Tucked away to the north of the Grand Serail, between Rue France and Wadi Abou Jmil, are the remains of the once grand Maghen Abraham synagogue, which in the early 20th century served a thriving Jewish Beirut community. Though desperately in need of rebuilding, you can still make out the stars of David and Hebrew inscriptions adorning the synagogue's surviving walls.
This is not the only evidence of Lebanon's once open and active Jewish community. In Deir al-Qamar, the now disused synagogue remains intact; in Beirut and elsewhere there are several overgrown Jewish cemeteries. But today, most of Lebanon's Jews prefer to keep their religious identity closely guarded and no accurate figures on exactly how many Jews remain in Beirut, or elsewhere in the country, are available. Some sources say there are as few as 40; others, as many as 1,500. Either way, for a city that once contained 16 synagogues, Beirut displays little evidence that the once 14,000-strong Jewish community of Lebanon, whose roots can be traced back in the area as far as 1000 BC, ever existed at all.
One man, however, is attempting to redress this balance. Aaron-Micael Beydoun, a 21-year-old Muslim Lebanese American, is the founder of the website/blog/research project The Jews of Lebanon (www.thejewsoflebanon.org). His aim, he says, is to remind the Lebanese public that coexistence between religious groups has been, and should continue to be, one of Lebanon's strongest features. With plans to launch an appeal to renovate the Maghen Abraham synagogue, and committed to bring the story of Lebanon's Jews to the attention of the world, Beydoun is determined to give a face and voice to this forgotten and maligned Lebanese community.
