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Middle East|Eating Kosher in the Heart of Syria: Lamb-Stuffed Zucchini but Hold the Yogurt
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/world/middleeast/syria-kosher-damascus.html
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In a white-tiled hotel kitchen in the heart of Damascus recently, a chef stood at a specially designated counter rolling roasted red pepper dip into neat balls and spooning hummus into elegant swirls. It was a classic Syrian dinner, but kosher.
Nearby, plates and serving dishes were stacked behind layers of plastic wrap and two signs in English reading: “Only for kosher food. Don’t touch.”
“It’s nice to see new ideas and new cultures,” said the chef, Abd Alrahman Qahwahji, who works at the hotel, the Royal Semiramis. He said that he had fled Syria during the long civil war and had worked in various restaurants abroad.
“I was in Lebanon. I was in Iraq. And I saw different things. But this is the first time I see kosher,” he noted.
The offering of kosher food in Damascus, Syria’s capital, is just one of the many signs of how much has changed in the country since the ouster in late 2024 of the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Syria once had a small but vibrant Jewish community, estimated at about 30,000 spread across three large cities, including the historic old city of Damascus. Many left as wars broke out in the years after the state of Israel was established and most of those who remained left in the early 1990s.
