Washington (AP) – American Jews who fled their Syrian homeland For decades, he went to the White House this week to attract the Trump administration to lift the sanctions on Syria, which they say prevents them from recovering some of The oldest Jewish temples in the world And rebuild the Jewish community in the country.
For Henry Hamra, who fled from Damascus in adolescence with his family in the nineties, there have been 30 years since anxiety because of what they left.
“I was just watching all the time. Old temples, old cemetery, what happens, who takes care of her? Hamra, whose family settled in New York.
His family escaped from the Syrian capital to escape the repressive government of Havis Assad. With his son, Bashar al -Assad, in December and the rule of the Assad family, Hamra, his 77 -year -old father, Rabbi Youssef Hamra, and a small group of Jews and non -Jews returned to Syria last month for the first time.
They briefed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the area last week and White House officials on Wednesday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
They were accompanied by Mazava, the executive director of a group called the Syrian Emergency Squad, who was influential in the past in the transfer of US officials to punish the Assad government for its torture and institutional killing.
With the departure of Assad, the country is trying to get out of poverty, Mustava urges American policy makers to lift the overwhelming sanctions that prevent most investment and commercial transactions in Syria.
“If you want a stable and safe Syria … even if it is simple like rebuilding the oldest synagogue in the world, then the only person who is able to make this reality today, frankly, Donald Trump,” said Mostava.
The Jewish community in Syria is one of the oldest buildings in the world, which dates back to the time of the Prophet Elia in Damascus about 3000 years ago. It was once one of the largest companies in the world, and was still estimated at 100,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The increasing restrictions, monitoring and tensions after the establishment of Israel and under the authoritarian family of Assad led to tens of thousands of fleeing in the 1990s. Today, only seven Jews are known to remain in Damascus, most of them are elderly.
What began as a large peaceful uprising against the Assad family in 2011 to an evil civil war, fought half a million from the death of Russia and the Iranian -backed militias to preserve Assad in power, and the Islamic State group imposed its rule on a wide range of the country.
A military coalition led by the United States directed the Islamic State by 2019. Successive US administrations almost sanctions against Syria tortured and imprisoned the Assad government and killed the opponents.
Bashar al -Assad was expelled in December by an alliance of rebel groups led by an Islamic rebel, Ahmed Al -Sharra, who today leads what he says is a transitional government. He and his supporters have taken pain to protect the members of the many minority religious groups in Syria and I pledged to peaceful coexistence They also ask a skeptical international community to lift disrupted penalties.
Although the incidents of revenge and mass punishment were much less widespread than expected, many minority communities in Syria – including Kurds, Christians, Druze and members of the Assad sect in Assad – are not convinced of the promises of a comprehensive government.
After decades, the former neighbors of Youssef Hamer in the ancient city of Damascus got acquainted with his journey last month and stopped embracing him, and he exchanged gossip on their old acquaintances. Hamras prayed in the long -term church, where he used to serve as a rabbi.
His son, Henry Hamra, said that he was shocked to see young children begging in the streets – as a result of the penalties.
Visiting the site of what was the oldest synagogue in Syria ever, in the Jubar region in Damascus, which found Hamra on the ruins of the war, with the peeling of the ammunition still between the rubble.
Hamra got acquainted with Mustava, an opposition -based opposition activist, when he arrived during the war to see if he could do anything to save precious artifacts inside the Jobar synagogue with fighting around it.
A member of the Mostava Group suffered from shrapnel wound, and a member of the Jubar neighborhood council was killed. Both men were Muslims. Despite their efforts, the fighting later destroyed most of the structure.
Hamra said that the Jews abroad want to be allowed to help restore their temples, their families and schools in the old city in the capital. He says that the Jewish community in Syria can be like Morocco, which is threatening in an Islamic country again, that the Jewish community in Syria is like Morocco.
Hamra said: “My main goal is not to see the Jewish quarter, my teacher, the synagogue and everything collapses.”
___
This story was corrected to reflect that the invitation group is the Syrian Emergency Work Squad, not the Syrian American Labor Squad.
