In the heart of Dubai, Rabbi Elie Abadie walks through the streets in his black kippah and tallit without fear, a sight once unthinkable in the Arab world. The Abraham Accords made it possible, but the war in Gaza has exposed how fragile that openness remains.
For Abadie, the Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community in the Gulf, the moment is deeply personal. Born in Beirut to a family that fled persecution, he has spent a lifetime crossing borders: from Lebanon to Mexico, New York to Dubai, carrying one enduring belief: that the children of Abraham can still live side by side.
From Beirut to Exile
Abadie was born in Beirut to a Jewish family of Syrian origin. “Life seemed normal on the surface,” he recalls, “but caution was our daily rule.”
After Syria’s independence in 1946 and Israel’s creation two years later, hostility toward Jews intensified. His mother and sisters fled to Lebanon, while his father stayed behind in Damascus, hoping tensions would ease. “But the danger grew,” Abadie says. “A friend who worked on the railway hid my father in a freight car. Before reaching the border, he told him, ‘Jump now.’ My father jumped and walked for hours until he reached my mother in Aley, in Mount Lebanon.”
In the 1950s, Lebanon’s Jewish population numbered between 20,000 and 25,000, a vibrant but wary community. “We had schools and synagogues,” Abadie says, “but we lived with increasing fear as regional tensions rose.”
He calls those years a time of “silent pressure.”
“We never wore the kippah in public,” he says. “My father used to warn: one word could spark anger.”
As Palestinian factions entered Lebanon and Syrian influence expanded, even that fragile sense of safety began to crumble. “By the early 1970s, the security we once knew was gone. Families began to leave.”
A Letter to Mexico
In 1965, Abadie’s brother left for Mexico. Years later, their mother wrote to him: “Save us. You must get us out.”
“No country would take us as refugees,” Abadie says. “But my brother contacted the Mexican government, which sent us travel documents. We left Lebanon in 1971.”
Abadie was ten. “I spoke Arabic, French, and Hebrew,” he says. “At the Jewish school in Mexico, I was the new kid. They used unkind words, but I learned Spanish and adapted.”
The Jewish community there was largely of Lebanese and Syrian origin. “We fit in easily, we shared the same language, customs, even cuisine,” he says. Yet differences with Ashkenazi Jews were clear. “It starts with pronunciation; Ashkenazim can’t pronounce the letter حاء’. Even food differs, we eat rice on Passover, they don’t.”
Smiling, he adds, “Jews aren’t one group. We are peoples with many cultures and dialects.”
But class distinctions persisted. “Some Ashkenazi Jews looked down on Eastern Jews from Lebanon and Syria. I tried to change that through dialogue and education, to show them that Eastern Jews are the original Jews, rooted here since the time of Abraham and David. We never left the Middle East. We carry Judaism’s earliest traditions, and its Arab culture.”
The Doctor Who Became a Rabbi
From childhood, Abadie wanted to be a doctor. “I had asthma and used to say, if only we had a doctor in the family.”
After moving to Mexico, he was accepted at a top national university, but it required Saturday attendance. “I refused,” he says. “Then I found Yeshiva University in New York, which allowed both study and religious observance, so I went there.”
However, the school barred foreigners from its medical program. “My professor advised me to study rabbinics first, gain citizenship, then apply to medicine. I did three years of rabbinical studies, married an American woman, then studied medicine. I served as a rabbi in a congregation of Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian Jews.”
From New York to the Gulf
In New York, Abadie says, he experienced true religious freedom for the first time. “There are nearly two million Jews there. I finally felt free.”
His connection to the Gulf began earlier than expected. “In 2010, during a trip to Andalusia, I was explaining the history of interfaith coexistence,” he says. “A participant told me, ‘There’s an Arab country today that wants to revive that model: the UAE.’”
He began meeting Emirati visitors at his Manhattan synagogue, showing them old Jewish books written in Arabic. “They were fascinated,” he recalls. “That’s how genuine friendships began.”
