Jewish community Archives

One year after Abraham Accords, growing Gulf Jewish community finds cohesion

When Rafael Schwartz moved to Kuwait three years ago for work, he was hoping he’d be able to make quick trips to the fledgling Jewish community in the nearby United Arab Emirates every few weeks if he needed Jewish company or kosher food. But when COVID-19 struck two years ago, he found himself unable to travel.

“My intention was to leave once a month and go to Dubai, where there was a small Jewish community, but the pandemic changed all that and I never left Kuwait,” Schwartz, who is originally from the U.K., recently told The Circuit over Zoom.

Once the virus hit, traveling in and out of Kuwait, which sits at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, became difficult — and sometimes impossible, when the country closed its borders — and Schwartz soon found himself trying to keep up with his Jewish traditions in a country that does not officially recognize Israel and is known for its institutionalized, often pervasive, antisemitism. An engineer by trade, Schwartz told JI that while he has lived and worked in multiple countries with small or nonexistent Jewish residents, he still found himself yearning for Jewish community.

Then, in February 2021, something like a miracle happened. Spurred by the fall 2020 signing of the Abraham Accords, a set of normalization agreements between Israel and four Muslim-majority countries, the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities (AGJC) was born, connecting Jews in six Persian Gulf countries and providing a Jewish lifeline for people like Schwartz.

In that short time, the AGJC has become the backbone of Jewish life in the Gulf, primarily in the UAE and Bahrain — two of the signatories to the Abraham Accords — and has connected the sprinkling of Jews living and working in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The association estimates there are roughly 1,200 Jews residing in the Gulf, not including a further 1,000 serving there as part of the U.S. military. Among its activities, the organization has played a hand in the growing number of Jewish life-cycle events, helping to organize the region’s first bar mitzvah in 16 years and its first Jewish wedding in 52 years. It has also launched a Jewish dating website, a Beth Din of Arabia (Jewish religious court), and is currently in the process of creating an Arabian Kosher Certification Agency, which will set standards for kashrut throughout all six Gulf countries. The AGJC also offers weekly in-person and virtual programming, including a Friday pre-Shabbat Zoom and events around the holidays.

“There was a big Pesach turnout,” said Schwartz, who logged into the Zoom event from Kuwait. “One of the people who also joined was a Jewish lady from Kuwait City who has lived here for 40 years. She was curious about where to find matzah and the rabbi connected us so that we could meet.”

For indigenous Gulf Jews, such as Ebrahim Daoud Nonoo, AGJC’s president and the chairman of the board of trustees of the House of Ten Commandments, the Jewish community in Bahrain, the growing Jewish life is a welcome change.

“It is lovely,” Nonoo, whose family has lived in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, for more than 100 years, told JI. “The community is a very ancient one but until now we had to send our kids abroad to study, and the problem with that is that they don’t come back. So now we have a community that is growing older and older and there are no children.”

“We are a tiny community and the good thing we are seeing now is that we have a workable way to make Jewish life flourish in the country,” he continued. “The AGJC is a fantastic support for all the communities in the Gulf, allowing us to enjoy Jewish life not just from the point of view of kosher food or religious books, but we also have the input of a rabbi and we have used him for bar mitzvahs and weddings.”

Nonoo, who served as a member of Bahrain’s Shura Council (Upper House of Parliament) from 2001 to 2006, added, “We are in a much better place than before because we no longer need to go to Europe or the United States to find Jewish support, we can now get it from Dubai or we have it here in Bahrain.”

The more the Jewish community grows, said Nonoo, it will attract Jews from all over the world to live and work comfortably in the Gulf. And, he added, the presence of a Jewish community in countries where they were absent or invisible for so many decades is essential for outreach to local Muslim populations.

“It is really sad to see a Jewish community die, and we are bringing them back to life,” he said, adding that the synagogue often invites local Muslims to participate in services and events to learn about Judaism.

“When I arrived here a year ago, Jewish life in the Gulf was almost unknown,” Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie, the AGJC’s rabbi, said in an interview with JI. “It was barren land, but I could see that we could create an orchard and connect Jewish communities and individuals in all of the countries.”

Abadie, who was born in Lebanon and speaks fluent Arabic, said that the UAE and Bahrain are now “fully open” and embracing their Jewish communities, and he is hopeful that “Saudi Arabia will follow suit sooner rather than later, then Oman, Qatar, Kuwait — which will probably be the last the one to open, although there are some rumblings that people want to open up to Jews and Israel.”

Abadie said that the AGJC had connected with individual American Jewish soldiers stationed in Kuwait who have lived there for decades and are married to locals, as well as a few descendants of Jews who now live as Muslims.

