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30 Av, 5780 - August 20, 2020 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
A Rabbi in the United Arab Emirates

By Yisrael Rosner

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna
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On Erev Chanukah, the Foreign Minister of the Emirates, Abdallah bin Zaid el Nahian, chose to publish an article which appeared in a British news weekly. Ostensibly, routine stuff, except that the column dealt with relations being cemented between Israel and the Gulf Emirates. It bore the heading, "An Arab-Israel agreement is being formulated in the Middle East."

The respected minister offered no further information and it was clear from this announcement that he wished to allude to something without being explicit. It was an elegant way of Abdallah bin Zaid, younger brother of Mohammed bin Zaid el Nahian, the strongman of the Emirates and considered to be the actual ruler, to wave a hand towards peace.

Several days later, on the 29th of Kislev, the fifth night of Chanukah, the official overseas representatives of the El Nahian family first demonstrated its good will, wishes and intentions to the Jewish nation. Emirate embassies in London, Paris and Washington, and including their consulate in New York, and raised a picture of a menorah while offering their blessings to the Jewish people on their festival.

It was the first official sign of relations developing between the Emirates and the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora. Some two months later, on Rosh Chodesh Adar, the `turnabout' was expressed when the United Emirates first openly recognized the existence of a Jewish community in the country, enabling it to observe its commandments and maintain religious rites in a free and public manner. This, again, was a gesture to the members of the Mosaic tradition.

In light of the agreement for relations between Israel and the Emirates, an agreement referred to as "The Agreement of Abraham" which is considered by the Emirates to be a pact between them and the Jews, descendants of Abraham, Yated Ne'eman interviewed the chief rabbi of the Emirates, Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, and heard all about the burgeoning Jewish community in Dubai, and facts about the Jews of the Persian Gulf.

Architect's drawing of Dubai shul at the Abrahamic Center
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Rabbi Sarna told us about the large new synagogue being built these days in Dubai to serve as a major Jewish center for the Persian Gulf area. Rabbi Sarna even disclosed why the government asked the architects and engineers of the project to learn the laws of succa and mikveh.

Rabbi Sarna, a talmid of Montreal's late and venerable Chief Rabbi, Rav Avrohom Dovid Niznik zt"l, was first invited to visit Abu Dhabi as a representative of New York University. One question disturbed him: "I told them that I made it a point to always wear a kippa and visible tzitzis and I was not prepared to change. Would it be safe enough for me to appear thus in public there? If so, I would be willing to go."

Rabbi Sarna serves as a chaplain in New York University. Eleven years ago, he was first invited to visit the Emirates. "I arrived in Abu Dhabi for the first time in 2009 to help establish an NYU campus there. In that very year, NYU also opened a campus in Tel Aviv. Since this was an international university, my position as a chaplain took on a global dimension. I have visited the Emirates once or twice a year since 2009 and sometimes, even more often. Each visit lasts about ten days," he said.

The sefer Torah cover in the Dubai shul has writing in Arabic
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We asked when he was officially appointed as rabbi of the community there. He said, "When the Jewish community first asked me to serve as their chief rabbi, I had no inkling that this would become official. I planned to focus mainly on relationships with the various Jewish organizations, like the rabbinical unions, kashrus organizations, botei din and others. Several months after my appointment, I was approached by Mrs. Lana Nosayeva, ambassador of the United Emirates in the U.N. (a daughter of a distinguished Moslem family from Beit Hanina in Jerusalem), asking me to participate in an assembly she was organizing to commemorate 50 years of an organization promoting cooperation between Moslem countries. The assembly hosted some 50 ambassadors from various countries, mostly, understandably, Moslem. She asked me to address the participants with a greeting.

"A few weeks before, Yussef el Utaiba, United Emirate's Minister of State and its ambassador in Washington, hosted me in his embassy in Washington, and presented me as the chief rabbi. This made international headlines, even though I refused to be interviewed by CNN and BBC. I was reluctant to focus attention on the Jewish community there for fear of negative repercussions. Blessings rest in what remains hidden from the public eye. Since then, I have met with other ambassadors throughout the world upon specific request of the Emirate government."

Are there additional activities with which you have been involved aside from being the international representative on the Emirate's behalf?

Rabbi Sarna reveals an interesting fact showing to what extent the Emirate government is interested in according full rights to the Jewish community, enabling its members to live according to its halachic precepts and tradition.

"I fill an active role in the scheme of `the Avrahamic Family Center' in the name of Avraham Avinu. This is a Jewish communal center expected to be completed by 2022, in time for the international exhibit scheduled to take place in Dubai, including several enterprises from the Cultural Ministry under the auspices of Nura el Kabi, Minister for International Activity. The exhibit gardens will spread over a huge area in central Dubai being constructed now.

"A huge synagogue will be built there, expected to be one of the most splendid in the Gulf area and even in the world at large. The government heads expressed an interesting request: they asked me to organize a seminar on the laws of succa and mikveh for the Arab architects and engineers of the project even before they began the actual planning and construction, since the building complex at the exhibit will include a mikveh and succa booths, which will be built with the supervision of Halachic experts. The government wanted the planners to better understand the significance of their work and to deflect any architectural problems which might crop up.

"This request clearly proved to me how important it was to the Emirate republic to please the Jewish community and show it proper respect and esteem."

The existing shul in Bahrain does not have a sefer Torah
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