Restoration work begins on main Jewish cemetery in Damascus

An organization has begun restoring Damascus’s main Jewish cemetery, the group’s founder tells AFP, as members of Syria’s dwindling community seek to revive their heritage after ex-ruler Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.

At the cemetery located along the airport road near the capital, an AFP correspondent saw rows of stone graves bearing inscriptions in Hebrew, as workers inspected the site.

Syrian-American Joe Jajati, founder of the Syrian Mosaic Foundation that is overseeing the restoration, says the cemetery contains hundreds of tombs.

The businessman, whose grandfather was a Syrian rabbi, says work has begun to clean up the cemetery and shore up some dilapidated graves, while “restoration work on the outer walls and the installation of lighting and surveillance cameras” will be completed next month.

“The cemetery wasn’t damaged during the war,” he says, referring to Syria’s civil war that began in 2011, adding that “the last burial was around a year and a half ago.”