a little on what you mean by — some of them are not extremely old, for example, one person who is—

09:51 - 09:52
Chammah: He’s in his thirties.

09:52 - 10:06
Young: One person is somewhat younger [unclear] a businessman in Aleppo, though of course he’s not an extremely young person, he’s still —

10:06 - 10:10
Chammah: By young, they mean I think below twenty-five.

10:10 - 10:14
Young: But there are people in their thirties and forties.

10:14 - 10:20
Chammah: Yeah. He’s probably in his late thirties or something like that.

10:20 - 10:57
Young: Not more than forty years old. He has a father and mother who are still living, and who in fact were in fact traveling outside the country at the time that we were there. One thing I think we should say is we simply do not know the figures on the number of people who have recently traveled outside, or who have received permission and are expecting to do so in the next few months.  We know from individual reports that there are a number of these people.

10:57 - 11:00
Chammah: They have to go through Mr. Totah, for example.

11:00 - 11:34
Young: We know that [unclear] parents were outside the country at the time that we were there. So there can’t be a negligible number, but we have no firm evidence concerning whether its increasing or decreasing or exactly what the statistics might be. But I think it is fair to say that foreign travel, for these people, is now a possible activity.

11:34 - 11:35
Chammah: If you have money.

11:35 - 11:57
Young: Whereas regardless of your condition and resources simply a prohibited activity in the relatively recent past, as recent as three years ago. Without overemphasizing the importance of this point, it nevertheless is some change, which is maybe worth mentioning.

11:57 - 12:13
Young: Let’s then come to the question of internal travel, that is travel on the part of members of the Jewish community essentially of Damascus and Aleppo within Syria itself.

12:13 - 12:41
Chammah: The figure as I understand it is about ten kilometers periphery around — that a person is not allowed to leave ten kilometers beyond the periphery of the town. For example, in Aleppo, you couldn’t go beyond ten kilometers and in —

12:41 - 12:44
Young: Without receiving specific permission —

12:44 - 12:55
Chammah: Without permission. And in Damascus for example, going to one of the resort towns, which is about fifteen, twenty kilometers outside, this was not possible without permission, for example.

12:55 - 13:55
Young: Now one thing I think we should say here by way of background is that we had heard specifically from Ambassador Murphy that there is a belief that the question of permissions for internal travel had in the last several years become a mere formality. That is, it was agreed that it was still necessary pro forma to acquire these permissions, but there was some belief this restriction had become, in a sense, an insignificant restriction, on the grounds that the ease of obtaining permission was so great that nobody was seriously inconvenienced by this restriction at this point. This was the baseline initial information that we received when we began the visit and made our first observations.

13:55 - 15:31
Chammah: But actually, the actual situation is that it does take — depending upon the day — it does take quite a bit of time to get it. For example, I can just cite examples. When my mother and Haim wanted to get permission, they took their pictures for permission, and it takes about — they have to wait there for about an hour or so. Then they have to say exactly which conveyance they’re going to use. Where they’re going and which conveyance, and why they are doing it. The also need to — when they arrive to the new city, they have to report to the security office there. They also have to have it stamped in the security office in the city where they are traveling, and then they have to say which conveyance they’re going to use and at what time they’re going to return, and bring back, stamped, from the security office where they were traveling, stamped back to the original place where they are. So it is not an easy procedure and it could also sometimes, I was told, travel can be denied.

15:31 - 16:08
Young: Yes. We should also point out that so long this restriction exists, there are possibilities for discriminatory application, or arbitrary application so that in the event that the government wishes to express displeasure at the behavior of any given person, it is always possible for them to say, without prior warning, we’ve decided now to enforce this restriction. We can’t give you permission to go to a particular place, or we can’t give members of your family permission to go to a particular place.

16:08 - 16:26
Young: We know that this is not the case in any form with the other communities, the Christian and Muslim communities. Here I think we do have a reasonable basis for saying that this is a particular, a special restriction applicable to the Jewish community.

16:26 - 17:09
Young: Two points I guess to be stressed is that first of all it is not an inconsiderable inconvenience, even when the permissions are granted on a more or less routine basis, and secondly that there exists the possibility at all times that this restriction will be utilized to harass or restrict severely any given member of the community, so that this is always in a sense like a sort of sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of individual members of the community, who know that this could be used to severely inconvenience their lives.

17:09 - 17:32
Chammah: And there are people, of course there are a number of people who are related to each other between Damascus and Aleppo, so they do want to visit each other. Families want to visit each other, so it is not also the kind of situation where they don’t need to travel, for example. Maybe this should be mentioned.

