The Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava) on Tuesday censured the National Dialogue Conference in Damascus as “closer to exclusion and marginalization” than the aspirations of the Syrian people.
On a wintry night in Damascus, hundreds of people packed into a courtyard in the Old City, dancing and singing during a joyful evening of music - a concert held with the approval of Syria's new, Islamist-led authorities.
The overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria paved the way for a historic visit, with Syrian Jews returning from the U.S. to Damascus for the first time in three decades, hoping to rebuild community.
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.
Syria's tiny Jewish community said they held their first group prayer in decades Wednesday, in a synagogue in Damascus's Old City, expressing joy at the long-awaited return to public worship.