A group of Syrian Jews returned to Damascus after the fall of Assad. Even as tensions between Israel and Syria ramped up in recent days, a small group of Syrian Jews recently celebrated a milestone that once seemed unthinkable: a return visit to their home country.

For the first time in nearly thirty years, a group of American Jews originally from Damascus returned to Syria last week. Thanks to the fall of the Assad regime, the group, led by Rabbi Yosef Hamra, was able to tour prominent historical Jewish sites in the Syrian capital and see family homes.

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.

During the Assad regimes, Western nations placed crippling economic sanctions on the country. Some have been lifted, but most are still in place, so how does a country shattered by civil war rebuild?

Syria's tiny Jewish community and Syrian Jews abroad are trying to build bridges after Bashar al-Assad's ouster in the hope of reviving their ancient heritage before the community dies out.

As Rabbi Yusuf Hamra and his son Henry were visiting Damascus this week for the first time since emigrating from Syria to the United States more than three decades ago, they were met by former neighbors with embraces and and gossip .

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Jewish Syrian Rabbi and his son have returned to their homeland from the United States after more than three decades of being forced to leave Syria by the Hafez al-Assad-led Baath regime.

After decades of exile, a group of American Jews with deep roots in Damascus has returned to Syria to rediscover their long-lost heritage. Organized by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, the four-day visit took participants on a moving tour of historic synagogues,