“It feels really good watching this and, in a way, it makes you feel vindicated that finally Arab countries have come to realize that either persecuting or expelling their Jews was a historical mistake and now they want to correct that and welcome the Jews back,” he said. “I hope and pray that we will see even more events for the Jewish community in these countries and that more Jews will either go to settle there or come out of the closet, so to speak.”

Canada’s ambassador to the UAE is celebrating Jewish life in the Emirates

When Marcy Grossman celebrated Hanukkah in the United Arab Emirates last year, it was a subdued, underground affair.

“It was basically like 75 people in a residence, we lit candles, ate latkes, that was it,” said Grossman, who has served as Canada’s ambassador to the UAE since October 2019. The gathering was held in what was known as “the villa,” Dubai’s secret, unmarked synagogue. But this year, just a few months after the signing of the Abraham Accords codifying peace between Israel and the UAE, the celebrations reached another dimension.

“It’s a different world,” Grossman told Jewish Insider in a video interview from Abu Dhabi on the seventh night of Hanukkah. “I was in Dubai last week for the start of Hanukkah… there were three major Hanukkah celebrations to choose from, there was a 12-foot menorah put up in front of Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, there was ‘Sevivon’ [the dreidel song] being sung in the streets, there were kippot, there was kosher food — it’s just unbelievable, really,” she added. “And it just keeps growing.”

Grossman, a career officer with the Canadian Foreign Service, first arrived in the UAE in 2018, as Canada’s consul general to Dubai. A native of Montreal, Grossman received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from Carleton University in Ottawa. She got her start in public service in the Correctional Service of Canada before joining the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2001. Since then, Grossman has served in a series of diplomatic postings in the United States including Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles and Denver.

After close to 20 years in the U.S., Grossman was ready for a change — and grateful when one came her way.

“Dubai was really calling to me, I don’t know why,” she told JI. “I was really thrilled when I got matched to Dubai. I like to say that Dubai picked me.”

With two decades of foreign postings under her belt, Grossman speaks with the smooth, practiced cadence of a longtime diplomat. But she also exudes a warmth and intimacy — as well as an evident passion and ambition for her life’s work. Her lively Twitter feed, meanwhile, showcases her activities, travels and her well-documented affinity for unicorns.

While her primary role as an ambassador is promoting the bilateral relationship between Canada and the UAE — with a focus on boosting trade ties — both Grossman and Ottawa have additional goals on their agenda.

“Canada actually has a platform on feminist foreign policy, looking at all aspects of trade, development, foreign policy through a gender lens,” Grossman said. “And that is something that is really important to my platform here.” Canada, she pointed out, has reached gender parity in its foreign service, noting that the current Canadian ambassadors to Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco are all female.

And she was prepared for a certain level of culture shock in the Emirates — admitting that her first foreign posting in Dallas provided quite a jolt to her Canadian sensibilities.

“I had no idea what to expect when I was coming to the UAE,” recalled Grossman. “I didn’t know how I was going to be received, I didn’t know what it was like to be a woman in the UAE… I was wondering what it was going to be like as a Jewish woman here.”

Grossman noted that she is in the minority in the UAE as a female ambassador, as around 90% of the envoys posted in Abu Dhabi are male — something she said is fairly in line with worldwide trends. And though she never publicly advertised her Judaism, “my name speaks volumes.” But any reservations she had before arriving were quickly assuaged.

“In 2018, I actually thought it was a bold move for my government to send a Jewish female envoy… and I thought it was a very bold move for the UAE to warmly welcome me,” she said. “I’ve always felt very, very, very warmly welcomed here and respected. There’s never been any antisemitism.”

Beth Hirshfeld, president of the Canada-UAE Business Council, told JI that Grossman hit the ground running when she arrived in Dubai two years ago.

“I met H.E. Marcy Grossman on her first day in the UAE when she dropped off her luggage, changed into a ballgown, and, jet-lagged, headed out to a Business Council Gala supporting Canada-UAE trade,” said Hirshfeld. “I think that this sums up Ambassador Grossman very well — energetic, engaged, always willing to help out, and incredibly passionate about building the relationship between Canada and the UAE. This, paired with her down-to-earth, caring and charismatic personality has made her both a pleasure to work with and a wonderful leader.”

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Within a few months of arriving in Dubai in 2018, Grossman sought to track down the local Jewish community, which at the time was operating largely under the radar.

“I had heard there was a Jewish community but I did not know anyone in it, and anyone from it, and I had no idea how to find it,” Grossman recalled. After making a few calls, she managed to connect with the organizers of the home-based synagogue and was able to attend gatherings, “but it was still very quiet, and very subdued.”

