The rules confining the Jews started in 1948 [when Israel was established] and got worse in the 1950s with no emigration permitted, and got even worse in '67.
JB: How did your involvement with sending Jewish texts to rabbis escalate to helping Syrian Jews to escape?
JFC: The books had codes in them. And until the Syrians found the pieces of paper, they became the opening of communication with Syrian Jews in 1973. There were telegrams coming from the rabbis with the shopping lists of books. The telegrams had coded information in them also.
My husband died in June of 1973, and I had three little children to raise alone. Still, the telegrams were coming. The rabbi in Damascus knew exactly when my husband died; the Mukhabarat arrested him, and told him that Dr. Feld was dead.
Never did I ever envision in those years, that I would even think of taking a person out of Syria. My idea was only to be in communication.
I took the first man, a rabbi from Aleppo, out of Syria in 1977. It was horribly difficult. Firstly, because I was not sure about what I was doing, and also because there was no way to communicate with him or his family: no telephones, no letters. Long before I was involved, he had been terribly tortured in a Syrian prison when some of his children escaped. He also now had cancer of the kidney.
JB: Over the next 28 years, you were able to surreptitiously extract of the Jewish community from Syria. You accomplished this with absolutely no publicity and no casualties. I don't know which aspect is more amazing. How were you able to operate below the radar?
JFC: It is important to understand that I did not take out the entire Jewish community. So many hundreds came out through the unbelievable work of Israeli agents who put their lives on the line in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and even later.
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