17:32 - 17:37
Young: Well shall we turn then to another item on the list?

17:37 - 17:38
Chammah: Yes

17:38 - 17:54
Young: The next one I have here is this question of restrictions on the form in which assets can be held and restrictions on business transactions.

17:54 - 18:12
Chammah: There was a change also, as of three years ago. As I understand it, from 1960 on, all property were sequestered by the government.

18:12 - 18:18
Young: This was the property of all members of the Jewish community, or are you referring to —

18:18 - 18:37
Chammah: I’m sorry. Divide it into two — people who are living outside — members of the Jewish community who are living outside, their property was sequestered. People who are living inside cannot —

18:37 - 18:41
Young: Are subject to restrictions concerning the disposal —

18:41 - 18:43
Chammah: Of property

18:43 - 18:44
Young: Or transfer of property

18:44 - 18:55
Chammah: Transfer and disposal. In other words they cannot sell their property for any reason, essentially.

18:55 - 19:02
Young: Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. They can sell property, but only in the context of purchasing —

19:02 - 19:06
Chammah: That’s only three years ago. That’s only three years ago.

19:06 - 19:08
Young: I see.

19:08 - 19:09
Chammah: So this is where there was a change.

19:09 - 19:11
Young: We need to make this quite clear.

19:11 - 19:13
Chammah: Yeah. There is a change —

19:14 - 19:25
Young: So what you're saying is up until three years ago, it was impermissible for any member of the community to sell, to buy and sell property.

19:25 - 19:54
Chammah: Right. And within the last two or three years, the change has been towards being able to sell property and that’s land or buildings or cars, to sell it. But not to — the money has to be put in the government’s hands until another piece of property is bought. In other words —

19:54 - 20:00
Young: [unclear] to prohibit the accumulating of any substantial quantity of liquid assets.

20:00 - 20:03
Chammah: Right. [unclear]

20:03 - 20:26
Young: So what we can say now is there has been some improvement in the situation over the last three years. That is, it has been possible under circumstances to buy and sell property, but that there remains a very substantial restriction preventing any member of the community from accumulating liquid assets.

20:32 - 21:08
Young: The next point on our list of these tangible restrictions that I have is limitations on education and career paths, which I would put together because I think they relate to one set of issues as limitations on the kind of education you can receive, and admissions into the universities for example, and limitations on the kinds of professions or careers that members of this community are able to take up.

21:08 - 22:35
Chammah: Right. There is the — First, there apparently is quite a number of obstacles put in front of students who want to go to the university. Generally, any kind of course that they want in the university, there are obstacles even in the areas where the Syrian government allows Jews to go into those areas, or would like Jews to go into those areas. There are a number of obstacles that they put in front of them. During the period — In Damascus for example there were a number of — Well, perhaps we should say that the areas where the Syrian government lets Jews in are medicine, because they do need physicians, and pharmacists. So that then you find quite a lot compared to any other area. These are the two areas where there are. For example, 17 pharmacists and physicians came to see us in Damascus.

22:35 - 22:51
Young: Which means, at least in de facto terms, systematic discrimination designed to prevent members of the Jewish community from entering other kinds of professions.

22:51 - 23:36
Chammah: I asked, for example, why couldn’t they go into engineering, because Syria needs engineers too? Supposedly you could go into engineering, but once you get an engineering degree, you couldn’t get a license to practice as an engineer. So then there was no point in getting an engineering degree if you can’t get a license. Other areas, I don’t recall. I’m not sure about liberal arts, if they just want to take liberal arts, I’m not sure how they’d react to it.

23:36 - 23:57
Young: It’s not clear, for example, there was some expectation that the daughter of brother Salim would be able to get into Damascus University to study in a liberal arts program. It seemed that there were not others already at this time doing it.

23:57 - 23:59
Chammah: So there’s a question —

23:59 - 24:21
Young: So they were pessimistic about it. We might also say something at this point also about estimates concerning the number of Jewish people in the main universities. I don’t think we can say with ironclad certainty what the numbers are. We did ask —

24:21 - 24:36
Chammah: Some questions. Yeah. I don’t remember. It was something like twenty-four in Damascus University and something like four, three or four.

24:36 - 24:37
Young: I think it might be seven or eight.

24:37 - 24:41
Chammah: Seven or eight? I don’t remember. Seven or eight in Aleppo.

