As I scanned the faces of passengers on the Damascus-bound flight, wondering why all these people were actually flying to war-torn, cratered Syria, one thing I knew: Meeting locals and some political VIPs, walking the streets and market alleyways, and even helping fix the vandalized grave of Rav Chaim Vital, would give me a glimpse into a country trying to pull itself out of the rubble that most people never see.
It started, as these things often do, with good intentions and terrible timing.
A modest opportunity had presented itself: Join a small American delegation of Jews of Syrian descent, to visit Damascus and pay respects at the kever of Rav Chaim Vital on his yahrtzeit on 30 Nisan.
But two days before the flight, Syrian social media blew up with a rumor that stopped us cold. The gravesite had apparently been dug up by vandals looking for hidden treasures, and it looked as if most of the original group would be cancelling.
Yet I wasn’t so quick to fold. I’d already postponed three Syria trips in recent months for various reasons. Actually, although the trip was ostensibly about visiting Rav Chaim Vital, my real motivation for traveling to Syria was more contemporary — I wanted to know if the people are truly ready to make peace with Israel, and do they see America as a partner for peace? We’d heard from the politicians, but what about the shopkeepers, the students, the shoeshiners, the traffic cops, the old men who once worked in Jewish neighborhoods and the young ones who’ve never met a Jew in their lives? What do they really think about Jews and about our shared future?
With the Assad regime gone, normalization talk swirling, and Israel still bombing strategic targets, it felt like the right moment to go. And to listen.
I was on my own, though. As a journalist, I was not allowed to officially register as part of the delegation, who had flown on ahead of me. Plus, there were no seats left on that flight.
I flew from New York to Turkey, yet as soon as I arrived at the designated gate for the Damascus flight out of Istanbul, I was on hyper alert as I stood watching, studying, scanning faces. Who were these people flying to Syria? Locals returning home? Foreigners with questionable hobbies? Secret agents? Do they know about me? Should I be afraid? Would Rav Chaim Vital approve of this trip?
I adjusted my cap and double-checked that my peyos were still tucked in.
Eventually we boarded. I was seated in a middle seat of the middle row, in the most central square on the aircraft chessboard. About a quarter hour into the flight, it happened. With the grace and volume of a souk vendor trying to offload his last watermelon, the flight attendant held up a tray and practically proclaimed across the cabin: “KOSHER MEAL!”
I froze.
Our eyes met.
She passed me the tray.
I took it.
I scanned the plane, ready to be met with burning glares or whispered curses.
Nothing. No one flinched. Maybe they didn’t notice. Maybe they didn’t care. Or maybe… in a country of secrets, one more didn’t make a difference.
I sank my teeth into the cheese, which may have doubled as building material in a previous life, and followed it with olives that tasted like they’d been brined during the Ottoman Empire. The fruit salad, oddly enough, was delightful; a small miracle in a foil tray. I said a silent prayer for my suitcase full of kosher meals I’d packed like a paranoid immigrant, with which I hoped to be reunited on the other side of Syrian customs. I poked at the dessert, unsure as to whether I was confronting an overconfident pudding or a deeply insecure brownie. One thing was clear: This would not be a boring week.
Make Syria Great Again
Inside the Damascus terminal, all is quiet. The floors gleam, spotless and reflective, as if kept maintained with a diligence that outpaces the traffic. This airport, said to host a few million visitors per year, now receives four direct flights the entire week from just three cities.
The security personnel in the airport wear matching black matte uniforms with the word “SECURITY” boldly stamped in white across their hats and stitched vertically down one pant leg, just in case anyone forgets who’s in charge. And I wonder: What do they think of Jews returning to Syria? Have they even met a Jew before?
The visa-on-arrival process is handled through the Commercial Bank of Syria, a counter housed behind thick glass. I hold out my passport and the requisite $200 payment I’d arranged before boarding the flight to Turkey. They hand back a stamped receipt bearing my name, now officially part of Syria’s intake system.
Next, I move to the adjacent line to exchange $500 into Syrian pounds, at an exchange rate of one dollar to 13,000 SYP (in denominations of 5,000 SYP notes). There are three people ahead of me. When it’s finally my turn, the cashier glances apologetically at his empty drawer. They have run out of cash. He disappears for a ten-minute break, reemerging with a heavy plastic bag packed with bundled bills. He begins stacking them upon the counter like he’s restocking a bookshelf. My $500 nearly cleans him out again.
To the right, a staircase descends toward Damascus Duty Free. Above it, mounted in an awkward, hard-to-reach corner of the ceiling, is a large photograph of President Bashar al-Assad. Or rather, what remains of it. Partially torn and creased, as though someone tried to remove it and either lost courage or access, it remains there jagged, ghostlike. Would a peace deal with Israel mean these relics come down for good?
I peek into some of the offices and time seems suspended somewhere in the late 1980s: calculators with oversized buttons, touchtone phones with curled cords, and notepads thick with carbon paper, some with a pen nearby. And I’m pleased to report that at baggage claim, my suitcase — the one packed with kosher food — has made it.
Beyond the automatic glass doors, Syria introduces itself with emotion.
Two separate family reunions unfold just feet apart, involving nearly a dozen people in total and at least two bouquets of flowers. There are tears, hugs, laughter, and a corresponding number of teens capturing the moments on their phones. These aren’t just airport pickups. These are returns, likely the first time home since the collapse of the Assad regime.
One of my local contacts sends word that a driver named Moustafa is en route. I step outside.
