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Meet the volunteers who are risking their lives to save Jewish history in the Middle East

Meet the volunteers who are risking their lives to save Jewish history in the Middle East” by Emily Feldman: “One of the higher-profile Jewish heritage sites lost to the fighting in Syria was the centuries-old Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in a suburb of Damascus… Eddie Ashkenazie, a Diarna researcher from Brooklyn with roots in Syria, has been closely following the destruction.

He felt a new determination in his work after watching aerial footage shot in the ancient Syrian city of Homs… Ashkenazie has been scouting out Brooklyn synagogues with Syrian congregants whose memories of Jewish sites might still be fresh. “I tell them what I do, and they’re like, ‘Oh, bring us your pictures tomorrow, bring us your maps,’” he says. “Just yesterday, after prayer services a group of men helped me [locate] synagogues in Damascus.” After the meeting, he returned to his office and added the synagogues to Diarna’s expanding database of sites.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.773085