Day 716 - ToI editor's surreal 48 hours in Damascus

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

News

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Editor David Horovitz joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

Last week, ToI's founding editor took a whirlwind trip to Damascus as part of a small delegation of US Jewish leaders, scholars and rabbis, which was coordinated by the new Syrian government.

In today's episode, we hear that getting there was just the beginning of the adventure. What would have ostensibly been a three-hour car drive with open borders for Jerusalem-based Horovitz took three flights -- from Tel Aviv to Athens, then to Istanbul, and finally, from Istanbul to Damascus.

He describes how, at the Damascus International Airport, the group immediately launched into their packed itinerary, which had the simultaneous dual tracks of a Jewish roots tour and a "friendship visit" with high-level Syrian officials.

Horovitz describes at length what sounds like the pinnacle of the tour, a rare visit to the Dura-Europos synagogue, a 2,000-year-old shul in eastern Syria that was rediscovered in 1932. We learn about the seven-meter-high, vividly-colored wall paintings that lined the walls of the synagogue’s assembly hall and their near miraculous survival.

And finally, we learn what the Syrian government wished the delegation to take back home and pass on to their leadership -- American and Israeli.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

48 surreal hours in Damascus — an Israeli reporter’s travelogue from an enemy capital

After years of war, world’s oldest synagogue paintings seen intact in Damascus

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Podwaves.

IMAGE: Times of Israel Editor David Horovitz and academic Jill Joshowitz stand near the Dura-Europos Synagogue wall paintings in the Damascus National Museum in Syria, September 16, 2025. (Times of Israel)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's Daily Briefing.
0:08.8	Today is Sunday, September 21st, Day 716 of the war.
0:14.2	Amanda Borchelle, Dan here with our editor, David Horowitz.
0:17.6	Thanks for joining me from our Jerusalem office, David.
0:20.2	Hi, Amanda. David is just me from our Jerusalem office, David. Hi, Amanda.
0:27.6	David is just back from a whirlwind 48 hours in Syria, and we'll hear all about the trip and more when we're back from a break.
0:35.0	Genocide. It's a word that triggers us in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more than any other.
0:43.0	A word coined in the wake of the Holocaust, and now it's being levied against the Jewish state.
0:48.9	On the unpacking Israeli history podcast, host Norm Weissman sits down with historian and writer Gil Troy for an important and difficult conversation, examining the accusations of genocide against Israel.
1:03.4	Gil and Noam explore deeply challenging questions about morality during wartime, whether Israel is living up to its own standards while fighting
1:12.6	for survival, and what this tells us about the war, the Jewish people, and the future of
1:18.5	Zionism itself. Join Noam and Gil for this sweeping conversation on unpacking
1:24.8	Israeli history, wherever you get your podcasts.
1:40.4	I'm Amanda Borsel Dan here with our editor, David Horowitz. For some headlines, a gunman
1:46.7	opened fire in a New Hampshire country club on Saturday, killing one person and wounding several
1:52.2	others. The man who opened fire at the country club reportedly yelled free Palestine while
1:58.1	carrying out the deadly shooting. British Prime Minister Kier Starmar is planning to announce new sanctions on the Hamas terror
2:05.7	group at the same time as he announces the UK's recognition of a Palestinian state,
2:11.2	according to the telegraph.
2:13.2	British media reported on Saturday that Starrar will publish a statement today confirming the
2:18.5	UK's recognition of an independent Palestinian state following the France-led push for coordinated
2:25.0	recognition at the UN General Assembly. In Gaza, 10 IDF soldiers were lightly injured when a military
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times of Israel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Times of Israel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.