Near the parking lot, a quartet consisting of two drummers and a pair of flag wavers stands poised in formation, wearing matching outfits, pounding out celebratory rhythms as they escort groups of newly arrived VIPs for a hero’s sendoff that extends well past the curb and deep into the asphalt horizon. I demur as I am no hero. At least not yet.
Fifteen minutes later, a modest car pulls up beside me. The driver steps out, offers a broad smile, and extends his hand. “Welcome!” he says, the only English word he seems to know.
It works.
Lining both sides of the Damascus Airport Motorway are freshly planted trees and neat rows of rosebushes, bright, hopeful bursts of color and greenery arranged with almost defiant optimism. But soon the rosebushes disappear, and by the time we approach the Jaramana Camp for Palestinian refugees, the tree line has been phased out as well. From the road, the camp appears as a tightly packed maze of concrete rooftops, patched water tanks, rusted satellite dishes, and laundry lines fluttering in the smog. The buildings seem to pile on top of one another, low and dense. Rooftops seem to be repurposed as storage space, gardens, or makeshift living quarters.
Beyond the refugee camp and protruding over both sides of the highway are rows upon rows of boxy apartment complexes that scream mid-20th century Soviet era. The exteriors are worn, stained and sun-bleached, with signs of age and neglect, although air conditioning units are visible on nearly every balcony or window and personal laundry hangs in several places, indicating signs of active life.
As we enter the city proper, the signs of war surprisingly seem to vanish. The shattered shells and scorched facades give way to smoother roads, patched curbs and newly painted medians. On an overpass at the city’s threshold, a large sign greets us in bold lettering: “Make Syria Great Again.”
In place of the once omnipresent portraits of Bashar al-Assad, new additions now appear: vibrant billboards advertising mobile networks, cleaning agents, toothpaste, and chocolates, all eager to sell a new version of daily life. Alongside these ads fly the updated red-white-black Syrian flag, its green stars central and intact. Faded murals of the older flag still linger on building walls, like footprints from a previous era.
Syria, it seems, is up for grabs. No longer under Russian influence, not yet claimed by China, and awkwardly drifting from Iran. Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the new leader and former al-Qaeda commander, cut his ties with the arch-terror organization close to a decade ago. Since then he’s sought international legitimacy by presenting a more moderate view of himself, renouncing transnational jihadism against Western nations, and focusing on governance in Syria while vowing to protect Syria’s minorities. Yet he’s inherited a country in ruins.
There are no working traffic lights. Instead, intersections are managed by a pair of men in crisp white shirts and blue pants, the word “POLICE” printed across their backs, waving arms and whistles as they try to manage the flow of eight lanes of traffic.
At one point, a teenage boy darts into the road, splashes our windshield with a few drops of water from a repurposed bottle, wipes it half-heartedly, and then extends his hand for payment. A moment later, a young girl appears at the driver’s window, holding a single rose and waiting silently for whatever currency a motorist might offer. Then comes a woman with a restless toddler balanced on her hip, quietly offering a pack of tissues in exchange for desperately needed cash. The choreography is swift, wordless and efficient — a survival economy operating in the pauses between honks.
The closer we get to central Damascus, the more the city seems to reassemble, with stubborn coherence, a puzzle missing a couple of pieces. It looks lived-in. Reclaimed. Not yet at peace, but at least in motion.
We arrive at the Cham Palace Hotel where Charles — my Philly-based cameraman — is already waiting. There isn’t much time to settle down, as the rest of the group is en route to Rav Chaim Vital’s kever, anxious to survey the damage and fearing for the worst.
Grave Concerns
We pay the taxi driver 100,000 Syrian pounds — just over $7 at the current rate — to take us to the Jewish cemetery where Rav Chaim Vital is buried. We pass quite a few military jeeps and repurposed civilian pickup trucks, their Soviet-designed, twin-barrel, antiaircraft autocannons pointing menacingly heavenward.
The taxi turns into a neglected courtyard that looks more like a scrapyard after an airstrike than any functional public space. The area is strewn with rusted, skeletal cars, hoods popped, windshields shattered, doors half-hinged or entirely missing. Most have been stripped of anything valuable long ago. The pavement is uneven and faded, more dust than road. On one side, a low concrete wall runs along the perimeter behind which lies the cemetery. On the other, broken stones, tangled wires and scorched earth spill into the adjacent lot.
The taxi pulls to a halt at the cemetery’s entrance where a few locals await our arrival. The driver is so grateful for our business that he doesn’t even bother counting the stack of bills when I hand them to him.
When we arrive, the rumors we’ve heard begin to take shape. A gaping hole has been dug beside the kever, partially refilled by the time we get there but still disturbingly deep. We are told it had once reached more than six feet down.
Henry Hamra, son of Syrian ex-pat Rabbi Yosef Hamra and my point of contact within the delegation, meets us at the site, and we get to work. First, we separate larger rocks and clumps of debris from the looser sand so the hole can be refilled more evenly. Every few minutes, someone pours water into the pit to settle the earth, tamping it down with the back of a shovel. The process repeats itself throughout the afternoon: separate, shovel, dampen, tamp, repeat. In the end, the sand fills the space so precisely, it becomes clear that nothing has been removed.
Once the ground is leveled, we haul in buckets of water to wash away the dust that blankets the entire surface. Then we scrub the tombstone until it gleams, working steadily, reverently, in full awareness of the moment’s weight.
Victor Kameo, a member of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and part of the delegation, spends the day on the phone with Israel’s Chief Rabbi David Yosef. Victor describes the situation and sends the chief rabbi photos. Rav Yosef says that if bones are found, all digging must stop immediately. Well, no bones fragments are found. Based on the location of the tombstone, it is determined that the actual burial site hasn’t been breached.
