DAMASCUS, Syria—Dust filled the air as Rabbi Yosef Hamra opened a long-sealed closet containing holy scrolls untouched since he last held Jewish services in the centuries-old synagogue three decades ago.
His family had left Syria along with many other Jews in the 1990s. But here he was with his son, Henry Hamra, who lifted the heavy gold-laced scrolls high above his head as warm sunlight beamed through the stained glass windows of the al-Faranj Synagogue in Damascus’s Old City.
“We have returned,” said Henry Hamra, who last saw the city when he was a teenager. “After all these years, we have finally returned.”
The father and son were part of a group of Syrian and American Jews who arrived in Damascus this month, escorted by armed forces of the new government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the U.S.-designated terrorist group whose rebel coalition toppled the despotic Assad dynasty in December.
The delegation toured Damascus’s historic Jewish neighborhood and religious sites, and met with community members and officials from Syria’s new government. They visited relatives’ former homes, graves and religious schools. Some of the kippa-wearing American Jews posed for photos holding the rifle of a masked, black-clad member of the government’s new security forces.
As the group walked through parts of Damascus, they bumped into old neighbors.
“I remember his face! I can’t believe it’s really him,” one woman said when the elder Hamra passed by her as he walked through his old neighborhood.
“Welcome back. This is your home,” another man in the neighborhood said as he embraced the 77-year-old.
Fewer than 10 Jews are currently estimated to be living in Syria—not enough to meet the quota needed for public prayer under religious rules. Tens of thousands of Jews left in waves during the 20th century, especially in the years around the creation of Israel in 1948 and subsequent wars between the two countries, a period when the community experienced violence in Aleppo and Damascus.
Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian president from 1971 to 2000, restricted Jewish emigration from the country and kept Syria’s remaining Jews under close watch. He lifted the restrictions in 1992, and a few thousand more left, many for the U.S., leading to the near-extinction of Jewish presence in Syria.
Jews have had a presence in Syria for millennia. At times it was a haven. Jews flocked to Syria after being displaced when the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in the 11th century. Another influx came after the Spanish expulsion of Jews in the 1400s, while many left Syria during later spasms of sectarian tension.
Now the new rulers in Damascus have promised tolerance for Syria’s many religious and ethnic groups , a shift that could reverberate through the region.
Western governments are closely watching for progress on that commitment. Officials from the Syrian Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“We were like siblings—not just neighbors—with other Syrian religious groups living here,” said Rabbi Yosef Hamra. “We can do it again.”
The Hamras left Syria as the surveillance and regional tensions became too difficult to bear. “We couldn’t grow, and we couldn’t be ourselves,” said Henry Hamra, 46.
They settled among the thousands-strong Syrian Jewish community in New York that preserved many of their traditions.
Now, the Hamras hope Jews can re-establish themselves in Syria. Members of the Jewish delegation—organized by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based advocate for democracy in the country—said the visit could be followed by others and, in due time, the re-establishment of Jewish centers and the return of Syrian Jews who could help with reconstruction efforts as Syria looks to pick up the pieces of its shattered economy .
The Jewish delegation, which included a former U.S. ambassador, rode in a convoy with officials from the Syrian Foreign Ministry and the armed forces. When American Jews in the convoy asked the armed forces what they thought of Jewish people, one soldier said, “We are all brothers.”
Asher Lopatin, a Michigan-based rabbi part of the delegation, said the government officials the delegation met with were receptive to the concerns of the Jewish community, including protecting Jews and their holy sites, suggesting positive potential for U.S.-Syria relations.
“These are people I think will welcome America and American influence. What an opportunity—it’s a group that doesn’t like Russia, it doesn’t like Hezbollah,” Lopatin said. “Why not take sanctions off, and if there is a problem in six months, put them back on? We have to act fast.”
Punishing Western sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assad era, as well as others on HTS stemming from the group’s terrorist designation, remain in place, though the group has sworn off its previous extremist ideology.
Haytham Dabbas, a 57-year-old who isn’t Jewish, helped maintain Jewish sites for the decades in which there weren’t enough Syrian Jews to do so. He also kept the diaspora up to date about happenings in their old neighborhoods.
“This has been an important duty—it’s part of the history and heritage of Syria and its people,” he said. “I am excited to see new life injected into these places.”
Some sites couldn’t be defended. Miles of buildings lie in apocalyptic ruin in Jobar, a suburb of Damascus that was pummeled by Assad’s military and his Russian allies during the civil war that began after street demonstrations threatened the regime in 2011.
Among the neighborhood’s piles of rubble and munition casings is the Jobar Synagogue , built atop a cave where believers say the biblical prophet Elijah sheltered from persecution. A placard on the damaged building’s facade dates the shrine to 720 B.C. Before the civil war, Jews, Muslims and Christians would visit the synagogue and take turns descending into the cave to pray.
Much of the site isn’t recognizable, though some ancient inscriptions could be made out. Henry Hamra, who said the revered site was one of the last places visited by his family before they left the country, pointed out things he could decipher.
Among the very few: an old stone archway etched with a Star of David. Underneath grew a scorched fig tree, most of its branches dead, others bearing the beginnings of new fruit.
Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at omar.abdel-baqui@wsj.com
