A Global Community
The Jews from Aleppo, Syria
Walter P. Zenner
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780814327913
Pages: 238 Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 29 b&w photos and 1 map
Review
A Global Community: The Jews from Aleppo, Syria is the culmination of more than four decades of intensive study of the history and evolution of Jews coming from this ancient, once glorious and still significant and close-knit Jewish community.”
— George E. Gruen
The Jews from Aleppo, Syria, and their descendants compose a remarkable but little-known community that has spread throughout the world during the past two centuries, adapting to myriad social settings from Kobe to Buenos Aires. A Global Community is the first comprehensive scholarly interpretation of the historical experience of this unusual community in Syria and in the other places to which Aleppan Jewry have immigrated. Walter P. Zenner points to the social, economic, and cultural links that the various Syrian Jewish communities have made for the unique persistence of community throughout the diaspora. He places special emphasis in the communities in Israel and the United States but also studies the communities in England and Latin America. He utilizes rabbinical responsas, travelers' writings, secondary sources, interviews, and oral histories to provide a unique look into this Middle Eastern Jewish community for those interested in Ashkenazic as well as Sephardic Judaism.
A Global Community: The Jews from Aleppo, Syria is the culmination of more than four decades of intensive study of the history and evolution of Jews coming from this ancient, once glorious and still significant and close-knit Jewish community. In this outstanding work, Professor Zenner has combined professional skills in the fields of anthropology, history and sociology with keen powers of observation and empathy for his subjects as evidenced through numerous interviews and discussion with members of this far-flung community in the United States, Israel, the Middle East, Europe and Central and Latin America.
– George E. Gruen, Columbia University