Afterward, we explore the rest of the cemetery. Hundreds of ancient tombstones — many centuries old — have been desecrated and tossed into heaps like discarded construction material. Apparently, Assad the Elder wanted a highway built over that stretch, and none of the dead were in a position to object. One day bulldozers arrived, graves were uprooted and remains were shoved into mass pits and covered over with dirt.
Massive tombstones, by the hundreds, lay discarded in piles. Trash from the neighboring shantytown spills into every open space. Crushed headstones. Broken slabs. Shards of sanctity buried under filth. This isn’t just neglect, it is contempt. A war not just on bodies, but on memory.
On our taxi drive back, we notice a significant buildup of troops pouring into the neighborhood. Checkpoints, roadblocks, pickup trucks. Men in mismatched uniforms, ski masks, scarves. Most carry light, aging weaponry. The message is clear, even if the gear isn’t.
Civilian traffic has thinned, and we make our way through town quickly. Since most taxi drivers don’t use meters and politely refuse to name a price, I simply give this one half of what I paid the first, and he is just as thrilled. Like the other, he doesn’t bother counting the bills. Not only has he picked up a paying fare, he has met, for the first time in his life, a pair of real, live Americans.
We arrive at the Sheraton, where most of the delegation has been staying. The hotel — hidden from GPS, surrounded by a fortified compound — feels like a remnant from a different time and place. But the group has already left, we are told. Gone shopping.
At this point I decide to engage in my own bit of shopping, and buy a bottle of water from one of the hotel’s restaurants for 15,000 SYP. They give me change: two 2,000-pound bills, each bearing the face of Bashar al-Assad. He has been mostly erased from public space, but not from currency.
We sit down in the lounge and an American, who claims to be working discreetly on regional engagement through backdoor channels, joins us. “There’s no serious talk of Abraham Accords with Syria right now,” he says. “What is being explored is entry-level economic potential through trade, infrastructure, tech. If those seeds grow in the right direction, diplomacy might follow.”
Another person I meet in the hotel is Natalie Larrison, a native of Arkansas, who’s been involved in the region for nine years. Natalie works for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an organization that seeks to help rebuild Syria through democracy. She tells me about a recent five-hour drive between Damascus to the Kurdish region to the northeast, to visit the kindergarten and women’s center that’s supported by her community back home in Little Rock.
“Everything outside the bubble of Damascus is destroyed,” she says. “There aren’t even doors on the houses. There’s no wiring. The regime stripped everything. People still live in those conditions or in camps.
“But Syria is now free and has a chance at a real democracy,” she continues passionately. “There are a lot of changes happening right now, and they need to happen very quickly. Syria has a chance. There’s hope for them to thrive and be one of the best countries in the world. Let’s support them. Let’s teach Syria to ride the bike and let them go. They’ll take care of themselves. They just need freedom and a foundation. I believe in them. We need everyone to believe in them.”
I look down at my phone. One of our contacts passes along some news: A clash has broken out between regime forces and armed Druze fighters, in the very Jaramana neighborhood we just left, less than a mile from the kever.
“Wanna go check it out?” someone asks.
I consider it. Indeed, do we want to capture footage of an active war zone in the heart of Syria? As a writer of the non-hero persuasion, I choose to stay put. Instead, we decide to walk the two miles back to the Cham Hotel on foot, navigating by sight and instinct alone. No GPS. No directions. With soldiers out in force, we feel oddly safe. (By the following morning we’d learn that the fighting would claim more than 100 lives.)
Quality Fakes
The walk takes us through the heart of Damascus. At Umayyad Roundabout, we stumble upon what at first looks like a pro-government protest: a crowd of boys and young men waving the new Syrian flag, chanting slogans. But the closer we get, the more it resembles a marketing event. Vendors are selling flags, coffee, and souvenirs to anyone lured in by the patriotic pageantry.
“Maybe this is just a flag-selling campaign,” Charles says. If so, it totally works. We buy some.
A group of children and teens gathers around us. We introduce ourselves as the Americans we are, and their curiosity spikes. One boy squeals when he spots the American flag patch on Charles’s gear. Soon we’re posing for selfies, listening to them test out their limited English vocabulary, watching some of them display their photography skills.
Across the boulevard stands a sleek, modern-looking building with its own checkpoint and armed guards. We later learn it’s a special club for military officers. Suddenly, a ski-masked soldier clutching an AK-47 yells in our direction. He crosses the road in seconds, halting traffic along the way.
The soldier’s Arabic commands sputter to a halt once he realizes we aren’t who he expected. “No photo. No photo,” he says, pointing to the building behind him. While he tries to sound firm, he comes across like a nervous teenager, unsure of himself. We assure him we haven’t taken any photos and wouldn’t dream of it. He relaxes. When we ask for a selfie with him, he grins through the ski mask and agrees. Just like that, the tension evaporates.
We pass the skeletal frame of one unfinished museum and the worn-down site of another. At the end of the row stands a well-maintained building proudly displaying its name in English and Arabic: Ministry of Tourism. I wonder if you can get more ironic than that.
At a bustling underpass filled with street vendors, beggars, and idle pedestrians, we emerge into the shopping district just south of the hotel. We duck into a narrow storefront advertising Rolex watches so fake they’re not even pretending. Three salesmen greet us, outnumbering us from the moment we walk in.
We communicate entirely via Google Translate. They admit nearly everything in the store is counterfeit. “But some fakes,” one translates, “are better quality than others.” Due to ongoing sanctions, they explain, it’s nearly impossible to import anything genuine.
