Damascus, Syria – For the first time in three decades, Rabbi Joseph Hamra and his son Henry read from a Torah scroll in a synagogue located in the heart of Syria’s capital, Damascus. The father and son, who fled Syria in the 1990s, were visibly moved as they carefully passed their thumbs over the handwritten text.
The Hamra family left Syria after then-President Hafez al-Assad lifted a travel ban on the country’s Jewish community, which had faced decades of restrictions. Virtually all of the few thousand Jews in Syria promptly emigrated, leaving less than 10 in the capital. Joseph and Henry, then a child, settled in New York.
“Weren’t we in a prison? So we wanted to see what was on the outside,” said Joseph, now 77, reflecting on their departure. “Everyone else who left with us is dead.”
Following the toppling of Assad’s son and successor, Bashar al-Assad, in December, the Hamra family planned a once-unimaginable visit to Damascus with the help of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
They met with Syria’s deputy foreign minister, now part of the caretaker authorities installed by Islamist rebels who ousted Assad after more than 50 years of family rule. The new authorities have vowed that all of Syria’s communities will play a role in the country’s future. However, incidents of religious intolerance and reports of conservative Islamists proselytizing in public have left more secular-minded Syrians and minority communities on edge.
Henry Hamra, now 48, said Syria’s foreign ministry had pledged to protect Jewish heritage. “We need the government’s help, we need the government’s security, and it’s going to happen,” he said.
Walking through the narrow passages of the UNESCO-listed Old City, Henry and Joseph reconnected with their former neighbors, Palestinian Syrians, and admired hand-painted Hebrew lettering at several synagogues.
“I want to see my kids come back and see this beautiful synagogue. It’s a work of art,” Henry said.
However, some things were missing, including a golden-lettered Torah from one synagogue now stored in an Israeli library, to where thousands of Syrian Jews fled throughout the 20th century.
While synagogues and the Jewish school in the Old City remained relatively well-preserved, Syria’s largest synagogue in Jobar, an eastern suburb of Damascus, was reduced to rubble during the nearly 14-year civil war. Jobar, home to a large Jewish community for centuries, saw its synagogue looted and destroyed. Built in honor of the biblical prophet Elijah, the synagogue once stood as a testament to the vibrant Jewish life in the region.