What issue caused conflict between Syrians and Jews?

Answer 1

Historically, the Jews and their Israelite Ancestors have had numerous problems with the Syrians.

Ancient and Biblical Times

Probably the earliest problems between them were regional. In the later period of the Divided Monarchy (Israel and Judea) one of the strongest enemies of the Israelite monarchies was the Kingdom of Aram, which was a Secondary Power just as the Israelite monarchies were. (The Primary Powers were Egypt and the Mesopotamian Kingdoms - Assyria and Babylon.) The Bible records the story of Naaman, an Aramean general, who is healed by the Prophet Elisha. While the Biblical story may not mean that this actually happened, the way that the King of Israel reacts to Naaman's peaceful entry into Israel reflects the enmity between the Israelite monarchies and the Arameans. Most of their disputes were territorial and dealt with the areas in the eastern Galilee and the Quneitra region. These territorial disputes were directly related to the amount of power that each could exert over smaller regional allies such as the Phoenician States in Lebanon or the transjordanian kingdoms.

The next major conflict between the Syrians and the Jews was the Assyrian-Judean Wars in the 700s-600s BCE. In these wars, the Assyrians sent a large army to Judah with the intent to conquer the Judean territory and its people. According to both the Bible and Assyrian King Senacherib's Records, the Judean city of Lachish (the second largest Judean city after Jerusalem) was razed to the ground. Judean soldiers resisted, but they were no match for Assyrian numbers, strength, brutality, and strategy. According to the Bible, Judah was saved from defeat when a plague destroyed much of Assyrian army. According to King Senacherib's Records, there is no mention of what happened after the razing of Lachish or why the war terminated at all.

Syrian Jews as a Minority in Syria

Jews became part of the Syrian population during the Persian and Roman Period as some Jews en route to southern Levant from Mesopotamia ended up staying in Syria and when some Syrians converted to Judaism. The Syrian Jewish community survived and continued under the Byzantine Empire and the various Arab Caliphates with occasional pogroms, but no serious repression. The only major act of Syrian violence towards the Jews came from the Damascus Affair in 1840, when eight Damascus Jews were accused of ritualistic murder of a Syrian Christian Monk without any actual evidence. The Jews were imprisoned, tortured, and in one case, forcibly converted to Islam. While this was occurring, the hysterical Damascene population pillaged the Jewish neighborhood of Jobar, attacked Jews on the streets, and destroyed Torah scrolls in the local synagogue. This violence was motivated by the prevalence and accepted nature of Jewish Blood Libels. Unfortunately, there are still individuals in the Arab World who fault the Jews for the assassination of this Christian Monk.

As Arab Nationalism was becoming more prevalent in Syria, there was a divide in the Syrian Jewish community as to whether Jews could consider themselves "Syrian Arabs" or whether their Judaism made it impossible for them to be Arab. The Muslim Syrians also debated this question, but quickly came to the result that part of being an Arab in the cultural sense meant following Islamic customs. This exclusion of Jews from being a part of Syrian Arab entity only became stronger as Nazism began to exert a strong influence on the development of Arab Nationalism and injected it with a strong Anti-Semitic current. By the time of Syrian Independence in 1943, Anti-Semitic laws were passed. Jews suffered through disorganized pogroms, riots, and other generally Anti-Semitic measures. From 1948-1952 almost the entire population of Syrian Jews fled to France, Israel, or Lebanon, leaving Syria almost devoid of Jews.

Arab-Israeli Conflict

Syria was among the Arab States that went to war with Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973. In the 1948 War, Syria's mission was to prevent the Zionist State from existing. In that regard, it was an utter failure, with its army being pushed out of nearly every location near to the Syrian border, with the small exception of around five kilometers square on the eastern bank of the Sea of Galilee.

In the 1967 and 1973 Wars, conflicts between Israelis and Syrians have been over the Israeli-Syrian border and control of the Golan Heights.

Answer 2

The Assyrians were an Northern Empire, that demanded a yearly tribute from the small country of Israel. For many years, the Jews gave them tribute. One year the Jews gave their gifts to Egypt instead of Assyria. This lack of respect to the Assyrians, resulted in the Assyrians taking loot and slaves from the Northern kingdom of Israel and destroying it. They also put the southern cities of Israel under siege, but after 3 years, retreated from Southern Israel, leaving only a smaller weak nation of Judea.