Every Person a Story
From the uppermost floor of the Cham Hotel, Damascus stretches out before us like an ancient tapestry pulled tight across the slopes of Mount Qasioun. We’ve been granted access to the 14th floor, the future site of a revolving restaurant, currently under renovation.
The cityscape below is dense — overwhelmingly so — with a sea of flat rooftops, satellite dishes, solar panels, and sun-bleached water tanks packed shoulder to shoulder in defiance of urban planning. The buildings climb the slopes of the mountain in irregular tiers, giving the impression that the city itself is trying to scale the sandstone ridge. Atop the ridge, a row of radio towers stands watch, silent and unmoving. It’s a view that feels both intimate and endless. It strikes me that nearly every soul in the city below has spent their life under the shadow of dictatorship, war, and terror.
I want to meet some of those people and hear those stories.
Later, I sit down with Sharvan Ibesh, a Syrian-Kurdish surgeon, who serves as executive director for a Syrian humanitarian group known as Bahar Organization. Sharvan believes in the Kurdish region remaining united with the rest of Syria and is cautiously hopeful for the future. His main concern is that his children shouldn’t be put through the same persecution he experienced.
“Growing up Kurdish under Assad meant being denied even basic human rights,” he says. “For example, learning and teaching the Kurdish language was officially forbidden. Kurdish books were nearly impossible to find, and education was tightly controlled by the regime. But despite that, some teachers taught us Kurdish grammar and writing in secret. I learned from my teacher privately, and I taught my siblings and friends the same way. These secret lessons happened at home, in private settings, but never in public. It was dangerous. I remember once a group of students were caught learning Kurdish and they were sent to jail for a few months.”
Sharvan says his children are still living in Germany as refugees. “Our children haven’t returned home because we want to be sure it’s truly safe, and that the future they’ll come back to would be better than what we lived through.”
The next morning, Charles and I hop into a taxi and ask the driver to take us back to the Sheraton. He nods confidently and promptly brings us to the nearby Four Seasons, which, spoiler alert, is not the same thing.
“Sheraton?” he asks, puzzled. As far as he knows, there’s no Sheraton in Damascus. So we show him where to go. This secret Sheraton, hidden just out of sight, is somehow unknown even to this veteran taxi driver and his highly experienced car.
Before we even have a chance to settle into the lounge, we bump into Victor Kameo.
Victor looks particularly animated this morning. “Want to see something interesting?” he asks. It’s only once we’re in the car that he tells me we’re headed to the “Sage” clothing shop on Salbhieh Street, a store his family sold in 1994, shortly after emigrating. Victor had spent much of his youth there helping his father run the family business, but in 1992, for the first time since 1948, Jews were granted passports, and within a short time, most of the Jews took the opportunity to leave.
Now, after three decades, he was returning for the first time.
Upon arrival, Victor, eyes wide open and giddy with an anticipation, introduces himself to the store manager, who greets him like a long-lost friend. Within minutes, they connect some dots, as it turns out they remember each other from the neighborhood from way back.
Victor looks around the store, eyes darting from ceiling to counter. “It’s the same setup, same layout, even the same sign outside,” he says, visibly moved.
The manager tells me that while there’s growing optimism in the wake of Assad’s departure, Syrians remain cautious about spending. Few foreigners visit. Ideally, he’d like to export Syrian-made goods abroad, but US sanctions have left nearly all doors closed. Except to Turkey.
Victor dives into some shopping while I step outside. Right across from the Syrian parliament building, I’m approached by a freelance shoeshiner — part entrepreneur and part craftsman — who bears witness to the ebb and flow of the city from his ground-level perch. He carries his trade in a small satchel containing brushes, cloths, and polish. I agree to have my shoes serviced and he sets up shop on a patch of public sidewalk shaded by a storefront awning.
The shoeshiner crouches down, surrounded by his associated clutter and taps the stone block beside him. I prop up a foot. With quiet precision, he scrubs, buffs and polishes. Every scuff is treated like a personal insult.
Payment is, apparently, discretionary. Customers give what they can or what they think the service was worth. For the shoeshiner, it’s more than a livelihood; it’s dignity through effort, resilience through ritual. He ends the session with a flourish, flipping the brush and catching it mid-air, topped off by a silent bow. Like the taxi drivers, he offers humble thanks for my payment and pockets the bills without even glancing at them.
Victor and a local acquaintance, Dr. Itsan, catch up with me, and as we walk toward Alabed Street, Victor points out where Jewish-owned shops once stood. “There were many Jewish businesses here,” he tells me. “Though most Jews lived in the Old City, this was the high-end shopping district, popular with tourists. Almost none of our customers were Jewish.”
Jews, he explains, specialized in clothing, textiles, jewelry, and watches. “Jewish-made goods are rare now, and fetch a high price,” he points out. “By law, stores had to be closed one day a week. Ours had a sign that said ‘Closed Saturday,’ which marked us as Jewish.”
When I ask if this ever led to anti-Semitism, Victor scoffs. “It was actually a good thing,” he says. “Syrians trusted Jews. They knew they could leave a deposit, they knew they could get real jewelry, not fakes.”
He proceeds to wax nostalgic about a time when Jews and Arabs lived like cousins.
Dr. Itsan tells me his family has lived in Damascus for over 1,500 years. “In the same house for more than 700,” he adds.
“How do you decide which family member gets to live there?” I ask.
“Usually, it goes to the eldest brother,” he replies, “who buys out the others.”
