(JEWISH GROUP) Fall of Assad revives interest in Judeo-Syrian Arabic, Syria's nearly lost Jewish dialect

The fall of Bashar Assad’s regime on Sunday, after years of civil war and opposition unrest, has brought a new focus on Syria’s cultural heritage. Among the many stories resurfacing in the wake of this historical moment is that of Judeo-Syrian Arabic, a nearly extinct dialect central to Aleppo and Damascus's Jewish communities.

Judeo-Syrian Arabic is a linguistic relic of Syria’s Jewish past, blending the Levantine Arabic spoken by the majority population with Hebrew and Aramaic elements. For centuries, it was no one's communication but lands of cultural and religious identity for Syrian Jewry.

The Jewish community of Syria has ancient roots, tracing back to the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE. Over time, Jews adapted the Arabic dialects of their neighbors, but Judeo-Syrian Arabic stood apart due to its incorporation of Hebrew and Aramaic.

“This language was a reflection of the dual identity of Syrian Jews—deeply rooted in their Jewish heritage while fully immersed in Arabic-speaking society,” explains Dr. Benjamin Hary in his 2018 work Judeo-Arabic in the Arabic-Speaking World.

One of the community’s most notable linguistic traditions was the sharḥ, a translation of Hebrew scripture into Judeo-Syrian Arabic, used to teach Torah. Haim Blanc’s seminal 1964 study, Studies in Judeo-Arabic Dialects, highlights this practice as a cornerstone of religious education in Aleppo and Damascus.

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