Syria
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ver$hy ver$h
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Nice to read something positive for a change.
DAMASCUS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - For the first time in three decades, Rabbi Joseph Hamra and his son Henry read from a Torah scroll in a synagogue in the heart of Syria's capital Damascus, carefully passing their thumbs over the handwritten text as if still in awe they were back home.
The father and son fled Syria in the 1990s, after then-Syrian president Hafez al-Assad lifted a travel ban on the country's historic Jewish community, which had faced decades of restrictions including on owning property or holding jobs.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Not what you'd expect, given the secular nature of the Assad regime and the fact that the new government is led by Islamists.
ver$hy ver$h
Well-known member
We'll see if it lasts.
... when Assad's son and successor as president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December, the Hamra family began planning a once-unimaginable visit to Damascus with the help of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
They met with Syria's deputy foreign minister at the ministry, now managed by caretaker authorities installed by the Islamist rebels who ousted Assad after more than 50 years of family rule that saw itself as a bastion of secular Arab nationalism.
The new authorities have said all of Syria's communities will play a role in their country's future. But incidents of religious intolerance and reports of conservative Islamists proselytizing in public have kept more secular-minded Syrians and members of minority communities on edge.
ver$hy ver$h
Well-known member
The secret history of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa
Is the man once known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani intent on moderating or a brutal strongman?
www.ft.com