The idea of a family living in the same house for two dozen generations stuns me. Victor, though, is unimpressed.
“Yesterday we visited the Foreigners’ Shul, the one built for the Jews fleeing Spain. That one’s only 500 years old. Practically brand-new,” he shrugs. In a city as old as Damascus, which contends as the oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth, 700 years is just getting started.
I’d love to hear more, but it’s time to head over to the Governorate’s central office complex. Our group, together with a few other American-Syrian activists, has a meeting scheduled with the Governor of Damascus.
The Governor’s Vision
Our meeting with Damascus Governor Maher Marwan takes place in an ornate, historic-style reception room deep inside the complex. Carved wood ceilings adorned with floral motifs, walls inlaid with artistic panels and arabesque geometric patterns, overlook a marble floor arranged in symmetrical black-and-white mosaics, as the stained-glass windows cast vibrant red and blue hues across the room.
A dozen guests and government staffers sit around the perimeter on high-backed chairs in a circle, sipping Syrian coffee and bottled water. The governor shows up right on time and welcomes us to Damascus, a place he says he hopes we’ll one day call our second home. We briefly introduce ourselves, some in their native Arabic, the rest of us in English. Our translator helps streamline the language barrier.
Under Assad, the governor kept reiterating, Syria became deeply isolated. Both from the world and within itself. The regime ruled through fear, deliberately dividing communities and discouraging trust, progress, and forward planning. Generations grew up in survival mode, not with a sense of possibility. Even after Assad’s fall, the legacy of fear lingers. Rebuilding Syria now means more than just physical reconstruction; it requires undoing decades of psychological and social damage, and slowly restoring public trust that was systematically dismantled.
Much of our conversation with the governor centered on Syria’s Jewish community, its past, its properties, and the question of whether trust can be rebuilt. The topic was deeply sensitive, and officials present asked that no direct quotes be published.
After the meeting, I’m approached by Maryam Kamalmaz, whose father, Majd Kamalmaz — a Syrian-American psychotherapist from Arlington, Virginia — was abducted in Syria during a humanitarian mission in 2017. In May 2024, national security officials told his family that highly credible, classified information indicated that he had died in captivity.
Maryam agrees to share her father’s story with me.
Majd had treated people all over the world, after tsunamis and hurricanes as well as in war zones like Kosovo, Bosnia, and most recently, Syria. He had two institutes in Lebanon and treated refugees using modalities such as breathwork and body alignment.
Shortly after his arrival in Damascus, he was scheduled to meet with a team of doctors. Along the way, his car arrived at a checkpoint, which apparently the regime had set up for the purpose of abducting him. Majd was never seen again.
“We learned there was a red line under his name,” Maryam says. “We thought that meant he was being held in secret for negotiation. We pressed the US government. We were told by several sources that this red line meant he was off-limits — untouchable. No one could ask about him. After my father was declared dead, I learned that red line under his name didn’t mean secrecy. It meant ‘eliminate this person without evidence.’ ”
Although the regime no longer stands in her way, Maryam faces new challenges in her attempts to help bring closure to her own family, as well as to the many others she’s been advocating for through her work.
“Syria is like a time capsule from the ’70s and ’80s,” she explains. “They don’t have the resources to identify the missing or locate their bodies. We can’t expect them to solve this alone. The US has the tools. If sanctions are lifted, if experts can enter, then maybe we’ll have a chance to bring people home.”
One of the few Jewish-American businesspeople present, Jonathan Bass, saw Syria’s economic vacuum as both a warning and a window. “I wanted to see what’s actually happening on the ground under the new government,” the chairman and CEO of Argent LNG tells me. “I’m looking at what openings are available to American companies and trying to keep the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, and the Qataris out of the mix in the future of a normalized Syria.”
Jonathan tells me he’s been working in the region for many years, and that he’s never afraid. “Quite honestly, I’m very forthright that I’m Jewish coming into a country like this, because I think it’s important for them to see that Jews are coming, looking, interacting — that we’re part of the community, not part of ‘the other side’ or the media narrative. There aren’t two sides. There’s one story. Our narrative should be together, not apart.”
He tells me he feels more comfortable walking the streets of Damascus today than walking the streets of L.A. “In Los Angeles, I’ve experienced Black Lives Matter, Jewish hate, Antifa, and UCLA being taken over by radicals. I’m more fearful of the hate brewing in our own country than I am here. I feel much more welcome here.”
He told me that earlier in the day, before our meeting with the governor, “I walked down the street and saw a long line of people. At first, it looked like they were at an ATM, but they were actually waiting to receive their salaries. They’d been waiting a month for just $15 or $20. The sanctions are basically impacting regular people, the ones trying to survive, pay rent, eat. One man told me, ‘I come every day, put my card in the machine, and hope I get money.’ He had no teeth. His hands were shaking.”
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in early December 2024, the US and the European Union have taken steps to ease sanctions and facilitate the provision of basic services in Syria. Even after these changes however, Syria remains one of the most comprehensively sanctioned countries in the world, with many, including the interim government, arguing for further sanctions relief. Both the US and the EU have taken an intermediate path, arguing that sanctions are a crucial tool to influence the new government and that they should not be totally lifted until a strong human rights record is established.
Arafat Who?
It’s 7 a.m. on our last morning in Damascus. Near a row of weathered government offices we’d visited the previous day, the ATM sits recessed in a marble alcove beneath a faded awning. It’s from the International Bank for Trade & Finance, a lifeline for pensioners and civil servants, at least in theory. The glass surrounding the booth is smudged with fingerprints from the day before, when a long, desperate line had formed in hopes of withdrawing a salary. Most left empty-handed. “Transaction Declined,” the receipts had said.
