Until the devastating riots during the Damascus Affair in 1840, Jews also predominantly lived in the once-independent village of Jobar, which lies 2 km northeast of the city gate Bab Sharqi, but today belongs to the capital.

However, the area south of the Straight Street between the dead-end Ḥārat az-Zaitūn (حارة الزيتون 'Olive Lane') and the Bāb Sharqī, which is dominated by three cathedrals and their facilities, also belongs to the Christian quarter.

The section of Straight Street east of the Roman Triumphal Arch, (i.e. in the area of the Christian Quarter), is officially called Šāriʿ Bāb Šarqī (شارع باب شرقي).

In 2006, travel book author Diana Darke described the Jewish Quarter as run-down and abandoned, as the Jews of Damascus left the city beginning in the late 1940s, most recently in a wave of emigration in the 1990s.

[1] 200 m south of the Arc de Triomphe and Bāb Sharqī Street stands asch-Shurafāʾ Alley (Al-Shorfaa, زقاق الشرفاء) near al-Amīn Street stands the "Arab palace" Beit Dahdah (بيت الدحداح, DMG Bait ad-Daḥdaḥ),[5] formerly belonging to the Jewish merchant and banker Farhi family (فارحي, DMG Fārḥī)[6] and named after its owner Murād (Mordechai) Farhi (مراد (موردخاي) فارحي).

[9] From the east gate, passing the "olive alley" to the south, walking along Straight Street, one will come through a small park that is often used by youths for romantic meetings.

The Elfrange Synagogue (كنيس الفرنج) near the Beit Mourad Farhi is the only one in Damascus that still holds services, with many of the few Jews left in the city attending it.

[15] In the 5th century, when Christianity was the state religion of the Roman Empire, Rabbi Rafram bar Pappa preached in the Jobar Synagogue.

In 706, Caliph al-Walid I had the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist converted into the Umayyad Mosque, but concurrently decreed that Christians could continue to visit their remaining churches and Jews their synagogues, albeit as dhimmis upon payment of the jizya.

In addition, there were the Sephardic Jews who came to the country through expulsion from Spain after the Fall of Granada who spoke Ladino, a Romance language with Hebrew influence.

The Jewish community of the Karaites died out in Damascus during this period, and their synagogue (Kenessa) was sold to the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

In view of their apparent innocence, Fuad Pasha as well as the Prussian consul Johann Gottfried Wetzstein, the English Jewish entrepreneur Moses Montefiore, as well as the bankers Abraham Camondo (Istanbul) and Shemaya Angel (Damascus) intervened, and their execution was prevented.

[24] In response to the founding of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, Muslim perpetrators attacked the Menarsha synagogue on 8 August 1949, where twelve people were killed.

[25] The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) school in the south of the Jewish quarter was closed in 1948 and taken over by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Beginning with Passover in 1992, the government of Hafez al-Assad allowed Syria's Jews to leave the country if they promised that they would not immigrate to Israel.

The upper class included bankers and textile merchants, and the trade in gold and diamonds was largely dominated by Jews until the time of the Republic.

[34] Other Jews held positions in science, medicine, and technology, with physicians Hasbani and Totah, among others, being well-known and popular in Damascus.

[32] Rachel and Albert Qamoo stated in 2019 that their most important task in life is to secure all the synagogues of Damascus for the future, before they can emigrate in peace to their relatives.