As a rule, the Satmar yeshivas in Brooklyn have limited secular studies, such as geography and social studies. And he certainly did not grow up with YouTube or an Internet connection. Yet Moshe Klein, a born and bred Satmar Hassid, has a burning curiosity about people and places, and a deep desire to see the world through a lens of Jewish heritage and preservation. He is especially interested in places once teeming with Jewish presence that now barely have vestiges of the once-thriving communities.
“Because I never really learned about these places, my curiosity is piqued,” he explains. Klein, now in his 30s, has been traveling for more than a decade; to date, he has visited more than 100 countries. “For me, if I hear about a place – like Bhutan – I have the urge to check it out.”
He carefully researches each place that he plans to visit, such as Djerba, Tunisia, one of the earliest Jewish communities founded after the destruction of the First Temple. Originally inhabited by priests, Djerba has the oldest shul in Africa, called the El Ghriba Synagogue.
Klein sees it as his mission to share what he learns and educate others about Jewish heritage. He lectures in all kinds of yeshivot, from Modern Orthodox to hassidic, about places that at one time had significant Jewish communities.
Satmar, he explains, is one of the largest hassidic sects, which significantly repopulated after the Holocaust. Right before COVID, Klein made a pilgrimage to Satu Mare (St. Mary’s), Romania, to better understand the Satmar dynasties that emerged from Sighet.
He points out that while there are plenty of teachings about the Baal Shem Tov and hassidut, or about Iraq and the Ben Ish Chai, these were places he wanted to experience for himself. In Cairo, he visited Maimonides’ synagogue, with the sanctuary on top and its private practice office below. During his travels in Turkey, he learned he is a descendant of Rabbi Naftali Katz, who is buried in Istanbul. Now he goes to visit his gravesite often.
He picks up little fun facts wherever he goes, like the Turkish city of Izmir was once a Torah center. “In every alley there were people learning Torah, and every child knew the Mishna by heart,” he marvels.
When he found out that more than a thousand Satmar families originated from Syria, via South America and Argentina, in the period between World War I and World War II, and that some still speak fluent Arabic, it sparked his interest further.
Moshe Klein visits Syria
And that is how he came to visit Syria for three days with a small group at the beginning of Elul.
Along with his friend Dov Bleich, who has Syrian partners from the Brooklyn community, they found themselves breaking pita with Bahur Siman Tov, the last Jew who lives in what used to be the Jewish Quarter. According to Klein and other sources, there are fewer than 10 Jews in all of Syria.
“The Syrian community is ancient,” says Lebanon and Syria expert Prof. Eyal Zisser, Tel Aviv University’s vice rector and lecturer in the Department of Middle East History and at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies. “Jews started living there during and after the fall of the Second Temple. Damascus was an important foreign center during the Roman Empire, and Damascus and Aleppo became the main Jewish centers.”
Klein spent one day in Damascus, another in Aleppo, with a travel day in between. Ironically, while strolling in Aleppo, Klein saw no other tourists, besides his group, except for one from Kiryas Yoel and another from Boro Park – both Satmar Hassidim.
“I went there with an open mind,” he says. “I want to visit every country in the world. At the end of the day, I feel that what I do is a shlichut. To witness and document our Jewish heritage. Because in a few years, most likely, it will be gone. I visited Baghdad, Iraq, in 2021, and there were six Jews then. Now there are only three left. I visited the last Jewish family left in Myanmar, a beautiful country.”
Indeed, Zisser confirms that prior to World War II, more than 50,000 Jews could be found in Syria. Now, he says, the number is reduced to a mere handful.
“Christian communities also disappear from areas,” Zisser says. “When the gates to the West opened, people of all faiths wanted to improve their lives and immigrated to Europe and the US.” He says the Jewish flight could largely be attributed to a combination of the emergence of Arab radicalism and the radical Islam of the 20th century. At one point, he notes, Jews were trapped, unable to leave until Syria stabilized its relationship with the United States.
“Persecution is a driving force as the local population becomes more hostile,” he explains. “Jews were an energetic and productive element of society, economically and culturally. After the Jews left, the power shifted. It was a lose-lose situation for any country that lost its Jews.”
When asked why the Jews still in Syria have not left, Klein conjectures that the ones who remain were the stragglers – generally elderly people with no families.
“Most of the Jews had left by the 1990s,” he says.
Klein and Bleich were invited for a meal by one of the Jewish hosts, who was vegan.
“He said it has been close to 30 years since he had chicken because that was when the shochtim [kosher ritual slaughterers] left the community.”
The friends shared laffas and hummus – a home-cooked kosher meal.
“As I enjoyed the meal, I mentioned that I always dreamed about shmearing hummus in Damascus,” he recounts.
With a driver and a tour guide, Klein and his group not only visited Jewish sites in Syria but also impressive ancient sights like the ruins of Palmyra, known in biblical days as Tadmor. Built on an oasis between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean Sea, Palmyra was one of the main trade routes between East and West. During the Syrian civil war, many of the ancient sites in this area were destroyed.
Klein also enjoyed meeting the Syrian people.
“I come to see the people and the way it is. We were a small group of Americans, [a] Palestinian, and Turkish citizens from different religions, trying to make sense of what we saw. There were all kinds of voices, but I was careful not to discuss politics. I don’t represent a government. I found myself sympathizing with the Syrian people. The Syrian people want a better future,” he reports.