This early morning, there’s no line, no shouting. Just the lone machine, fast asleep, wondering if anyone else might still come and ask for money it may no longer have.
A small LED billboard flickers on the corner, cycling through the same half-dozen slides: five ads for corrective eye surgery, and one unmistakable side profile of President al-Sharaa. They haven’t even finished taking down Assad’s portraits, and yet here is the new guy, filling the same frames. I can’t tell if this is a fluke, or the soft launch of a new cult of personality. Could this end with a mandatory gold statue in every town square? I wonder.
In a narrow alley just off the central street, flanked by checker-tiled Ministry of Interior vehicles, two police officers approach and asked sternly what I’m doing there so early in the morning.
The moment I mention I’m American the energy shifts. Their posture relaxes. One officer smiles, the other offers a handshake. They inform me that this is government property and wish me a pleasant day.
We pass an elderly gentleman selling freshly-baked pastries, each wrinkle around his eyes seeming to convey years of hardship. A few blocks on, we approach a dark bookstore with an open door. Inside, the air is dense with the smell of aging paper. The only illumination comes from a single fluorescent bulb, which buzzes to life behind the counter, casting a clinical glow over the yellowing pages and dust-covered shelves.
The books are a mix, but what catches my eye two different Arabic editions of Mein Kampf, swastikas and all. They sit beside biographies of regional leaders and books on global conspiracy theories, quietly normalizing a text that in much of the world is banned or shunned.
The man at the desk notices me and asks where I’m from. It’s not often that they turn on a light, I surmise. When I say “America,” he narrows his eyes. “Your accent doesn’t sound American,” he says slowly, almost accusingly.
I grin. “You’re right — I don’t have an American accent. I have a Californian accent.”
A pause. Then he brightens: “California? I was once in San Francisco!” The tension dissolves. It turns out, he loves America and can’t wait to be back.
As we leave the store, I’m carrying a small English book I bought out of guilt. I hadn’t planned on shopping, but someone has to pay the fluorescent bulb’s bill. As I walk, I realize I’ll need a backpack if this keeps up. There’s still the Old City ahead, and one lesson I’ve learned is that clutter has a way of multiplying when you’re not looking.
Just beyond an ancient though well-maintained train terminal, the buildings rise above in faded splendor: grand old windows, chipped balconies, and air conditioners clinging to the walls like algae. I duck into a nearby school supply store, hoping to score a backpack. The display window is charming: globes, rulers, notebooks, and even a life-size skeleton. The shopkeeper welcomes me inside and asks where I’m from. I tell him I’m American. He lights up, grabs a globe off the shelf, and hands it to me. “You are America? Find for me Syria.”
I play along, spinning the globe slowly, theatrically, before pointing to the familiar patch of coastline along the eastern Mediterranean. He nods in approval. I glance over at Israel. There’s neither a West Bank nor a Gaza Strip. Had this not been Damascus I’d probably have a question about that, but lucky for him, I have nothing further to ask on the subject. So I replace the globe and inquire about backpacks. He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Try the souk.”
At the next shop, also packed with school supplies but no bags, the owner beams when I say I’m American. “I love Trump!” he exclaims. “I wish Trump come Syria. Trump make peace.” Without thinking, I drop into my best Trump impression. “Look, we love Syria, we do. We love the people. Some very, very fine people here. Tremendous country.” My accent is shaky at best, but he roars with laughter. “Perfect! Perfect!” he insists.
Outside a timeworn basket shop, a flock of pigeons fills the air with sudden motion. Plastic chairs, faded signs, and trays of seed form a quiet tableau until disrupted by cooing chaos. A petite man with silver-black hair and a lined face beams in front of his modest establishment, hand-woven baskets dangling from either side.
He asks me what brings me to Damascus and I tell I’m here to make new friends and to learn a thing or two. As his gaze shifts between me and Charles, his eyes brighten with excitement. He reaches for a side shelf and withdraws a copy of a National Geographic issue dated September 1978.
Carefully, he turns the weathered pages to reveal a feature on Syria, titled: “Amid ruins of ancient empires, a young nation tests a new stability.” A photograph of a youthful, contemplative Hafez al-Assad graces the opposing page. The man flips a page, pausing at a photograph that shows this very store, handcrafted baskets and all, back when his father was at the helm. His face contains the full scope of family pride that dates back to the previous time an American duo wandered past his little nook and offered to snap a photograph.
The mood changes as he turns back to the photograph of Assad senior and sighs. “Life during the regime was…” he lowers his eyes and whispers, “very bad; it was very bad.”
He tells me that things are better now, because at least people can speak freely. “We don’t know yet if al-Sharaa will succeed,” he admits, “but I pray to Allah every day to guide him.”
Eventually, we reach a curious corner of the city, some sort of “industrial zone.” A tight warren of hardware stalls and tool shops, some stock just one unit, a prototype, a lure, or whatever they were able to get past the sanctions. One stall sells nothing but smuggled light switches; another, a single stack of circuit breakers. At a third, variously colored fan blades hang like decorations while others are stacked in teetering towers or zip-tied in bunches, ready to be resold, reassembled, or repurposed. There’s no marketing here and no slogans. Just stuff. Further down: a table with 17 brands of smuggled batteries.
At long last, I spot what I’ve been looking for: a tiny bag shop bursting at the seams with knockoff everything — backpacks, purses, and shoulder bags, brown ones, black ones, sparkly ones. A supposed “Jeep” brand satchel hangs proudly next to a suspiciously smooth Nike bag. I settle on something small, gray, functional, and probably not waterproof. It’ll do.
