 Many single men decided to put off marriage until they escaped, as they wanted to raise their children in freedom.As a result, the ratio of single men and women became heavily imbalanced, and Syrian Jewish women were often unable to find husbands.In 1977, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, as a gesture to US President Jimmy Carter, began allowing limited numbers of young women to leave the country, and some 300 left in total under this program.