A Jewish refugee blog reported that a Conservative synagogue in Louisville, Kentucky has taken in three Jewish families from Syria, ending a harrowing journey in which they had to hide their Jewish identity in order to flee war-torn Syria.
Point of No Return reported that the three families, 13 people including seven children, fled Damascus four months ago, arriving in Sweden while posing as Christian Arab refugees. The Louisville synagogue worked with local and federal authorities to allow the families into the US. The families were described as being financially well-off and multilingual.
It was estimated last year that only 18 Jews remained in Syria from a community dating back to Roman times, with large Jewish populations in Aleppo and Damascus. Most of the Jews emigrated in the first half of the 20th century. There are currently about 75,000 Syrian Jews living in the United States, with most living in the NY-NJ area.
Kentucky was one of the first states to begin receiving refugees in 2015, but their good will was blemished when two Al Qaeda terrorists who had killed American soldiers in Iraq, arrived in Kentucky, posing as Syrian refugees. They were caught by the FBI with a storage locker containing heavy weapons.