The entrance to the Old City unfolds like a portal. Light filters through the bullet holes in the arched iron roof, dotting the stone with shimmering stars. A few early birds wander the space: families, shopkeepers, soldiers. A man grabs my attention and beckons that I follow him.
In a second-floor clothing shop stacked floor-to-ceiling with folded thobes, cloaks, and keffiyehs, I find myself mid-fitting for a traditional Syrian outfit. The shopkeeper, an older man with sun-worn hands and a salesman’s twinkle in his eye, is positively beaming once he discovers where I’m from. “You… from America? For real?” he asks, eyes lighting up like he’d just hit the jackpot. Business, after all, is business.
I try on a robe and he pulls out a lighter. “See the good quality,” he says while striking the lighter against my chest again and again. The reason it’s not catching fire is due to its superior quality, he assures. I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t prepared to take him at his word.
He slides a silk covering over my shoulders with ceremony, brushing the gold trim flat across my chest. I’m looking amazing, but there’s still something missing, at least according to him. Suddenly, he asks, “You want an Arafat?”
I blink. “An Arafat?”
He points to his head, trying to mime something. “Arafat. You know. What Arafat wear.”
Still confused, I squint back. “Arafat? Arafat who?”
His face betrays a look no less puzzled than mine, as if he’s either trying to remember what Arafat’s English name could’ve been or he’s trying to guess how ignorant my entire generation back home must be. “Sorry,” I shrug in the most American voice I can muster.
I’m sure he was just trying to upsell me a keffiyeh, but in the event that he was trying to bait me into a geopolitical debate, I wasn’t taking any chances.
I step back into the main thoroughfare. Vendors shout. Banners flap. A stall sells rebel flags and keffiyehs with black shahada script. A boy in a hoodie arranges pyramid-shaped mounds of spices that come in every color imaginable stacked with uncanny precision. One stall is a kaleidoscope of candy, another sells antique Qurans beside a rotary phone older than half the city. I pass through ancient Roman ruins and down alleys that smell of sweat, soap, and cinnamon.
America First
The alleyways narrow, the crowd thins and at long last, we’ve made it to the Old Jewish Quarter. Faded, forgotten, but still standing.
There are plenty of sites here worthy of attention, including three abandoned yet still-standing synagogues and some former Jewish homes, but without gatekeeper and key we’re not expecting to get very far.
It’s in one of these archways that a middle-aged man with sharp eyes leans in and asks: “Bibi bombed us again. Can’t you Americans tell him to cut it out?” It isn’t rhetorical. He genuinely wants an answer, as if I have the prime minister on speed dial. I shrug, half-apologetically. “I don’t want one of these bombs landing on me either,” I offer, “so let’s figure out a solution together.” He isn’t mad, just weary. The kind of weariness that comes from living in a place where foreign fighter jets occasionally tuck you in at night. He just wants everyone to take a chill. I assure him this is what I pray for every day.
A taxi inches its way towards us and I flag it down. We head back to the hotel so I can grab my suitcase, and add it to the trunk where it’s about to make the acquaintance of my new backpack and the lingering scent of saffron.
As we drive past the Jaramana area and its military presence, Ahmed, the driver, comes to life. “All of Syria, everyone together,” he stammers excitedly, “like one family. The Druze are problem,” he says, in reference to fighting between government forces and Druze militia a day earlier that had reportedly claimed over a hundred lives. “Druze very bad. All Syria good, Druze very bad.”
I decide to pick his brain further.
“What about Turkey?” I ask. “Bad.” He says.
“Iran?” He shrugs.
“And Saudi Arabia?”
“Very bad!” He exclaims.
“What about Israel?”
He looks confused. “What about Israel?” He mirrors.
“Israel, good or bad?” I ask.
“Israel okay,” he says tentatively, before adding, “but Israel support Druze and Druze very bad. So Israel bad.”
“Last one,” I say. “America?”
“America very good!” he gushes.
“What’s very good about America?”
“America has money, Trump and…” he’s struggling to find the right word. “Free… eh, free….”
“Freedom?” I ask.
“Freedom!” he confirms. “Yes, freedom!”
Sure, I know. This conversation felt scripted to me at the time, too. I would’ve never imagined Damascus would be MAGA country or that the Syrian people identify as “America First,” but it took a few days in the capital and I now believe it. The question is whether Trump believes in the Syrian people with the same enthusiasm.
Detained
Back at JFK, it’s the usual chaos of arrivals. Long lines, short tempers, and fluorescent lights that haven’t slept since the first time Yasser Arafat wrapped that dish towel over his head. But something feels off. Just ahead of me, a plainclothes man with an unmistakable air of authority sees me.
“Show me your passport,” he says.
“And you are?” I shoot back, my journalistic instincts pouring all over the situation.
“I’m with TSA,” he snaps, though I’m not entirely convinced and he does not appreciate being doubted.
“Sir, where are you traveling from?” he demands, louder now.
That’s when it clicks. Someone must’ve tipped him off. The chassidic guy who just got off a flight from Damascus….
I step out of line and follow him to a side office where we sit down. I warn him that my story will be riddled with spoilers and ask if he’s sure he wouldn’t rather wait until the magazine hits the stores. He opts in and for the next 25 minutes I walk him through my week.
