Old wounds, new world: For Rabbi Yosef Hamra’s unscripted blessing, even Al-Sharaa said Amen

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab, Charles Cerrone

When Rabbi Yosef Hamra fled Damascus over three decades ago, he never dreamed he’d one day face a Syrian president in the US capital and bestow upon him the blessing of kings. But for the first time in decades, doors that were once sealed shut are cracking open, and whether or not a former ISIS commander can be trusted, circumstances no one thought possible have become an unimagined reality

The Grand Ballroom at the Salamander Hotel in DC was packed, hundreds of attendees filling every seat as Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa delivered remarks during his historic visit to the United States. It was the day before he was scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump, and the atmosphere carried the unmistakable tension of a moment that does not happen twice in a generation. Syrian exiles, policy experts and members of the Syrian-Jewish diaspora who had not seen a Syrian president in person since their families fled the country decades ago all watched as al-Sharaa (a.k.a. Abu Mohammad al-Julani) spoke about Syria’s future, reconstruction and regional diplomacy.

For them, the moment held an emotional complexity comprising memory, loss, fear, and even a cautious hope.

After the president concluded his address, the floor opened for questions. Victor Kameo, a respected figure in the Syrian-Jewish community, rose from his seat. His voice carried clearly across the room as he posed his question to the president. But as he finished, he added something unexpected, something that shifted the energy in the room.

Victor looked directly at al-Sharaa and said:

“Mr. President, Rabbi Yosef Hamra would like the opportunity to bless you.”

There was no script for what came next. The Syrian president answered in Arabic: “For sure.”

And then, in a gesture that stunned the room, the president stood up. Everybody stood up.

Rabbi Hamra, leader of New York’s Syrian Jewish community, stepped forward, heart pounding, hands trembling, the weight of Syria’s entire Jewish story pressed onto his shoulders. Cameras clicked. Aides froze. Every eye in the room locked onto the rabbi from Damascus who had left as a refugee and now stood before the head of the country.

“She’chalak m’Kvodo l’basar v’dam…” Rabbi Hamra exclaimed, translating its meaning to Arabic, before adding an additional blessing that Hashem should grant the president’s deepest desires in ways that will lead to genuine good and benefit for his people.

The president beamed. “Thank you.”

To understand the weight of that moment – the leader of the Syrian ex-pat community in New York blessing a man who spent years as a field commander within al-Qaeda and ISIS, who went from a most-wanted terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head to becoming a head of state invited to the White House — you have to go back. Back to the stone alleys of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Damascus. Back to the shadow of the local prison. Back to the school where Rabbi Hamra taught for decades and the synagogue whose walls still held the echoes of his childhood prayers.

Before he became the rabbi offering blessings in Washington, Rabbi Yosef Hamra was a boy walking carefully through a country that watched his community with suspicion. Long before Rabbi Hamra stood before President Sharaa, he stood beside his brother, Chief Rabbi Avraham Hamra, in the Elfrange Synagogue, also known as the French Synagogue, in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Damascus where Rabbi Yosef served as chazzan, mohel, shochet, mesader kiddushin and everything the community needed him to be.

It was a world he never fully left. And it was in that world that the story begins to unfold.