Speaking to Rudaw’s Dilkhwaz Mohammed on Wednesday, Rabbi Yousef Hamra said he had returned to Damascus after 33 years of being forced to leave. “I am the first Jew to return to Syria. I arrived here with my son on Monday evening,” he said.
Hamra expressed sadness at the state of the neighborhood he grew up, the Jewish Quarter southeast of Old Damascus. “It is empty of residents," he said.
After visiting his old synagogue, Hamra remarked, “I am upset that the place needs more attention and care.” When asked about the possibility of holding prayers in the Jewish house of worship, he responded, “We are trying to gather a quorum of ten people. If they come, we will hold the prayer, but if they do not, the prayer cannot be performed.”
In the Jewish faith, at least ten people must be present to conduct certain prayers. A quorum of ten Jewish adults, known as a Minyan, is the most highly recommended and required for some forms of prayer.
In 1992, more than 5,000 Jews were forcibly deported by the regime of Hafez al-Assad, father of the recently ousted Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. These individuals were forced to settle in various European and Western countries and were unable to return to Syria.
Hamra visited some of the historic Jewish sites in Damascus, including the al-Franj, al-Raki and Jobar synagogues. He additionally visited the Ibn Maimonides Jewish school. Bashar al-Assad’s regime also prevented Jews from returning in subsequent years and confiscated their property.
In the Middle Ages, Syria was home to one of the largest Jewish settlements in the world, with most living in the Damascus area. The community dates back to Elijah’s Damascus sojourn nearly 3,000 years ago, but Jewish life really blossomed in the city after 1099, when Christian armies conquered Jerusalem in the First Crusade and massacred the city’s inhabitants.
Historians say 50,000 Jews fled to Damascus, making almost one in three Damascenes Jewish almost overnight. Some became government advisors and ministers, and the community grew to around 100,000 by the turn of the 20th century.
Tens of thousands of Jews relocated to Israel following its creation in 1948. Others held in Syria against their will, emigrated once they were allowed to when Middle East peace talks began in the 1990s.
