THE TIME SPAN of this examination of the Jewish minority in Syria, the period beginning in 1840, when the Damascus affair took place, and ending with 1880, when economic disaster overtook Damascus Jewry, overlaps with what is known in the history of the Ottoman empire as the Tanzimat era. A key phenomenon of this era was the ever-widening encounter between East And West. This led to profound changes in Ottoman imperial rule and society in general, and in Syria specifically from 1840, when Ottoman rule was reinstated. In this book the shifts in Jewish society have been examined against the broad background of the political, social, and economic changes taking place in Syria during the period in question.

As delineated here, the two main Jewish communities differed with regard to social structure, economic endeavour, communal leadership and organization, and education, essentially retaining their heterogeneity through these years. The identity of each community was grounded not in a shared Syrian Jewish awareness, but rather in a unique local character. While the Damascus Jewish community was characterized by a wide gap between a small elite of extremely affluent families, wealthy by any standard, and an overwhelming majority who were among the most underprivileged in Syrian society, that in Aleppo was dominated by a thriving middle class that bridged the gap between rich and poor. Aleppo was also distinguished by a small social elite—dubbed Francos—composed almost entirely of descendants of eighteenth-century European Jewish settlers. Although these Jews were neither members of the Jewish community nor bound by its taxation or communal regulations, they exercised considerable influence on that community. During the period under consideration, the nucleus of this European Jewish elite was in a process of decline, causing it to focus inwardly and to concentrate on the preservation of its status and privileges, as evinced through its desire to create a separatist, modern education system for its children and through its lessened support for communal institutions.

Alongside the Francos, a new Syrian Jewish elite developed. Drawing its strength and status from the acquisition of modern education, it became more closely linked, spiritually and culturally, to Europe than to the Muslim East.