24:42 - 25:00
Young: We could say that it was on the order of between twenty and thirty in Damascus — probably more like twenty four or twenty five — and on the order of five to ten, probably something like seven, in Aleppo.

25:00 - 25:18
Chammah: Also many of these — Jews also are not allowed to enter and work in the government, so that none of the kind of degrees that would directly to being able to go and enter government service —

25:18 - 25:22
Young: Of course if they aspire to be officers —

25:22 - 25:25
Chammah: Well they are not even at all —

25:25 - 25:50
Young: [unclear] here are a number of other things that one might do after obtaining a university degree are cut off, so that what it boils down to, the bulk of these students that we met were certainly directing their attention to medicine or pharmacy.

25:50 - 26:23
Chammah: Right, right. As far as I know there are no Jews in government service, having government jobs. I was shown by the security office two people who are engineers who are going to be trainees in some government job, but that’s the extent of it. I was shown this in Aleppo, by the security office in Aleppo. But as far as I know there is just nobody in government service.

26:23 - 27:33
Young: Okay perhaps that’s about as much as we have at this point on the question of education and career. The next thing I would turn to — and we have much less information about it — restrictions on commercial activity. This is a difficult issue, because we know two facts. One is we know we have less factual information concerning this question, but also because, since the Syrian economy is not a free enterprise economy, it’s a state-regulated economy, there exists in general, an exceedingly complex system of state regulations apply to all members of the society, so that it is relatively speaking more difficult to figure out exactly which regulations are special restrictions on members of the Jewish community and which regulations are simply part of the general network of state projective regulations apply to other communities as well.

27:33 - 27:39
Chammah: Well export licenses — the Jews are not allowed to have export licenses.

27:39 - 27:41
Young: But you see that’s not clear.

27:41 - 27:48
Chammah: It’s not clear because the way he described it to you, Guindi, is that you could do it through another person.

27:48 - 28:00
Young: No, he said that up until April or May of this year he said that he — nothing about any other person — he said that he now has gotten export licenses.

28:00 - 28:25
Chammah: Well I heard from others — I don’t know if he is bragging about it — I heard from others that an export license is just not something you can get. The only thing you can do — I think this is from Edmund Cohen, or some of the other people in business — they can get a partner and put the transaction on the name of a non-Jewish partner, they can do it

28:25 - 28:55
Young: But here we run into a problem because what Guindi told me, point blank, was that up until recently he had to engage in these elaborate subterfuge, I think by other people putting up the money and other people signing papers to get the licenses, but that he now had been able to begin to receive licenses, and also to set up lines of credit in banks, which had also been restricted previously.

28:55 - 29:01
Chammah: He was bragging about how he was able to get into the bank and do what other people didn’t do, so I —

29:01 - 29:05
Young: That’s what he said. Now I don’t think that we can say that he lied.

29:05 - 29:06
Chammah: No.

29:06 - 30:11
Young: He may have. He may have, but I don’t feel comfortable saying in this context he actually lied. This is why I pointed out at the beginning that we are in a much less competent position to make any statements about this question of restrictions on commercial activities. I think my overall impression — and here I stress the term 'impression' — is that there have been in the past very substantial restrictions on commercial activities on the part of members of the Jewish community. That there have been some improvements recently. Probably, my estimate is that it’s still a very difficult business. There are serious problems, so that well-connected and clever members of the community who want to engage in commerce can utilize a variety of indirect methods of achieving results. Nevertheless, the situation is difficult.

30:11 - 30:55
Young: But it’s also the problem of trying to figure out here how much more difficult is it than the position of members of other communities, because we know for certain that this is an economy which is extremely hampered by an extraordinarily complex web of administrative regulations. So I don’t feel comfortable here making as concrete and confident statements as we made in previous — while it is my guess that there are also significant de facto restrictions on the activities of Jewish businessmen as well.

30:55 - 31:30
Chammah: On a level of small business, such as a shop, a grocery store for example, Edmund tells me that he has to get staples for his grocery store. He has to buy all of this stuff from the government warehouse, and he feels they give him all kinds of items that he doesn’t want because he is a Jew, and they force him to buy things which he doesn’t need, for example.

31:32 - 32:06
Young: We’ll talk about this more in a few minutes, more as an example of something, these intangible restrictions, discriminations, as opposed to tangible or de facto. For example, Edmund feels these things. Really likely he’s correct, but it’s very difficult to prove that kind of thing. It’s not that there is — for example, with respect to internal travel, there’s a rule, a concrete, specific rule that applies to Jews and does not apply —