The Rescuer: The Amazing True Story of How One Woman Helped Save the Jews of Syria

305 Pages·2007·8.8 MB·English

by  Harold Troper

-.-.........SCUER
The Amazing,
True Story of
How One Woman
Helped Save the
Jews of Syria
(Originally published as
The Ransomed of God)
HAROLD TROPER

To the Jews of Syria and all those
who helped rescue them
Copyright © 2007 by Harold Troper
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, record
ing, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writ
ing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Troper, Harold Martin, 1942-
The rescuer: the amazing true story of how one woman helped save the Jews
of Syria / Harold Troper.
Originally published under title: The ransomed of God; Toronto : M. Lester
Books, 1999. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-9781765-3-2
1. Carr, Judy Feld. 2. Refugees, Jewish-History-20th century. 3. Jews
Persecution-Syria. I. Troper, Harold Martin, 1942- Ransomed of God. II.
Title.
DS135.S95T76 2007 956.91 '004924 C2007 -904348-8
First published in paperback in 2007 by Lester, Mason & Begg Limited, 491
Davenport Road, Toronto, Ontario M4V 1B7. Originally published in hardcover in
1999 by Malcolm Lester Books as The Ransomed of God: The Remarkable Story of
One Woman's Role in the Rescue of Syrian jews.
Editors: Andrea Knight and Alison Reid
Book Design: Jack Steiner Graphic Design
Printed and bound in Canada.
07 08 09 54 32 1

CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvii
PROLOGUE The Determination to Survive 1
CHAPTER ONE Half a World Away 7
CHAPTER TWO The ] ews of Despair 18
CHAPTER THREE The Task at Hand 39
CHAPTER FOUR Be Strong and of Good Courage 68
CHAPTER FIVE Carrying Their Fears With Them 93
CHAPTER SIX Deliver Them Out of Syria 116
CHAPTER SEVEN Ransoming the Captives 143
CHAPTER EIGHT So They Can Marry 165
CHAPTER NINE Prisoners of Damascus 180
CHAPTER TEN Opening the Gates 204
EPILOGUE Survival and Renewal 232
ENDNOTES 239
INDEX 274
Photographs appear after page 150.
Isaiah 35:10
And the ransomed of God shall return,
And come with shouting to Zion,
Crowned with joy everlasting.
They shall attain joy and gladness,
While sorrow and sighing flee.
Adapted from Tanakh: A New Translation of the
Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).
PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION
When this book was first published in 1999 as The Ransomed of God,
a suhurhan Toronto synagogue invited me to give a talk about Judy
Feld Carr's critical role in the rescue of Syrian Jews. Following my
talk a number of people stayed on to ask questions or chat. After
most had left, an older man took my arm and drew me aside.
Apologizing for keeping me, he explained that he knew Judy Feld
Carr slightly and had already read my book. The reason that he had
come to my talk was that there was something about the book that
bothered him and hoped that I wouldn't mind if he raised it with
me. I told him I'd be pleased to answer any questions he had.
Reassured, he looked me straight in the eye and asked what parts of
the book were true and what parts were my invention. Taken aback,
I told him it was all true; none of it was fiction. He stood there for
a moment, shook his head in disbelief and, without saying a word,
walked away.
The more I think about it, the more sympathy I have for read
ers who have trouble accepting that everything in this book is true.
When I first heard the story of}udy Feld Carr's sub rosa activities on
behalf of beleaguered Syrian Jews, I too was more than a little scep
tical. To this day, I wonder at the improbability of anyone being able
to do what Judy did. It is a truly amazing story that loses none of its
wonder in the telling-of how a Canadian Jewish woman, raised in
northern Ontario and now living in Toronto as a musicologist, wife,
and mother to a blended family of six children, ran, for almost thirty
years, a covert rescue operation that successfully secreted thousands
of oppressed Jews out of Syria. Since the book was first published,
my admiration for Judy's accomplishments has not lessened-just
the opposite, especially in view of recent events.
Over the past few years we have all witnessed a dramatic change
in the degree to which the West, including Canada, has been drawn
into the eye of the Middle East storm. Who would have imagined in
1999 that talk of a "peace dividend" flowing from the collapse of
Communism in Eastern Europe would, in the wake of the 9/11
attack on the twin towers in New York, be replaced by fears of a
"clash of civilizations" between the West and the Islamic world?
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Who would have foreseen that the United States and Britain would
be bogged down in a protracted conflict in Iraq, Canadian and other
NATO troops battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, the
Iranian regime developing nuclear weapons capacity, Lebanon again
tom by sectarian violence and stumbling toward full-scale civil war,
Hamas the democratically elected choice of the Palestinian people,
the Israeli military mired in efforts to contain ongoing Hamas and
Hizbullah terrorist attacks, and Western European states pondering
the social and political implications of the dramatic growth in their
Islamic populations?
And what of Syria? As it is now, so it was then-a closed and
repressive police state, its governing elite tolerating no challenge to
its authority and privilege. As Syrian authorities impose order with
an iron fist, however, that same fist threatens what remains of the
region's fragile stability. While people speculate about possible
Syrian-Israeli talks, Syria remains a frontline state in the Arab
world's ongoing conflict with Israel, the home address of Hizbullah
and Hamas terrorist organizations, the backbone of efforts to subvert
the elected government in Lebanon, and the closest regional ally of
Iran. Recent headlines warn that Syria continues to violate even
the most basic precepts of human rights with seeming impunity. Nor
have Canadians been immune. In a tangled story of intrigue that
involves Syrian, American, Jordanian, and Canadian security police
and agencies, several Canadians of Syrian origin have been impris
oned in Syria and reportedly tortured while in custody. When the
federal government announced an inquiry into possible Canadian
missteps or, even worse, complicity in wrongful jailings, a letter to
the editor of the Globe and Mail asked why the inquiry was not going
to extend its investigation to include "the country in which they
were tortured-namely Syria. It is almost as if we expect such
behaviour from the Syrians."1 Sadly, the letter writer may be right.
That Syria routinely inflicts physical torture on those its prisoners
was not news to Judy. When she rescued more than three thousand
Jews from Syria, among them were several severely tortured Jews she
bought out of Syrian prisons.
In light of what we now know of the Middle East and what has
been revealed of Syria's role there, one cannot help but marvel at all
viii
that Judy, armed with clarity of purpose, steadiness of nerve, and
passion for her cause, was able to achieve. Another quality that
helped her in her task was an uncanny ability to work alone and in
secret. There were few people in whom she dared confide, and those
who knew anything about what she was doing also protected the
cone of secrecy within which she operated. Any violation of that
secrecy would not only have jeopardized Judy and her network, but
would have also inflicted horrific punishment on the Jews of Syria
who entrusted her with their lives and the lives of their children.
She dared not allow that to happen.
In the late-1990s, even as she rescued some of the last Jews of
Syria, Judy knew that her rescue work was drawing to a close and
that the history of a Jewish community in Syria-a community that
can trace its roots back through the biblical era-would also to be a
thing of the past. That community's story and the story of their
secret rescue deserved to be told and Judy very much wanted it be
told. To her, the story is not so much about her secret rescue efforts
as it is the story of the unyielding determination of beleaguered
Syrian Jews to survive as Jews, to put their lives on the line to escape
Syria so that they might live in dignity as Jews.
Of course, it was one thing for Judy to want their story told; it
was another for me to do the telling. Writing this book was not
something I intended to do. In fact, until I was approached to write
a book about the rescue effort that delivered so many Syrian Jews to
freedom, I knew nothing about it. What Judy was doing was a well
guarded secret-even many of those who contributed money to
make the rescues possible were kept in the dark about how their
money was being spent. So, how did I come to write the book? It
began when I received a phone call asking me to meet with Judy to
talk about a book she had in mind. This was not the first time some
one had called me with a book publishing idea. As the author of
several books, it was not unusual for individuals to ask if they could
run ideas by me about writing a book or to ask advice on how to find
a publisher for a manuscript. I thought that it was one or other of
these topics that Judy Feld Carr wanted to talk about. I was wrong.
I agreed to meet Judy at her house one afternoon later that
week. When I arrived, we chatted briefly as Judy ushered me into
ix