Things started to change in 2019, she said, which the UAE declared its “Year of Tolerance,” during which issues of “pluralism and religious diversity really came to the forefront.” That was also the year the UAE announced the creation of the “Abrahamic Family House,” a still-in-progress complex in Abu Dhabi slated to eventually house a mosque, synagogue and church.

“As soon as that happened I realized that something really was moving,” she said. And with the announcement of the Abraham Accords a year later, the local Jewish community transformed from secret and underground to public and vocal.

“I can’t even tell you how many Jewish Canadians, Jewish Israeli-Canadians have reached out to me and talked to me about wanting to come here,” Grossman said. “It’s just really incredible. It’s just been nonstop.”

The announcement of the Israel-UAE normalization deal in August, Grossman said, was shocking but not surprising.

“I don’t think there was anybody other than a few people who actually knew what was the best kept secret,” she said. “It was a huge shock to everyone, to everyone in the diplomatic community, to everyone around the world. It was a very, very closely held secret,” she added. “I was surprised at the announcement, but I wasn’t surprised that it happened. I knew that things were moving in that direction.”

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, a native of Montreal who has served as the non-resident chief rabbi of the UAE since last year, told JI that he has been impressed by Grossman’s commitment to public service.

“Amb. Grossman has always had a unique sense of purpose and mission. She is aware of her unicorn status — Ashkenazi Jewish woman of power in the Arab world — and approaches it with dignity and responsibility,” said Sarna. “Her spirituality, values, and sense of community should make every Jew and every Canadian proud.”

Grossman told JI that she always hoped — but never quite imagined — that she would occupy a front row seat to Middle East peace. “I joined the Foreign Service 20 years ago always with a view in mind of somehow making a contribution to peace in the Middle East,” she said. “I didn’t know how that was going to transpire, I certainly never expected it to happen in the UAE. I feel so blessed and so honored to actually be here at this time.”

The ambassador said she has been blown away by the number of Israelis who have flooded into the Emirates over the past month alone — with some estimates of more than 50,000 tourists. And she believes that once COVID-19 restrictions are eventually lifted that figure will skyrocket.

“I think the next big milestone and the next larger momentum is going to be Expo 2020,” the global exhibition that was originally planned for Dubai this year and delayed due to COVID until October 2021. “We’ll see a lot more people around Expo.”

In the interim, however, Israeli tourism will likely slow down, after Israel’s Health Ministry mandated Dubai switch from a “green destination” to a “red destination” — mandating quarantine for returnees — as of Dec. 26.

But Grossman is optimistic about the many new opportunities that are continually developing.

“It’s just amazing how warm and welcoming the peace has been and how many people have come here,” she said, opening up “some really, really interesting new ways of working,” pointing to a hockey game in Dubai over the weekend between the UAE’s Mighty Camels and Israel’s Bat Yam Chiefs — during which Grossman dropped the ceremonial first puck.

“It’s an opportunity for Canada to not only support sports diplomacy, but also to continue to… move the peace agenda forward any way we can,” she added, “whether it’s economically or by cultural diplomacy or sports diplomacy or initiatives around peace and security. It’s just amazing how these opportunities have presented themselves.”

The past few months, Grossman said, have also opened up a world of new — and old — connections.

Michal Divon, an Israeli journalist based in New York, has visited the UAE multiple times since the Abraham Accords were signed earlier this year. But her family has known Grossman for many years — since Divon’s father, Haim Divon, served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada while Michal was in high school.

“I started a peace camp for Israeli and Palestinian youth back then and Marcy has always been an enormous advocate for peace,” Divon told JI. “When the Abraham Accords were signed Marcy reached out to me and we’ve been in close contact ever since,” she added. “She has been instrumental in helping the Jewish community in Dubai and has a very important role every week — reciting the prayer for the leadership and people of the UAE. It’s very unique.”

And Grossman has also been gaining fans in Israel as ties and initiatives open up.

Knesset Member Michal Cotler-Wunsh, who grew up in Montreal and is the stepdaughter of former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, told JI that Grossman embodies the values of “tolerance, coexistence, equality, and peace” and is “committed to furthering them in the region and beyond.”

“Her vision and leadership in engaging and connecting to Judaism and Israel, enabling decision makers to engage with our peers and the Jewish community in the UAE, is the cornerstone of realizing the potential of these historic times,” added Cotler-Wunsh, a lawmaker with Blue and White, “and is important to forging new relationships, women’s empowerment, and cultivating lasting people-to-people peace.”

Grossman, who said her most recent visit to Israel was seven or eight years ago to celebrate her son’s bar mitzvah, is eager to return now that direct flights have opened up.

“Now that direct flights are happening I’m really excited and hoping — as soon as travel opens up — that’s going to be my first trip.”