Yes, I was in Syria. Yes, I traveled alone but also spent part of the time with a delegation. No, I didn’t feel unsafe at any point. No, I didn’t allow any evildoers to pack my suitcase. Yes, I got fitted for a thobe by a man who tried to sell me “an Arafat.” No, I still don’t know if he meant the keffiyeh or the ideology. Yes, I bought a backpack in the black-market industrial zone. No, it wasn’t waterproof. Yes, I met people who love Trump. No, I didn’t expect it. Yes, I visited the kever of Rav Chaim Vital. No, they didn’t steal the body.
The customs guy listens in fascination. I tell him I spoke with more than 200 people over the course of the week, and my takeaway is that they all just want to live their lives and sleep through the night. Though they do ask to be woken at once should Trump choose to visit.
Then, just as I’m wrapping up, he blinks and says, “Wait… Syria really loves Trump?”
“They absolutely love him,” I say. “They think he’s the only one who ever spoke to the Middle East like a grown-up.”
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Because the meeting with Damascus Governor Maher Marwan was officially off the record, I can’t quote him directly, but I can share some takeaways based on what was discussed in the room, as well as a few personal observations that I witnessed over the course of the trip.
Fear and Distrust
What I Heard: According to the governor, decades of authoritarian rule under Assad created a deep-rooted culture of fear and suspicion among Syrians. The regime intentionally divided communities and made neighbors afraid of one another, eroding the social fabric that held the country together.
What I Saw: Conversations with locals rarely start open. But when I introduced myself as American, eyes softened and voices dropped. It was clear that people are still gauging what can safely be said, and to whom.
Economic Isolation
What I Heard: Ongoing Western-initiated international sanctions have severely limited Syria’s ability to recover economically. The governor repeatedly stressed that these sanctions hurt everyday citizens, hinder reconstruction, and stall foreign partnerships needed for progress.
What I Saw: The Syrian nation sputters and staggers on outdated and antiquated machinery and vehicles. Offices providing critical services still use notepads and calculators.
Lack of Infrastructure
What I Heard: Years of war and isolation have left Syria with outdated or destroyed infrastructure. Even basic financial systems, such as functioning banks or currency exchange mechanisms, are barely operational.
What I Saw: At Damascus airport, I handed over $500 to exchange into Syrian pounds. The cashier returned carrying a bulging plastic bag of cash and began restocking his drawer like a corner store during wartime. The entire financial infrastructure felt stitched together with rubber bands. Furthermore, infrastructure and supply chains have broken down to the point where even basic electrical components must be smuggled and sold one at a time, underscoring a nationwide scarcity of essential materials and the improvisational economy built around it.
Missing People, Mass Graves
What I Heard: There are an estimated 100,000-plus missing people, and the government is overwhelmed by the magnitude of identifying bodies from mass graves. This not only delays justice and closure but also obstructs diplomatic progress with countries like the US.
What I Saw: Despite assurances of the government’s desire to find closure for families of the missing, there was no indication of organized efforts, no visible progress. Just an overwhelming sense of paralysis and silence, as if the weight of the 100,000 missing was too heavy to lift without international expertise.
Absence of Digital Systems
What I Heard: The new government inherited a country with virtually no centralized data systems. No servers, no computers, and no records. Everything was controlled by a small group under the previous regime, making governance and reconciliation exponentially harder.
What I Saw: To enter the country, I had to send a photo of two $100 bills as proof of payment. If that’s what border entry looks like, imagine how national archives and identification systems must operate, through offices still run on notepads and touchtone phones, for sensitive documents that were never properly filed to begin with.
Sectarian Tension
What I Heard: Years of war and political manipulation have frayed trust between ethnic and religious groups. The government admits this damage wasn’t only caused by war but was deliberately cultivated by the Assad regime.
What I Saw: When an army wearing mismatched uniforms heads out in mostly civilian vehicles to wage battle against Druze militia, you qualify for social fragmentation and sectarian tension. This kind of division runs deep enough for a taxi driver to immediately identify the Druze for causing all his country’s problems.
Back to the Old Syria
What I Heard: The governor emphasizes that rebuilding trust is as important as rebuilding physical infrastructure.
What I Saw: To my surprise, nearly everyone I met lit up when they heard I was Jewish, and many spoke of Jews with nostalgia or admiration. After decades of systemic repression, their trust isn’t in institutions, but in individuals who remind them of a different Syria.
Brain Drain
What I Heard: Much of Syria’s talent and entrepreneurial class have left the country. The challenge now is both to lure them back and ensure that a new generation of civil servants and business leaders can emerge.
What I Saw: Victor Kameo’s family business still stands, but the original owners have long since left. The encounter is warm and nostalgic, but also haunting, a reminder that so many who built Syria’s economy are now part of its diaspora, uncertain whether there’s anything left to return to.
Looking for Partners
What I Heard: The governor stressed the importance of civil society organizations and partnerships with friendly nations in rebuilding Syria. He acknowledged that internal capacity is limited and that true recovery depends on collaboration with those who are willing to engage on the ground. What I Saw: The vacuum where NGOs and community development programs should be was made even more glaring by how often people expressed hope that “the Americans” would come help. The government is ready to partner but without outside engagement there’s no ladder out of the hole.
Political Isolation
What I Heard: Syria’s pariah status on the world stage makes international investment and diplomatic engagement difficult. The current leadership sees breaking that isolation — particularly through American partnerships — as essential to moving forward.
What I Saw: In conversation after conversation, with shopkeepers, shoeshiners, street vendors and even the governor himself, I was told how much Syrians admire America. They spoke of freedom, of opportunity, of admiration for the very country that has sanctioned them into near-collapse. The people may be cut off from the West, but they’re clearly not disconnected. —
