A Syrian Jewish leader returns from exile to a sanction crippled country
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Today on State of the World, how sanctions on Syria are holding back the reconstruction of a country shattered by years of civil war. And after decades in exile, U.S. Syrian Jews return to Damascus to retrace their ancient roots.

You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories, up close where they're happening. It's Tuesday, February 25th, 2025. I'm Caroline Kelly. Today we bring you two stories from our correspondents in Syria.

one of hope, and one that speaks of the frustration at the slow pace of change. In a moment, after decades in exile, some in the Syrian Jewish community are considering a return to their ancient homeland. But first...

For decades now, Western countries have imposed layer after layer of crippling sanctions on Syria to punish the country's dictatorial regime. When that regime fell in December, the European Union suspended some of those sanctions.

But there are many still in place. And Syrians say the sanctions are impeding any hope of rebuilding a country broken by years of civil war. NPR's Emily Fang and Jawad Raskala report from Idlib. Very little of Syria's basic infrastructure works anymore. Its hospitals are nearly empty of equipment. Entire neighborhoods have been obliterated and left unfixed. And most of its power grid is still offline. Hello.

Engineer Ibrahim Hameiju shows us around one of Syria's few remaining power distribution sites. This transformer is older than me, but yeah, it's old. The transformer is corroded and cocooned by cinder blocks to shield it from artillery strikes. All this care because it's literally irreplaceable due to U.S. sanctions.

Some of those sanctions started in the 1970s. The majority came after the 2000s, however, cutting off banking and most trade to punish Syria's former regime for abetting Islamist extremists. And then, in response to human rights atrocities during the civil war,

So tight were sanctions on Syria that after 2019, any person found helping Syrians evade U.S. sanctions would also be sanctioned themselves. It's just a black market happening, right? This is Damascus resident Tarek Rawanji. He owns a supermarket and also teaches high school economics. One of the big topics he teaches is the impact of sanctions. So when we open the book and we read about sanctions,

I tell them, you are living the book right now, you know, because they can see all the sanctions. For example, Syria has ample natural resources like cotton and petroleum. But Rwange points out it's hard to trade that internationally. And for him to even buy foreign goods for his supermarket, because Syria has no foreign exchange reserves after decades of sanctions.

He echoes what nearly all Syrians feel, that sanctions punished an old regime they hated too. But that regime is now gone, and now Rwandji wants sanctions lifted. Then we can get our country built again, without the help of the financial support of any country. Syria's interim government told NPR it wants to entice some 6 million of its citizens who fled abroad during the civil war to come back.

But to do that, its new electricity minister, Omar Shakrouk, says they need to prove to them that the country will rebuild their homes and offer basic services, like electricity. He says financing is the biggest obstacle. He can now speak with foreign companies who are interested in building a new power grid for Syria, but they're not allowed to invest. No bank is allowed to process their transactions into Syria.

One of the projects Chakrouk would like to fix is this thermal plant in northern Syria.

It was built in 1979. At the time, an impressive engineering feat. The plant's director, Mohamed Al-Mohamed, shows me how sanctions have hampered every part of the hulking plant. The huge fan engines that once sucked in oxygen-rich air to feed the furnaces...

Now they're rusted beyond repair. The cooling water pumps are also offline. Their mechanical innards have been painstakingly taken apart by engineer Mazen Al-Awa in a last-ditch effort to fix them, only to discover he had no more spare parts. He says he has not gotten any replacement parts since 2009 because of sanctions.

Al-Mohamed, the plant director, spent most of the last three decades bootstrapping workarounds to keep the plant going. But finally, last October, the last turbine stopped working. And the plant creaked to a complete halt. He says he feels utterly depressed. We feel like we're dying of frustration, he says. He spent his entire career staving off what should have been the plant's preventable closure —

European and American lawmakers say Syria's new government first needs to prove it's committed to turning the page on the old regime's practices before they lift sanctions. Syrians argue they need sanctions lifted first to rebuild and thus prove they can change. Emily Fang, NPR News, Idlib, Syria.

Now for a story of hope in Syria. The overthrow of the former regime paved the way for a historic visit, the return of a Syrian Jewish delegation from the United States after more than three decades in exile. NPR's Jane Araf was with them in Damascus as they traveled to the sites of their faith's ancient past to speak about the future.

It's been more than 30 years since a rabbi walked into this synagogue. Rabbi Yusuf Hamra and his son Henry stepped through the doors of the Farange Synagogue.

and back in time. It was 1992. Rabbi Hamra led prayers here for the last time before almost all of Syria's Jews emigrated. I remember my father, the last day before we left here, he was praying, crying when he was praying the last prayer over here. His son Henry is a counter, a vocalist who leads Jewish prayers.

He was 13 when the family left, along with tens of thousands of others finally allowed by the Syrian regime to emigrate. The temple was renovated in the 1960s on the same site where a synagogue had stood for 600 years. Rabbi Amra climbs the ornate wooden pulpit to once again say prayers.

Up until a few decades ago, this was the center of Jewish life in Damascus. There were not just religious services here, but weddings, celebrations, funerals. What they're hoping to do is restore not just this building, but the Jewish community around it. There are dusty velvet pews pushed against walls with peeling paint.

A pile of prayer books hundreds of years old are moldering under a prayer shawl. The delegation stops at the Jewish cemetery, where graves were relocated and tombstones damaged when a highway was built through it decades ago. All Syrians lived under repression during the former regime. But Jews faced even more restrictions. Jewish officials say there are now only seven Jews remaining in Syria.

Rabbi Hamra says prayers over the graves. It's a controversial visit in the U.S., even in the Syrian Jewish community, mostly because Syria's new leader was once a member of al-Qaeda. Rabbi Asher Lopatin from Detroit isn't Syrian, but he's joined them in solidarity.

The delegation is calling on the U.S. to lift sanctions imposed on the previous Syrian regime. You know, there's a big Jewish influence in the new administration, and so if the Syrian Jews have some connections, they'll have a voice in the administration, and they do, and I think it'll resonate. In this land where Judaism flourished since Roman times, there are wonders.

They enter a small concrete shrine holding the tomb of an influential figure in Kabbalah, a mystical branch of Judaism. Right here, see? Right here. It has the name. It's the grave of Rabbi Hayam Vital, who died 400 years ago. As they walk through streets still known as the Jewish Quarter in modern Damascus.

The delegation members wear kippahs, religious head coverings, and to hide them, baseball caps on top for safety. But everyone we meet on their three-day visit to Damascus is welcoming. In the narrow streets, the Hamra's have run into neighbors from 30 years ago. All of the residents of his former neighborhood, most of them Muslim, many of them Palestinian, say they hope Syrian Jews will come back.

and the Syrian government does as well. In the courtyard of Syria's National Museum, which contains Jewish artifacts, Musa al-Amar, an advisor to the Syrian president, tells them this is their home, that the government will help restore property and citizenship.

On their last full day in Damascus, the delegation returns to the Faraj synagogue. They'd hoped to be able to hold for the first time in decades a prayer service. It requires 10 Jewish males. Even with some of the resident Syrian Jews, there still weren't enough. But Rabbi Hamra and the rest said other prayers.

After 30 years in Brooklyn, the rabbi is still more comfortable in Arabic than in English. His son calls him Baba, Arabic for dad. When I ask how he feels coming back, the rabbi says exactly what every Syrian finally able to return has told me. Is there anything more beautiful than your home? Jane Araf, NPR News, Damascus.

That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening. See you again soon.

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