Judy Feld Carr

Judith Feld Carr, CM (born 1938) is a Canadian Jewish musicologist and human rights activist known for secretly bringing to freedom thousands of Jews out of Syria over a period of 28 years.

Judith "Judy" Feld Carr was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She attained a Mus.Bac. in music education and the degrees of Mus.M. in both musicology and music education from the University of Toronto. Feld Carr taught high school music in Toronto for many years and also taught university musicology. She was a visiting lecturer at Yeshiva University in New York City, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Youngstown State University in Ohio.

Feld Carr used funds from the Dr. Ronald Feld Fund for Jews in Arab Lands (established at Beth Tzedec Congregation, Toronto in 1973), donated privately, both to negotiate ransom for the release of Syrian Jews, from prisons inside Syria and for passports and visas, permitting them to leave, as well as smuggling others across borders and out of that country. The process took over 28 years, in complete secrecy to protect the lives of those in danger, as well as to protect the whole process. The majority of the Jews who were enabled to leave emigrated to Israel, New York, or South America. Feld Carr described the venture:

Her work focused on creating cells with Syrians temporarily abroad (who almost invariably had to leave family members behind as sureties for their return), those who had escaped, and Syrians inside the country, including Jews, Christians, and Muslims, to develop a reliable and secure information network. The network used coded language, some of which involved Chinese cuisine and alcohol. Her codename was Gin, but she was also known as Mrs. Judy, or simply “the woman from Canada”. Each Syrian Jew was rescued through individual bribes organized by Feld Carr. She recalled, "I bought them like you'd buy cattle...It was as crass and as disgusting a thing as anybody could have ever done." In certain cases, she arranged successful escapes when bribery failed.

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