“I enjoyed learning about the Syrian people, experiencing life with them,” he continues. “I understand the hope they have for their new government. With 40 different ethnic groups across Syria, it’s a very mixed country.”
He enjoyed the diversity, pointing out that his driver was Muslim and his tour guide was Christian. “We met a Druze family and learned about their concerns.”
He says concerns abound, especially among different minorities that may not all be on the same side, but they all dread war.
“One night, we saw some teens playing guitar, drinking on the streets, and we stopped and schmoozed with them. They said they make the equivalent of $150 a month, so they can’t see themselves ever getting married. Who can support a family on so little?”
He says the tribal divisions make it hard for Syrians to connect with one another. There are different languages and cultures at every checkpoint and in every city. The Syrian people he met expressed interest in Jews and wanted to know more about Israel, although they didn’t understand why Israel is still bombing in Syria, especially now that they have a new government.
Significant sites
Klein especially enjoyed visiting the Syrian-Christian village of Malula, where people still speak Aramaic.
“We didn’t become chavrusas [Torah learning partners], but that’s one language you generally don’t hear in NYC. Despite the small numbers of Jews that remain, the few Jews maintain and use the Jewish cemetery, and take care of the shuls,” he says.
Klein managed to visit the grave of Rabbe Chaim Vital, who was a student of the great Kabbalist rabbi the Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria.
Despite the current lack of Jewish presence, Klein says it is obvious that a great many Jews once lived in Syria. In the village of Jobar, he saw a beautiful synagogue that dates back many years but was destroyed during the Syrian civil war, as was most of the village of Homs.
He saw Jewish homes and estates, as well as synagogues. And in antique and secondhand gift shops, he saw many Jewish artifacts, which most likely had previously been stolen. There are no museums with Jewish artifacts in Syria, he says. During the war, many ancient artifacts were smuggled to Israel and New York, and others were vandalized and stolen.
“I saw a lot of Jewish art and Judaica – silver Seder plates, candlesticks, havdala sets,” he recalls. “I even saw a beautiful handwritten Megillat Esther scroll.” He didn’t purchase anything so as not to support anything that may have been obtained illegally.
The two friends visited the Alferon Synagogue in Damascus and prayed there.
“It was a beautiful shul, one of the newer ones, built in the 1950s, but one of the few still intact,” he explains. “Some furnishings were imported from other synagogues. There were a lot of Torah scrolls and sifrei kodesh. Sadly, the synagogue had to be opened by someone from the government who had the key.... We were grateful to have had the opportunity to daven there.”
Klein’s travels have opened up new worlds for him. He documents his adventures with photos, videos, and journals, which he publishes in Orthodox publications.
While he has visited more than 100 countries, his friend Bleich has only been to 50. That’s because his friend has been busy visiting all 50 US states.
“Our mission is to see humanity,” Klein says. “Neither of us wants to go to the same vacation spots and see Hilton hotels.”
Occasionally, he brings his family along. He chooses his tour guides carefully, based on trusted recommendations. He has learned to deal with the lack of kosher food in most of his offbeat destinations. Traveling light, with just a carry-on to avoid losing time waiting for luggage, he doesn’t have much room for tuna fish cans.
“I can bring enough food for three or four days,” he explains, “but then I become a vegan. I am minimalistic, with just a few sets of clothing. When I took my road trip in Nepal, there was no kosher food. I lived on fruits and chocolates for a few days.”
He says it is ironic how most Jews who keep kosher are used to going to shops and looking for hechshers (certified kosher food).
“When you travel to remote places, you really do have to know the kashrut laws,” he says. “Where there are Jewish communities, I spend Shabbos with them. But where there are no Jews, I have to find kosher fish, buy flour, and make challahs.”
He recalls his visit to Eritrea, when he had to check his carry-on along with his tefillin because there was no room on the plane. Needless to say, his bag never arrived.
“I didn’t know what to do the next morning,” he recalls. “I had never missed a day since my bar mitzvah, and I didn’t want to be without putting on tefillin. I heard that there was just one Jewish man in town who was over 70 years old. I knocked on his door and asked him if I could use his tefillin. He responded that he had never lent his tefillin to anyone else before. I explained that I had never borrowed anyone else’s tefillin. We met at the shul – which was totally empty. I wore his tefillin, and we both davened in the empty synagogue,” he recounts.
But the story had a happy ending. “He invited me home to a sumptuous vegan kosher meal because there was (once again) no shechita. The meal consisted of tuna (imported), homemade bread, rice, and vegetable stew. We ate like kings,” he smiles.
Klein says he hopes the people of Syria will find the peace they seek.
“Syria was always a place I wanted to visit. There has been a Jewish presence since the First Temple. Some of the synagogues have legends saying that Elijah visited there. King David’s general Uria ben Seruya built one of the shuls. And in Aleppo, the Keter Aram Tzova [Aleppo Codex] is one of the first ever printed versions of Nach [Prophets].
“It was a zchut [privilege] to see the different cultures in Syria and to see that there are a few Jewish people still there. And despite all they have been through, the Syrian people are very pleasant. And they have hope.”