Lebanon’s dwindling Jewish community hopes for answers about its missing leaders

Rabbi Elie Abadie left his native Lebanon more than five decades ago and has not returned since, but his Lebanese roots remain an integral part of his identity.

He has 3,000 Arabic songs on his smartphone. His American wife learned from his mother how to cook the Lebanese dishes he loves. And when he speaks with his siblings, he switches between Arabic and French, as many Lebanese do in a country that was once under French mandate.

Lebanon’s once-thriving Jewish community has largely faded from public memory in the decades since most of its members left. But the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, which brought Lebanon and Israel into direct negotiations, has put the community back in the spotlight.

Last month, Israel agreed to release five civilians detained by its forces in southern Lebanon in exchange for Lebanon’s assistance in searching for the remains of Lebanese Jewish leaders who were abducted and killed in the 1980s during the country’s civil war.

The announcement stirred painful memories for Lebanese Jews such as Abadie, 65, who was born and raised in Beirut to parents who had moved to Lebanon from Syria. He left his birthplace at the age of 10 and lived in Mexico for several years. He is now based in Dubai, serving as senior rabbi emeritus of the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf states.

Abadie remembers Lebanon in the 1960s as being in its “best days”, with “beautiful beaches and rivieras, mountain resorts, skiing resorts”.

Like many Lebanese Jews, his family left as anti-Jewish sentiment intensified after the 1967 war between Israel and Arab countries. Security concerns have kept him away ever since, but he hopes to return one day and reopen Beirut’s long-shuttered central synagogue.

“It is unfortunately a sad reality that, since Lebanon and the Jews go back over 3,000 years from the time of King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre and their peaceful and friendly relations, the situation in the last 50 years marked such a decline in Jewish population and life in Lebanon,” he said.

A once-thriving community scattered

Nada Abdelsamad, a Lebanese journalist who has written two books on the country’s Jewish community, said Lebanon once had between 18,000 and 20,000 Jews. Many lived in Wadi Abu Jmil, a central Beirut neighbourhood nicknamed the Valley of the Jews.

Following the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel, many Jews fled other Arab countries, including Syria and Iraq, where they faced growing discrimination and, in some cases, violence. Some sought refuge in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country where they felt safer. While some were smuggled into Israel, many remained in Lebanon.

The situation changed after the 1967 war, during which Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Lebanon became increasingly polarised between pro-Western groups and those supporting Palestinian factions and Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In 1969, Lebanon and Palestinian factions signed the Cairo Agreement, allowing Palestinian groups to operate freely in the country.

“From that day on, the Jewish community in Lebanon felt very insecure and threatened,” Abadie recalled. “We started seeing marches and protests in the streets of Lebanon, chanting, ‘Death to Israel and to the Jews.’”

His family left the country.

The situation deteriorated further after Lebanon’s civil war broke out in 1975. As kidnappings by armed groups became widespread, prominent members of the dwindling Jewish community were abducted from their homes, workplaces or the streets. An organisation calling itself the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, believed to be linked to Hezbollah, was blamed for the kidnappings.

Jewish leaders among thousands still missing

At least seven Jews are among the 17,000 Lebanese people whose fate remains unknown decades after the 15-year civil war ended, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

They include Isac Sasson, then president of Lebanon’s Jewish community; doctor Elie Hallak, who treated patients from all religious communities at his Beirut clinic; and Salim Jamous, the community’s former secretary-general. Several other Jewish victims were confirmed killed, and their bodies were recovered at the time.

Lebanese officials have not announced any breakthrough in determining the fate of the missing Jewish leaders. It also remains unclear what would happen to their remains if they were found.

“In the end these are Lebanese citizens, and there is a legal process if they want to move them outside the country,” said Bassem El Hout, a lawyer representing Lebanon’s Jewish community.

Asked about Israel’s interest in the missing Lebanese Jews, Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Israel had a responsibility to Jews around the world.

“Israel, as the nation-state of the Jewish people, has a profound and enduring responsibility to Jews throughout the world,” he said, adding that this responsibility “does not end at Israel’s borders, nor does it end with death”.

A small community remains

Judaism remains one of Lebanon’s 18 officially recognised religious sects, but only a handful of Jews live in the country today.

El Hout said the exact number was unknown. Abadie estimated that around 20 Jews remained scattered across Lebanon.

“Not all of them profess publicly about their Jewish religion, except for maybe to close friends and neighbours,” he said.

Lebanese electoral rolls still list around 4,000 Jewish citizens in Beirut and about 1,000 in the southern port city of Sidon, although many are believed to be living abroad.

El Hout said five synagogues remained in Lebanon, including the country’s oldest, in Sidon.

A sign reading “the Jewish quarter” still marks the narrow alleyways of Sidon’s old quarter, where the synagogue and several Jewish-owned homes remain shuttered.

Taleb Kara Ahmed, who has written several books about the city’s Jewish community, said many Jews left for Latin America before Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. When Israeli troops withdrew from Sidon in 1985, the last Jews departed with them, taking copies of the Torah from the city’s synagogue, he said.

Samo Behar, the current head of Lebanon’s Jewish community, declined to be interviewed or to give The Associated Press permission to film inside Beirut’s century-old Maghen Abraham Synagogue. The synagogue was damaged during the civil war and renovated nearly two decades ago, but remains closed.

Displacement left identities complicated

Dany Liniado left Lebanon a few months after the civil war began in 1975. She moved through several countries, including Israel, before eventually settling in Mexico, which has a sizeable Lebanese Jewish diaspora. Many other Lebanese Jews settled in the United States, France and Brazil, as well as Israel.

Two months after Liniado left Lebanon, her father was detained in Beirut and beaten by gunmen who accused him of being “an Israeli agent”. A prominent Lebanese politician eventually secured his release and advised him to leave the country.

“When he reached me in Milan, he was not the same person,” Liniado said.

She has no plans to return to Lebanon, even for a visit.

“For me, it's too late,” she said.

Liniado still cooks Lebanese dishes, listens to Lebanese music and takes pride in her “Lebanese DNA”. But her identity has become more complicated. She lived in Israel for six years and also identifies as Israeli. Despite recent negotiations between their governments, Lebanon and Israel remain officially at war.

“I am a Lebanese Jew but now I am everything. I can be Israeli, I can be French, I can be Mexican. You know what, I am a citizen of the world,” Liniado said by telephone from Mexico City.

“I’m a Jewish citizen of the world.”