Posted on 02/21/2025 5:58:01 AM PST by Miami Rebel
Jewish Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, who was forcibly displaced from Syria in 1992, has returned to Damascus after 33 years.
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Jews, who were expelled from the country in 1992, have begun returning.
Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, along with a group of Jews, visited the Frenc and Raki churches, the Ibn Maymun Jewish School, and the Cobar Synagogue, which was largely destroyed during the civil war, in Damascus’s historic districts.
Speaking to Anadolu, Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, one of the former leaders of the Jewish community in Syria, said he had returned home to Damascus after 33 years.
After visiting his neighborhood and the synagogues, Hamra stated: “I couldn’t recognize the house I built with my own hands, but what has truly changed is the country itself.”
He noted that the warmth of the Syrian people remained the same.
Hamra, who left Syria with his family in 1992, said: “I have been trying to return to Damascus for a year and a half, but Syria’s ousted regime did not allow it.”
Addressing Jews in the West, Hamra said: “Come to Syria and see for yourselves. Perhaps your perspective will change, and you may want to return.”
Muaz Mustafa, Director of the Syria Emergency Response Team, said that this was the first Jewish delegation to return to Syria in 33 years.
Mustafa emphasized that the new government supports the return of all Syrians to the country, saying: “Very few Jews remain in Syria. We aim to rebuild the synagogues and mobilize the international community to lift sanctions.”
In a message to Syrian Jews around the world, Mustafa said: “Your homeland is safe; you can return.”
In 1992, over 5,000 Jews were forcibly displaced by the Hafez al-Assad regime and had to settle in various European countries, unable to return for years.
Bashar al-Assad also prevented Jews from returning to Syria over the years and seized their properties.
That said, I doubt that many Jews will return.
The new government certainly has some good PR guys, but I doubt that ISIS will be very nice to them...once they no longer have a use for them.
1455 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 436
Washington, D.C., 20004
Syrian Emergency Task Force Wiki
This story suggests that the ongoing news about Syria is very incomplete, as a "wanted terrorist" with a hefty reward offered only last year was removed from the US database, and Syria seems fractured by many contesting parties.
Looking for a bio / resume of Rabbi Hamra, one finds massive coverage of the story but no easy connection to his life. The son, in a search using different names, is also relatively difficult to find for such a seemingly important story with so much coverage in the last couple of days. The "aa.com.tr" story also gives no info as to where he lives.
The message seems:
Mustafa [ Director of the Syria Emergency Response Team ] emphasized that the new government supports the return of all Syrians to the country, saying: “Very few Jews remain in Syria. We aim to rebuild the synagogues and mobilize the international community to lift sanctions.”One wonders if Muaz Mustafa, who seems to work for a number of different 301(c)3 entities will be among those returning to Syria now.In a message to Syrian Jews around the world, Mustafa said: “Your homeland is safe; you can return.”
Source: Mouaz Moustafa Location: DC
But there is a contemporary political element at the edges of this story, as Wiki states: "In 2024, Moustafa raised concerns about the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence."
Source: He Went to Syria With Tulsi Gabbard. He Has Some Big Concerns. Politico, 9 January 2025.
The same fellow whose message is: "In a message to Syrian Jews around the world, Mustafa said: 'Your homeland is safe; you can return'.” Seems a busy guy, probably not going to move to Syria from Washington DC.
Great in-depth research on your part.
That said, it’s safe to say that anyone opposed to the Assad regime would have had a problem with Gabbard.
The Democrat connections behind this are telling. Syria is a complex entity with warring sides, including Muslim against Muslim, even now, and to include our US' circa 2K troops still there.
It was amazing to me, when searching with a couple of different tools, to see how widely this story was disseminated across much media, and yet how difficult to track down a rather obscure rabbi, probably from New York. And odd that a Turkish paper would be among the progenitors of the coverage.
Given the prominence of "Jewish" in so much of the coverage, and given that the larger minority of Syria is Christian, along with varying Muslim sects, it seemed and continues to seem like some kind of "influencing."
A rabbi in Syria? Yikes!
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