Syria, as soon as dwelling to a big Jewish neighborhood, takes steps to return property to Jews

ALEPPO, Syria — A long time after virtually your entire Syrian Jewish neighborhood left the nation, Henry Hamra of Brooklyn, N.Y., stands on the metallic door of a small synagogue on this historic Syrian metropolis, actually holding the keys to a attainable return of Jewish residents.

Hamra was 15 years outdated when his household left Damascus within the early Nineteen Nineties after the Assad regime lifted a ban on journey. Lots of the Syrian Jews had 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 will even assist restore personal property appropriated when the Jewish neighborhood left to its Jewish homeowners.

“What we’re trying to do is come see the properties, come see the synagogues and see what’s the condition,” says Hamra, now 48. “I’m calling on all the people who have properties to come and we’ll help them find them and give them back to them.”

A outstanding journey over the previous yr 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 most recent in a sequence of caretakers over many years and envisioning a time when Syrian Jews may return.

On Hamra’s first go to to Syria together with his father final yr, 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 largest Jewish communities on this numerous however principally Arab nation — relationship again not 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 had been in a position to apply their religion however confronted the identical repressive insurance policies below the closed regime as different residents. When President Hafez al-Assad, below U.S. stress, 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 go away Syria. With out somebody to carry out ceremonies, Jewish spiritual life right here died.

Now, solely six Syrian Jews — all aged — are recognized to nonetheless dwell within the nation, says Hamra. When Rabbi Hamra made his first journey to Damascus final yr since leaving three many years in the past, there weren’t sufficient Jews even together 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 warfare. 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 joyful that Syria helps Jewish residents return.

“They were our friends,” says Abu Alaa al-Muhandis, 75. “We hope they will come back, they will bring life back to the city.”

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

“Always in Syria you know we had churches, synagogues and mosques together in the same area because people used to live together, 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 neighborhood — the Central Synagogue, also called the al-Bandara Synagogue, named after the neighborhood it is positioned in.

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

Inside, stone arches high Roman columns overlooking courtyard after courtyard. There are marble-tile flooring and an ornate ladies’s part on the second ground, the place ladies 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 tons of of years the house to a Hebrew manuscript generally known as the Aleppo Codex. The 1,000-year-old manuscript is the oldest recognized 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 might be protected within the new Syria. The Syrian authorities, in asserting that it was handing over Jewish spiritual properties, mentioned it was an indication that every one minorities had been welcome.

In Washington, D.C., the Syrian Jewish neighborhood represented by the Hamras, working with Mouaz Moustafa’s Syrian Emergency Job Pressure, have proved efficient advocates for lifting U.S. sanctions in opposition to 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’s going to take a lot of time for Syria to come back,” says Hamra, citing a scarcity of electrical energy, operating 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 dwelling. He refers to Syria as “the old country.”

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

“There’s a lot of things we used to do over here we don’t do in the U.S. — like the interaction with people,” he says. “Syrian people are very loving people and they’re very welcoming.”

His son Joseph says he cannot cease smiling.

“You see my face?” he asks. “I’ve never had this face in my life. It’s crazy.”

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

“I’m planning on making a trip with all my friends soon to see all their roots, like where their parents and grandparents grew up, where some of their grandparents are buried,” he says. “They would 100% think in the back of their heads, ‘Wow imagine building something here.'”