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Israel officially announces finding the body of the missing rabbi in the Emirates

World| 24 November, 2024 - 3:24 PM

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Israel officially announced on Sunday that the body of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, who had been missing since Thursday in the United Arab Emirates, had been found.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Sunday that an Israeli missing in the UAE had been found murdered, calling his killing "a heinous anti-Semitic act of terrorism."

Zvi Kogan, a representative of the Chabad Jewish movement in the Emirates, has been missing since Thursday.

"The State of Israel will use all means at its disposal to bring the criminals responsible for his murder to justice," the statement from Netanyahu's office said.

The UAE's foreign ministry has yet to comment on the news that the body of Kogan, who also holds Moldovan citizenship, has been found. Chabad's office in the UAE declined to comment.

Chabad focuses on building relationships with non-Chabad Jews, secular Jews, and other Jewish communities. Its website for the UAE branch shows it supports thousands of Jewish visitors and residents there.

Israeli authorities have reissued a recommendation against non-essential travel to the UAE, saying residents there should limit their movements, stay in safe areas and avoid visiting businesses, gathering places and entertainment venues associated with Israel and Jews.

The presence of the Israeli and Jewish community in the Emirates has been public since 2020, when the Gulf state became the most prominent Arab country to establish formal relations with Israel in 30 years under a US-brokered deal in 2020, as part of the so-called Abraham Accords.

The UAE maintained this relationship during the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip.

However, the overall presence of Israelis and Jews in the UAE has appeared to decline since a Hamas-led cross-border attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. Protests swept across the world in the wake of the war.

Unofficial synagogues in Dubai were closed after the Oct. 7 attack due to security concerns, members of the Jewish community told Reuters, and Jews gather in small groups in each other's homes for prayers and Shabbat rituals.

The UAE's only government-sanctioned synagogue remained open in Abu Dhabi, the country's capital. There are no official synagogues in Dubai, the UAE's largest city and commercial hub.

There are no official statistics on the number of Jews or Israelis living in the country, but estimates by Jewish groups put the community at several thousand.

Jews have lived in the UAE for decades and largely practiced their faith out of sight until 2019, when the government began publicly acknowledging their presence.

Source: Agencies

| Keywords: Rabbi| UAE| Jews|Israel

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