From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
TV report shows US Jewish delegation visiting Syria
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A report by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster shows a group of US Jews visiting Syria for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime.
The delegation toured Jewish sites in Damascus last week on a visit coordinated by a US-based nonprofit, the Syrian Emergency Task Force.
Members of the delegation included Rabbi Yusuf Hamra, a leader in the Syrian community in the US, his son, Henry Hamra, and Rabbi Asher Lopatin, from the Jewish Federation in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
"כולם רוצים להצטלם עם הכיפה שלי": יהודי דמשק חוזרים לסוריה אחרי נפילת אסד ובחסות השלטון החדש. האם היהודים הסורים בארץ יוזמנו גם הם? הכתבה של @kaisos1987 מתוך #חדשותהערב pic.twitter.com/tAjIFwy2V7
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) February 24, 2025
The Kan report shows the delegation embracing Torah scrolls in the al-Franj Synagogue, leafing through shelves of books, greeting crowds of excited schoolchildren on a sidewalk, and praying in a cemetery.
The group also surveyed damaged sites, picking their way through nearby rubble, the footage shows.
“We saw that the people in Syria want Jews to return to Syria,” Lopatin says in an interview with the network.
The Times of Israel Community.