The UAE offers a warm welcome in a warm (and cold!) climate
Skiing, penguins, the Louvre and a synagogue - the options are endless in Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Louisa Walters is Features Editor at the Jewish News and specialises in food and travel writing
Everyone knows that Dubai is a hotspot – literally – so you may wonder why my hotel overlooks a ski slope. Ski Dubai is an indoor ski resort with ski slopes of varying difficulty, real snow and even real penguins! It maintains a welcome 0°C temperature all year round – highly appealing in the summer, when the mercury regularly hits the 50° mark.
This winter wonderland is in the Mall of the Emirates, one of the largest shopping malls in the world, which also houses the Kempinski Hotel, where I have checked in for a few days.
It is December 2023, just a few weeks after the Hamas attacks, and in truth I’ve been vacillating about coming on the trip. Family and friends thought we were mad, while the social media community were roughly split between ‘why would anyone travel to the UAE right now?’ and ‘It’ll be fine’.
In my heart, I knew it would be fine. Ever since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2019, this has been a place that warmly welcomes Jews. Israel has become the fastest-growing tourism market for Dubai and is now its eighth-largest tourism market overall. More than 85,000 Israelis visited Dubai in the first two months of 2023, a 212 per cent year-on-year increase.
When I chatted to the manager of the hotel he told me that they are devastated at the potential reduction in Jewish visitors as a result of the war and the undoing of so many years of work in fostering good relations. “We want the Jews to come here and to feel safe.”
Of the 350-plus luxury rooms in the hotel, 20 are Aspen chalets that are full-on cosy winter retreats with furry throws on the beds. The ‘regular’ rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows which flood them with sunshine by day, and statement lighting creates a sophisticated evening environment. Marble-topped dark wood furniture makes for an extremely smart and sophisticated design, and the huge marble bathrooms with separate bath and shower are well stocked with amenities.
The high-ceilinged hotel lobby is lined with marble so shiny it is almost mirrored and I counted no fewer than five reception desks. Well-dressed business and leisure travellers wander in and out, many sitting in the Lobby Lounge, which styles itself on a European grand café in the heart of the city, even serving afternoon tea.
While the ski resort is visible from some rooms, the outdoor pool deck is visible from others. It is accessible from the terrace at Olea restaurant, and it was here that we enjoyed Middle Eastern-style buffet breakfasts and an exceptionally good Levantine evening meal.
Ease of access to the mall from the lobby is one of the Kempinski’s biggest attractions for a leisure traveller, and anything else is just a short Uber ride away. We visited the Miracle Garden, a Disney-esque attraction that lays claim to being the world’s largest natural flower garden, with more than 150 million flowers in a riot of colours. As if one shopping mall wasn’t enough, we also went to the Dubai Mall where the famous fountain and light show takes place every evening. A dinner table at Abd El Wahab afforded us a front-row seat to watch this spectacular event. So far, so Sand Vegas.
But then we visited Abu Dhabi, roughly 90 minutes by car along the cleanest six-lane highways you ever did see. And here in the richest of the seven Emirates we saw less bling and more culture. Once away from the hubris that is central Dubai we sped along with no traffic for a full-day tour by Younan, a charming Egyptian man who lives in Abu Dhabi with his wife and young child. From him we learned that 80 per cent of UAE inhabitants are ex-pats from Europe, India and Pakistan. They pay no tax and they endure no crime but if they are not working they are not allowed to stay.
Abu Dhabi is a collection of islands, the most well-known of which are Saadiyat Island where most of the resort hotels and cultural offerings are located, and Yas Island which houses the theme parks, including Ferrari World, Warner Bros World, Sea World and Yas Waterworld.
We visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque – the largest in the world after Mecca – which houses the world’s largest and heaviest chandelier, largest carpet and largest mosaic. The figures pertaining to this mammoth and incredibly beautiful white marble structure are staggering. In 2023 it received 5.5 million visitors including 1.4 million worshippers; more than 45,000 people come to pray every Friday. My husband was one of 59,000 people who used the mosque’s jogging track last year.
We visited the Louvre, France’s largest cultural project abroad, which has been designed in traditional Arab style in the shape of a dome; the nearby Natural History Museum and the Guggenheim are under construction. We went to the date market where I ate my bodyweight in samples and came away laden with pouches of almond-stuffed, chocolate-coated medjool dates.
The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Abrahamic Family House. Opened in February 2023, this unique project brings together the three religions that descend from Abraham, namely Islam, Christianity and Judaism, in a show of unity, equality and tolerance.
A mosque, a church and a synagogue of equal size, stature and proportions stand on the site and are open for all to enter. The mosque faces Mecca, the church looks towards the East and the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue towards Jerusalem. Former assistant to President Donald Trump, Avi Berkowitz, got married there. At the project’s opening ceremony Chief Rabbi Mirvis called it a “remarkable monument to lovingkindness” and said that we should use “this extraordinary sacred site to promote harmony and peace.”
As I stood inside a real-life synagogue in the Arab world, as we wandered around this serene, peaceful place, and as we said prayers for those who had lost their lives on October 7, I allowed myself to hope for a better, brighter future.
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