Streetwise in Syria

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?