In 2019, before the Abraham Accords were signed, he presented a Torah scroll as a gift to the late Sheikh Zayed’s memory and met Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. “It was a warm meeting,” he says. “He told me something I’ll never forget: ‘Welcome. We are brothers.’”
From Secrecy to Openness
Before the accords, the Jewish community in the UAE numbered fewer than 200, praying discreetly in a private villa. “Our gatherings weren’t exactly secret, but they weren’t public either,” Abadie says. “After the accords, everything changed. We were asked to become an official community, and I was chosen as its rabbi and president.”
He describes the transformation: “Before, no one wore the kippah in public. Afterward, we walked in our religious attire, receiving smiles and hearing, ‘Welcome, we’re glad you’re here.’ It was a symbolic turning point, fear replaced by public respect.”
Since then, holidays and ceremonies have been held openly, attended by government and community figures. “In 2021, a Jewish child in a Gulf school proudly declared his faith,” Abadie says. “I was deeply moved, what that child did publicly, I couldn’t do in Lebanon.”
Faith as a Bridge
A photo of Abadie speaking in a UAE mosque once stirred controversy. He shrugs it off. “We invited imams and sheikhs to the synagogue and celebrated together,” he says. “We are all children of Abraham. Religion should not be walls; it should be bridges.”
“In my view,” he adds, “about 80 percent of Jewish and Islamic teachings are similar, belief in one just and capable God. The differences lie mostly in practice.”
He recalls the first Jewish wedding held in the UAE. “It was deeply emotional. In an Arab country that hadn’t seen such an event in a century, we held a public wedding and prayed aloud without fear. I cried, realizing that what was closed a hundred years ago was opening again.”
Then, smiling: “I believe that three-quarters of the world’s Jews, except those living in Israel, could find their future in the Arab world. The Middle East can once again be a natural home for Jews, as it was for centuries.”
Between War and Coexistence
Abadie says Jewish presence in the Gulf is now tangible. “Economic and trade cooperation is real; exchange between the UAE and Israel exceeds $1 billion a year.”
But he admits anxiety since the Gaza war. “Our community shrank from about 2,000 to roughly 1,000 members,” he says. “Globally, antisemitism surged, with attacks on synagogues in Europe and the U.S. So we’ve returned to a phase of caution and coordinate with authorities to secure places of worship.”
He calls the Jewish experience in the UAE “unique but not solitary.” “Bahrain has a long-established, respected community, and there are Jews working in Saudi Arabia. We hope conditions will soon allow an official community there.”
As for whether Israel’s September strike on Qatar might affect the Abraham Accords or the peace process, Abadie says: “I don’t think it will have a fundamental impact. Every country has its own political calculations and must condemn such actions and express its stance clearly.”
Faith and Politics
On religion and politics, Abadie says: “Politics is mostly driven by interest, that’s what weakens the chances for peace. If politicians focused on the welfare of their people, peace would have been achieved long ago.”
“Many politicians don’t truly understand religion,” he adds. “They use scripture to serve their agendas. Even when we clarify that this isn’t what faith teaches, they don’t listen, it doesn’t serve their interests.”
– How can that change?
“Both sides must genuinely believe in peace,” he says. “If one side seeks the other’s destruction, peace is impossible. Any path that stops bloodshed is the best for all.”
A Father’s Memory
As the conversation ends, Abadie returns to his father’s memory. “He died more than thirty years ago. I wish he had lived to see me return to an Arab country as Chief Rabbi, welcomed with respect. He lived through exile and persecution, his property confiscated. Today, others have opened their doors to us with kindness.”
He pauses. “I believe he sees it now from heaven, and that his soul rejoices in this human encounter between Muslims and Jews, the children of Abraham.”
From Beirut to Dubai, from fear to hope, Elie Abadie’s journey spans exile and renewal, a bridge between memory and coexistence. For him, faith is not slogans but simple human gestures: a public prayer after years of fear, or a photograph of an imam, a priest, and a rabbi standing hand in hand
Huda Boukili
Huda Boukili, an award-winning Moroccan investigative journalist based in the United States, holds a master’s degree in journalism and Institutional Media from the Higher Institute of Information and Communication in Rabat and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh.
