Barely 50 Jews remain in Syria after years of violence and instability and most of those still there have only stayed because they are elderly and unable to escape.

Ayoub Kara, Likud deputy minister, told JPost that a Jewish leader had described a big fall in numbers of Jewish people in the country's two biggest cities. About a third of the 140 Jews who until recently lived in Syria have gone, he said.

However, the figure of 50 is more than twice as high as the 17 Jews said by one rabbi to live still in Syria last December.

There were once many thousands of Jews in Syria but most left in the 20th century, fleeing a country where they were banned from politics and government employment and were the only group to have their religion stated on their passports.

In Israel alone there are today 80,000 Syrian Jews, with more in the US and South America. One group originated from as early as biblical times, and a more recent tranche settled there after the expulsion from Spain in the 15th century.

In Aleppo, there remain eight women, with most being too frightened to speak out.

Kara, who is himself Druze, said some of those remaining spoke to him because Druze are also among those persecuted. He is working to save these minorities along with Christians and Kurds in Syria.

"Islamic State are the new Nazis," Kara told JPost.

He also said he had tried and failed to persuade the last Jew in Lebanon to leave. The man was recently murdered. There are seven elderly women still in Alexandria in Egypt, a similar situation in Cairo, seven in Bahrain and about 100 in Yemen.

There are more remaining in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Kara is in talks about helping the remaining Syrian and Yemenite Jews make aliyah to Israel.