According to SOHR, the delegation’s mission was not only symbolic prayer but also to survey Jewish communal property and other assets once owned by Aleppo’s Jews.
By Shmuli V, Jewish Breaking News
Two rabbis from Israel have quietly joined a Jewish delegation in Aleppo, entering synagogues and a former Jewish school that have been locked for decades—a scene that would have been unthinkable under the old Assad regime.
Activists say it is one of the most unusual Jewish communal events the city has seen in generations.
The religious-cultural gathering took place in Aleppo’s Al-Jemayliyah neighborhood, inside a long-closed synagogue and school, with a second stop at another historic synagogue in the Bab al-Nasr district.
The sites, long sealed and largely forgotten, were opened under tight security: streets were blocked off, movement was restricted, and local authorities heavily guarded the visit.
Footage published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and shared by Jewish outlets shows a small group standing at the entrance of the synagogue, with the rabbis in traditional dress.
According to SOHR, the delegation’s mission was not only symbolic prayer but also to survey Jewish communal property and other assets once owned by Aleppo’s Jews.
The visit coincides with a broader policy shift by Syria’s new authorities, who have just granted a formal license to a Jewish organization, the Jewish Heritage in Syria Foundation, to work on cataloging and returning Jewish property confiscated by previous governments.
Its president, Henry Hamra—son of the last chief rabbi to leave Syria—recently met the country’s social affairs minister in Damascus and prayed in the restored al-Franj synagogue.
He says the group aims to document Jewish assets, reclaim what was seized and preserve holy sites so they can be reopened to Jews worldwide.
SOHR reports that during the Aleppo event, the city’s governor pledged to address long-standing claims over Jewish communal property and to safeguard those rights after years in which corrupt local networks allegedly grabbed synagogues, schools, and homes.
The Aleppo gathering was organized together with a northern Syria–based association and framed as part of a wider religious-cultural outreach effort.
For Israelis and the wider Syrian-Jewish diaspora now based in Jerusalem, New York, and Latin America, the images are emotionally charged.
Aleppo’s Jewish community dates back well over a thousand years, once boasting famous sages, thriving yeshivot, and landmark synagogues that anchored life in the city’s Jewish quarter.
Pogroms, state persecution, and finally the Syrian civil war emptied the community and damaged many of its sites; what remained was a mix of ruins, locked courtyards, and frozen memories.
That makes the return of visible Jewish prayer—led by rabbis flown in from Israel—deeply symbolic.
On one level, it hints at a new Syrian interest in engaging Jewish history, reconnecting with far-flung families who now live mostly in Israel and the West.
On another, it underscores how thoroughly Jewish life was erased: it takes a heavily guarded, almost clandestine ceremony to step back into buildings that should have been full of worshippers all along.
Strategically, the move comes as post-Assad Syria tries to present a more open, pluralistic face while still sitting inside an Iran-backed regional axis that has armed Hezbollah and other terror proxies against Israel for decades.
Allowing Jewish delegations and rabbis from Israel to visit Aleppo’s synagogues and promising to restore stolen property is a low-cost way for Damascus’s new rulers to signal change to Western and diaspora audiences without touching hard security files.
No details have been published about who exactly the Israeli rabbis are, how they coordinated the trip with Israeli authorities, or whether further visits are planned.
For now, activists describe the Aleppo gathering as a one-off—meaningful, fragile, and still surrounded by risk in a country where Iranian militias and other hostile actors operate freely.
But for families whose parents and grandparents once prayed in those very rooms before rebuilding their lives in Israel, it is a rare glimpse of Jewish return to a chapter of history that many assumed was sealed forever
Syria reopens its long-sealed synagogues as Israeli rabbis make historic visit appeared first on World Israel News.