Chief Rabbi: UAE’s story of tolerance goes against the global grain

As the Chief Rabbi delivered words of Torah to an audience of 100 on the final night of his historic mission to the UAE, it felt particularly fitting that the Muslim call to prayer rang out from every direction around the Crossroads of Civilisation Museum.

“Isn’t that the greatest expression of Muslim and Jewish togetherness?”, he asked the audience to loud applause.

He was in the process of offering a full-time report on the three-day trip, the first by any British chief rabbi to the Gulf, at the invitation of the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace.

His summary could hardly have been more glowing, presenting the UAE as bucking global trends towards extremism, hate and conflict. That it is the only country with a Ministry of Tolerance spoke volumes, Mirvis suggested.

Thousands of miles away in Russia, he pointed out, Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt had been forced to flee after speaking out over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Here I’ve been welcomed with open arms. It’s just the opposite.”

He added: “On the anniversary of Kristallnacht yesterday, we recalled how synagogues were burnt to the ground. Here in the UAE most of my conversations have been about synagogues being created. The Abrahamic family House is being established by the government. It’s a story of growth. It’s going against the trend.”

If the idea of one chief rabbi speaking openly in the UAE was inconceivable just a few years ago, the site of two taking part in evening prayers on Thursday night alongside each other served to underscore his point.

Among the guests were the UAE’s Chief Rabbi Yehuda Sarna – who has spoken of his hopes that the community of around 2,000 could number 10,000 within years – and Rabbi Elie Abadie, as well as diplomats, former Israeli minister Ayoob Kara, and Avi Benlolo of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

Rabbi Mirvis said there is no reason why the UAE Jewish community cannot “become a great and famous leader within world Jewry… I have no doubt I will return and on each occasion I will see further growth and further development.”

In fact, traversing Abu Dhabi and Dhabi, the chief rabbi seemed to pick up more invitations than he would on a walk down Golders Green Road.

He heaped praise on Iraqi-born philanthropist and Board of Deputies vice-president Edwin Shuker, who was the driving force behind the event, and the museum’s founder Ahmed Al Mansoori.

Reflecting on the fact that the museum featuring Jewish and Israeli artefacts opened to the public back in 2014, the chief rabbi told him: “You’re not a product of the Abraham Accords, you’re a product of your heart.”

Shuker’s ancestors spent 2,600 years living in harmony with their Arab neighbours before a crackdown on the Jewish community saw 10 people publicly hanged in Baghdad in 1969. Two years later, his family fled.

“That’s how we left the Arab world,” he told the gathering. “I dreamt one day I’d go back and see the graves of my grandparents. I’ve now been going for over 20 years and never achieved anything.”

Still, he never imagined a return to those halcyon days when Jews and Arabs hosted each other on occasions like this, he said. Reflecting on the fact he now spends significant periods of time in UAE, he said: “I want to be a witness of history. I don’t want anything else.”

Shuker said that he had not seen anyone since Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat break down barriers quite like Al Mansoori, who also opened a Holocaust exhibition within the museum in 2021, becoming the first in the region outside Israel to do so.

Given a guided tour by Al Mansoori, the chief rabbi was shown materials covering Nazi ideology and Muslims who saved Jews during the Shoah, as well as a section where basic questions about what happened to Europe’s Jews, dangle from the ceiling as part of efforts to educate young visitors.

The leader of the United Hebrew Congregations paused at the site of a Torah scroll, one of more than 1,500 rescued from the communities of Bohemia and Moravia during WW2, behind a glass cabinet.

He said the time would soon come when survivors are no longer with us but the scrolls remain as a reminder of the horrors. “They stand as a great symbol that Am Yisroel Chai – the Jewish nation – continues to exist because of the scrolls.״

In a separate area of the museum, the chief rabbi was shown an original hand-written letter from Theodor Herzl and images of Jews praying across the Middle East which, said Al Mansoori, serve as a reminder that they “are not foreigners to the region”.

Alongside texts from the Koran, Torah and the gospels, he saw a stunning door cover from 44AD for the kabbah that forms the central focus of prayer at the Mecca Haj.

The chief rabbi was especially struck by a sukkah in the museum’s courtyard, pointing out that the dry weather enabled it to have just three rather than four walls and therefore be especially open to all. It was next to this structure that Jewish participants davened ma’ariv that night, moments after Al-Mansoori led Muslim prayers.

He told the chief rabbi: “Your presence here is a great sign of the success of the Abraham Accords. It’s a great opportunity to send a message that this peace is genuine and solid.”

Earlier, during a tour of the state-of-the-art Mohammed Bin Rashid Library, Rabbi Mirvis marvelled at a Mishna Torah from Yemen that pre-dated the printing press. That it had pride of place in the library, he said, was a further illustration of the importance placed on relations with Jews.

Accompanied by Shuker, he also saw exhibits showcasing the remarkable rise of Dubai from the desert to a sea of skyscrapers including the world’s tallest building. It was at the foot of the Burj Khalifa, in the casement of the stunning Armani Hotel, that the chief rabbi visited what has become an essential stop-off for kosher-keeping visitors to the Emirates: the Kaf restaurant.

There he met Chabad’s Levi Duchman, who is responsible for setting up the Emirates Agency for Kosher Certification, whose logo has pride of place at the entrance to the meaty restaurant. “I’m feeling on top of the world,” the chief rabbi said from the 152nd floor before tucking into lunch.

“Here I’m encountering a combination of the greatness of Hashem with the greatness of human endeavour. But for me the best part of this building is the fact that I’ll be having lunch ins kosher restaurant within this building, the Burj Khalifa, and this is testament to the benefits of the Abraham Accords.”