Israel’s Kan channel reported that the Syrian government allowed six Jewish women and six men, who left Syria decades ago and live in New York, to visit Damascus in early November, within the framework of encouraging more Jews to visit Syria.

Kan’s Arab affairs editor said that the visitors told him that they had applied for medical service with dentists in Damascus, since it costs much less in Syria than in the US.

“The relationship between some Syrian Jews and regime officials who regularly visit the US has not been severed," one of the visitors told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "Some officials visit some Jews in New Jersey … but US law does not allow them to be more than 25 miles away from the UN building. Three years ago, Syrian intelligence invited some Syrian Jews to visit Syria, noting that [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad is interested in getting closer to Syrian Jews residing in the US; back then, they did not accept the invitation.”

He noted that the visitors wanted to learn more about the synagogues in Damascus, Aleppo, and Qamishli, and to see if it is possible to restore the synagogue in the Jobar area, east of Damascus, which the Syrian Jewish community began collecting funds to renew. “We agreed to visit after the regime pledged to provide us with full protection at all times. We also visited three Syrian Jews who had not emigrated.”