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After Decades in Exile, Syria’s Jews Visit Damascus
Henry Hamra and members of a Syrian Jewish delegation who are visiting Syria for the first time in decades hold a Torah Case in a Jewish synagogue in Damascus, Syria, Feb. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
For the first time in three decades, Rabbi Joseph Hamra and his son Henry read from a Torah scroll in a synagogue in the heart of Syria’s capital Damascus, carefully passing their thumbs over the handwritten text as if still in awe they were back home.
The father and son fled Syria in the 1990s, after then-Syrian president Hafez al-Assad lifted a travel ban on the country’s historic Jewish community, which had faced decades of restrictions including on owning property or holding jobs.
Virtually all of the few thousand Jews in Syria promptly left, leaving less than 10 in the Syrian capital. Joseph and Henry — just a child at the time — settled in New York.
“Weren’t we in a prison? So, we wanted to see what was on the outside,” said Joseph, now 77, on his reasons for leaving at the time. “Everyone else who left with us is dead.”
But when Assad’s son and successor as president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December, the Hamra family began planning a once-unimaginable visit to Damascus with the help of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based advocacy group.
They met with Syria’s deputy foreign minister at the ministry, now managed by caretaker authorities installed by the Islamist rebels who ousted Assad after more than 50 years of family rule that saw itself as a bastion of secular Arab nationalism.
The new authorities have said all of Syria’s communities will play a role in their country’s future. But incidents of religious intolerance and reports of conservative Islamists proselytizing in public have kept more secular-minded Syrians and members of minority communities on edge.
Henry Hamra, now aged 48, said Syria’s foreign ministry had now 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 Old City, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site, Henry and Joseph ran into their onetime neighbors — Palestinian Syrians — and later marveled at 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,” said Henry.
But some things were missing, he said, including a golden-lettered Torah from one of the synagogues that was now stored in a library in Israel, to where thousands of Syrian Jews fled throughout the 20th century.
While the synagogues and 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 that erupted after Assad’s violent suppression of protests against him.
Jobar was home to a large Jewish community for hundreds of years until the 1800s and the synagogue, built in honour of the biblical prophet Elijah, was looted before it was destroyed.
The post After Decades in Exile, Syria’s Jews Visit Damascus first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah in Beirut Stronghold After Warning Residents
A general view shows the Lebanese capital Beirut during the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, in Beirut, Lebanon, January 1, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces attacked the Dahieh neighborhood on Sunday, targeting the Hezbollah stronghold, according to local reports.
Before the strike, IDF Arabic Spokesperson Colonel Avichay Adraee warned residents of the neighborhood to distance themselves at least 300 meters (1,000 feet) away from a building identified as being used by Hezbollah.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah in Beirut Stronghold After Warning Residents first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Supreme Court Demands Government Explain Insufficient Ultra-Orthodox Recruits
The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli Supreme Court issued a conditional order on Sunday requiring the government to explain why it is not issuing conscription orders for ultra-Orthodox Jews on a scale that meets the needs of the army.
The decision comes after three appeals filed by the Movement for Quality Government, the Protective Wall Forum for Democracy, Israel Hofsheet, and other organizations. Justices Noam Sohlberg, David Mintz, and Daphne Barak-Erez have given the government until June 24 to provide its response.
The court also asked the government to justify the absence of sanctions against those who, although summoned, did not report to the recruitment office. At the same time, discussions are underway to try to pass a law on the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox sector, which would regulate the status of yeshiva students, who study advanced Torah studies. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara insisted on setting a cap limiting the number of students exempt from military service, a requirement that the ultra-Orthodox parties members of the governing coalition refuse to accept.
The issue of enlisting the ultra-Orthodox, long deferred, remains a major source of political and social tension in Israel. While some ultra-Orthodox young people are sometimes arrested for insubordination, legislative initiatives struggle to succeed to stymie the exemption, which has been a de facto policy of Israel for decades. According to the requesting organizations, “equality in military service is a fundamental requirement of a democracy,” a position that the government will now have to confront before the highest jurisdiction in the country.
The post Israeli Supreme Court Demands Government Explain Insufficient Ultra-Orthodox Recruits first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Egypt Demands Hamas Clarify Status of Hostages in Gaza
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
i24 News – Egypt has demanded from Hamas information about the status of the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, according to the Saudi channel Al-Hadath on Sunday.
“Hamas has informed the mediators that it is necessary to end the escalation to ensure the safety of the hostages,” the report said. Meanwhile, Israel has rejected any temporary ceasefire and demands resolving the issue of Hamas disarming.
Egyptian sources revealed to the London-based Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadid that Hamas’s proposal offers a release of all living hostages and the bodies of the slain, the announcement of a complete halt of hostilities, and a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave.
The plan would come with “clear and precise guarantees” from the US government, Egyptian and Qatari mediators, as well as Turkey. It includes a five-year calm period during which all restrictions concerning the reconstruction of Gaza would be lifted. A significant element of this proposal concerns the “use of resistance weapons.” According to Egyptian sources, Hamas would accept supervision and guarantees ensuring that Gaza’s armed organizations “will not use their weapons and will not rebuild their military infrastructure near the Israeli border, including offensive tunnels,” as long as Israel respects the terms of the agreement.
Israel, however, has rejected any proposal that does not stipulate the complete disarmament of the group.
The proposal also provides for Hamas to completely withdraw from the administration of Gaza, including its police. The management of the territory would be entrusted to an interim committee formed by Egypt, which would also oversee the training of security forces under this body. Regarding humanitarian aid, the discussions have explored several options, including distribution by an American security company or by tribal groups in Gaza not affiliated with Hamas or other armed organizations. A source within the Hamas leadership stressed that the organization’s “red lines” concern “handing over weapons and partial agreements, considered non-serious as they lack real guarantees.”
The post Egypt Demands Hamas Clarify Status of Hostages in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.