Syrian-Jewish (Hi)Stories
Online Exhibition “Side by Side”
The online exhibition “Side by Side – Syrian-Jewish (Hi)stories” shows pictures by the Syrian documentary photographer Rania Kataf about the past and present of Jewish life in Damascus. The exhibition is complemented by an interview with Maurice Chammah and informations regarding Syria’s history.
Contact:
Tanja Lenuweit
t.lenuweit@minor-kontor.de
Languages:
The Jewish population in Syria was once the largest in the Arabic-speaking world. Of the former 30,000 – 50,000 Jews in Syria before the Second World War, only a few remain today.
The Syrian documentary photographer Rania Kataf has undertaken photographic research for the project The Course of (Hi)stories and conducted interviews with Jews still remaining in Damascus. Rania Kataf lives and works in Damascus and has intimate access to the city and its inhabitants through her project Humans of Damascus, in which she collects stories and contemporary documents about Damascus and its inhabitants.
The photos show Damascus in the year 2020 and make it clear that Jewish life there is disappearing. Although there is still a small Jewish community and a functioning synagogue, which was being renovated at the time the photos were taken, the few Jews still living in Damascus are almost all of advanced age. What remains are memories and architectural traces, most of which are only recognizable at second glance.
Rania Kataf’s photographs are complemented by the personal stories and additional background information collected in the publication Hidden Stories of Damascene Jews.
Timeline of Syrian-Jewish History
The exhibition also addresses the multiple – often fluid – identities that move between Arabic, Jewish and Syriac and tackles the supposed contradiction that arises between Jewish and Arabic. The video interview with the US-American journalist Maurice Chammah offers a very personal approach here. Based on the story of his Syrian-Jewish father, Maurice Chammah examines his own Jewish-Arab identity.
Video tour with the photographer Rania Kataf
The exhibition curated by Sigrun Drapatz and Tanja Lenuweit was shown from 13.11. – 19.12.2020 as part of the project The Course of (Hi)stories at the project space SCOTTY.
The project investigates immigrants’ narratives about Jews, the Shoah and Israel. Focusing on four selected countries of origin of immigrants (Syria, Poland, Morocco and Russia), the project aims to create a profound knowledge base about narratives in these countries and in the respective communities of immigrants in Germany. The aim is to make this knowledge available for political education.
The online exhibition “Side by Side” is part of the project The Course of (Hi)stories.
The Course of (Hi)stories is a project by Minor Kontor and is funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Federal Foreign Office. It is under the patronage of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
