Syria, once home to a large Jewish community, takes steps to return property to Jews

ALEPPO, Syria — Many years after nearly your entire Syrian Jewish group left the nation, Henry Hamra of Brooklyn, N.Y., stands on the steel door of a small synagogue on this historical Syrian metropolis, actually holding the keys to a attainable return of Jewish residents.

Hamra was 15 years previous when his household left Damascus within the early Nineties after the Assad regime lifted a ban on journey. Most of the Syrian Jews have been unable to promote their houses earlier than they left. A few of the houses ended up occupied by different Syrians whereas the federal government took cost of the synagogues and faculties.

In December, simply days earlier than Hamra’s go to to Aleppo, the Syrian authorities licensed a Jewish heritage basis he leads, transferring management of Jewish spiritual properties from the federal government to the group.

The group may also assist restore personal property appropriated when the Jewish group left to its Jewish homeowners.

“What we’re attempting to do is come see the properties, come see the synagogues and see what is the situation,” says Hamra, now 48. “I am calling on all of the individuals who have properties to return and we’ll assist them discover them and provides them again to them.”

A outstanding journey over the previous 12 months largely engineered by Syrian-American activist Mouaz Moustafa has led Hamra to at the present time, taking custody of the keys to Jewish properties by the newest in a collection of caretakers over many years and envisioning a time when Syrian Jews would possibly return.

On Hamra’s first go to to Syria along with his father final 12 months, Syrian authorities officers pledged assist in restoring properties again to their Jewish homeowners.

In a wrinkle of historical past, the brand new Syrian president restoring Jewish rights, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is a onetime al-Qaida commander who renounced the militant Islamist group’s ideology.

Aleppo, in northern Syria, had one of many greatest Jewish communities on this various however largely Arab nation — courting again no less than 2,000 years.  

Earlier than the creation of Israel in 1948, there have been an estimated 30,000 Jews in Syria. Syrian Jews in fashionable historical past have been capable of follow their religion however confronted the identical repressive insurance policies below the closed regime as different residents. When President Hafez al-Assad, below U.S. strain, lifted journey restrictions particularly for Jewish residents starting in 1992, most of them left completely.

Hamra’s father, Yusuf Hamra, was the final rabbi to depart Syria. With out somebody to carry out ceremonies, Jewish spiritual life right here died.

Now, solely six Syrian Jews — all aged — are identified to nonetheless stay within the nation, says Hamra. When Rabbi Hamra made his first journey to Damascus final 12 months since leaving three many years in the past, there weren’t sufficient Jews even along with his visiting delegation to have the ability to maintain prayers.

On this journey, Henry Hamra has introduced his 21-year-old son, Joseph, with him.

Hamra opens the door to a small synagogue with layers of mud coating the heavy burgundy velvet curtains. Subsequent to it’s a small college. Dim gentle filtering via grime-coated home windows reveals stacks of desks piled up on scuffed picket tables.

The synagogue is in an Aleppo neighborhood closely broken in Syria’s 14-year-long civil struggle. That battle ended when opposition fighters toppled authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Subsequent door, the proprietor of a tiny neighboring plumbing provide store says he’s comfortable that Syria helps Jewish residents return.

“They have been our associates,” says Abu Alaa al-Muhandis, 75. “We hope they may come again, they may deliver life again to town.”

Whereas Israel, which has seized extra Syrian territory and launched common airstrikes, is controversial in Syria, Syrian American Jews are considered for essentially the most half merely as Syrian.

“All the time in Syria you understand we had church buildings, synagogues and mosques collectively in the identical space as a result of individuals used to stay collectively, as neighbors,” says Maissa Kabbani, the founding father of a Syrian justice group. She factors out a broken mosque near the synagogue.

Throughout city, Hamra is proven for the primary time the jewel of Aleppo’s once-thriving Jewish group — the Central Synagogue, often known as the al-Bandara Synagogue, named after the neighborhood it is positioned in.

The dimensions of the 1,500-year-old synagogue speaks to a as soon as giant and vibrant Jewish group in a metropolis that for a lot of centuries was a thriving commerce middle.

Inside, stone arches high Roman columns overlooking courtyard after courtyard. There are marble-tile flooring and an ornate girls’s part on the second ground, the place girls and ladies might take part in prayers behind ornamental iron screens with out being seen.

In New York, Hamra’s household is within the menswear enterprise. In spiritual life he’s a cantor — a clergy member who leads the congregation in prayers and tune.

Hamra wanders via the open areas of the synagogue, stepping up onto an elevated marble platform the place cantors have stood over the centuries.

“Wow,” he says repeatedly, seemingly at a lack of phrases over his environment.

The central synagogue was additionally for a whole bunch of years the house to a Hebrew manuscript generally known as the Aleppo Codex. The 1,000-year-old manuscript is the oldest identified surviving copy of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was smuggled to Israel within the Nineteen Fifties though solely partially intact.

Syrian President Sharaa has been eager to reassure the West that minorities shall be protected within the new Syria. The Syrian authorities, in saying that it was handing over Jewish spiritual properties, mentioned it was an indication that every one minorities have been welcome.

In Washington, D.C., the Syrian Jewish group represented by the Hamras, working with Mouaz Moustafa’s Syrian Emergency Process Power, have proved efficient advocates for lifting U.S. sanctions towards Syria. The U.S. eliminated the final of the devastating commerce sanctions in December.

That advocacy has generated controversy amongst some Syrian-American Jews who imagine that Sharaa and his authorities can’t be trusted to guard Jews or different Syrian minorities.

“It should take lots of time for Syria to return again,” says Hamra, citing an absence of electrical energy, working water and in locations like Aleppo, safety.

In Damascus and Aleppo, the small delegation is accompanied by younger Syrian authorities fighters with rifles. Some ask to pose for selfies with Hamra.

Hamra grew up talking Arabic at residence. He refers to Syria as “the previous nation.”

He says whereas it’s a stretch now to ascertain Syrian Jews shifting right here, he says many would cherish the chance to go to.

“There’s lots of issues we used to do over right here we do not do within the U.S. — just like the interplay with individuals,” he says. “Syrian persons are very loving individuals they usually’re very welcoming.”

His son Joseph says he cannot cease smiling.

“You see my face?” he asks. “I’ve by no means had this face in my life. It is loopy.”

Joseph Hamra says, for his half, he can envision youthful Syrian Jews coming to stay.

“I am planning on making a visit with all my associates quickly to see all their roots, like the place their dad and mom and grandparents grew up, the place a few of their grandparents are buried,” he says. “They might 100% assume behind their heads, ‘Wow think about constructing one thing right here.'”