Avraham Hamra
Syrian-Israeli rabbi
Rabbi Avraham Hamra (Hebrew: אברהם חמרה; 1943 – 7 May 2021) was a Syrian-Israeli rabbi. He served as chief rabbi of Syrian and Lebanese Jews and was the last chief rabbi of Syria.
Early life
Rabbi Hamra was born in Damascus in 1943. He worked for two years as a teacher at a local Jewish school before assuming the role of principal in 1963. In 1970, he became a member of the community committee serving the local Jewish population. He was Cantor in the local synagogue and had many connections in the Syrian government and would help the community with whatever they needed.
Rabbinical career
In 1972, he was appointed deputy chief rabbi of Damascus. In 1976, Rabbi Hamra was appointed chief rabbi, a position he held until he left Syria after years of aiding the community with financial support and helping thousands of Syrian Jews escape syria with most of the country's remaining Jews in October 1994 when then Syrian President Hafez al-Assad allowed the last Syrian Jews to leave, on condition that they immigrate to the United States rather than Israel. Rabbi Hamra immigrated to Brooklyn, New York before leaving for Israel.
Upon his arrival in Israel, Rabbi Hamra settled in Holon and was appointed to the religious council.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q43245611. VIAF identifies the subject as 24156219593704742783. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 2021, 1963 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Avraham Hamra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.