Surprising Allies for Syria's New Leaders: Some Jews Who Fled Long Ago

New York Times

05-04-2025

Henry Hamra left Damascus as a teenager more than 30 years ago and never stopped pining for home. 'It was my dream to go back,' he told lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday.
In February, shortly after the Assad regime was toppled, Mr. Hamra and his father, Rabbi Yosef Hamra, finally returned with other Jews to see ancient sites that are remnants of many centuries of Syrian Jewish history. The new government of President Ahmed al-Shara, a former rebel leader with jihadist roots, helped make the trip happen.
The visit was hopeful, but it also broke Mr. Hamra's heart. Fourteen years of civil war, and a thicket of financial restrictions imposed by the U.S. government and others, have crippled Syria, physically and economically. The sites he ached to see are in disrepair or destroyed, including the ancient Jobar synagogue and a Damascus cemetery that is the resting place of a prominent 16th- and 17th-century mystic.
'There's a lot of work that has to be done and I think the only thing that's stopping the whole thing is the sanctions,' Mr. Hamra said in a meeting with Representative Jimmy Panetta, Democrat of California.
The Hamras have joined Syrian American advocacy groups, initially formed in opposition to the government of Bashar al-Assad, in lobbying the United States to lift sanctions on the new government. The family, prominent members of Brooklyn's large Syrian Jewish community, reached out to those groups for help making their visit to Syria, and were in turn enlisted to help make the case for sanctions relief, in a play calculated to intrigue American officials.
But Marshall Whittman, spokesman for the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said, 'Any change in policy must be based on a sustained demonstration of positive behavior from the new Syrian government.'
Israel remains deeply wary of Mr. al-Shara, a former member of Al Qaeda. Since the fall of the Assad regime, the Israeli military has deployed troops in southern Syria and carried out hundreds of airstrikes. Israel has defended the moves as necessary for its security, but Syria has accused it of trying to destabilize the country and many Syrians worry about a long-term occupation.
Mouaz Moustafa, who leads the Syria Emergency Task Force, an American nonprofit that facilitated the Jewish delegation's visit to Syria, said he had expected the trip to generate interest, precisely because Jews are seemingly unlikely champions of the new government.
Mr. Hamra said he feared that without sanctions relief, Syria would not recover — and he would not be able to fulfill another dream that once seemed impossible, to restore what remains of Syrian Jewish history.
Fewer than 10 Jews live in Syria, according to Abraham Marcus, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies Syrian Jewry.
A century ago, there were tens of thousands. Over more than two millenniums under Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Ottomans, the numbers fluctuated but, Mr. Marcus said, 'there is a history of communities that were successful and prosperous and in most cases did not suffer from discrimination.'
Around Israel's establishment in 1948, Syrian Jews faced hostility and many fled until the government imposed emigration and travel restrictions. In 1992, President Hafez al-Assad — the father of Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown last year — loosened the limits. Few Jews stayed.
'So little is left now,' the Syrian chief rabbi, Ibrahim al-Hamra — brother of Rabbi Yosef Hamra — said in 1994, before he emigrated, too. He died in Israel in 2021.
Now, his relatives are making the rounds in Washington with Mr. Moustafa, who said they had met with people at the National Security Council, the State Department and on Capitol Hill. A State Department spokeswoman confirmed that a meeting took place; the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Maissa Kabbani, a Syrian Muslim who sought asylum in the United States decades ago, joined the Jewish delegation to Syria. Western officials have expressed concerns that Syria's new rulers are not committed to pluralism and protection of minorities, despite their pledges, so she said she saw the visit as an opportunity to prove a point.
The symbolic value of the visit was also not lost on the Syrian Foreign Ministry, which welcomed the group and provided guidance, drivers and security, she said.
Sanctions relief for Syria will not come quickly, if at all, but some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are making the case to the Trump administration. Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last month, arguing that 'broad restrictions' aimed at a defunct regime 'now risk undermining U.S. national security objectives and impeding Syria's reconstruction.'
Mr. Wilson met with the Hamras on Tuesday and said he was 'encouraged' by their accounts of interactions with the new Syrian government. 'Obviously, the terrorist connections, we should be concerned,' he said. 'But people change, OK. As we see, whole countries change.'
Later, Mr. Wilson posted on social media about the 'important meeting' with Syrian Jews. 'I agree with them,' he said. 'We must ease sanctions on the Syrian people to give them a chance to live.'