Jews in Dubai

afz - I wish that was true but I'm afraid that it isn't. The dislike of Israel sometimes blurs into a dislike of all Jews. I would probably not put it on a residency visa (since we are from a country where no paperwork is required for a visit visa that is not an issue - I suspect it would not be a problem on a visit visa).

In the UAE the locals do tend to have difficulty distinguising "Jew" from "Israeli"...

But I am pretty sure that they wouldn't recognise a name as being Jewish per se.... for example, an American might assume that a surname like Bernstein or Seinfeld is Jewish, but an Emirati would not.

As for dsicrmination in every day life- not a chance. Dubai in particular is a massive melting pit of nationalities, cultures and religions and as a expat no one would discriminate.

Do you have children? If so, when enrolling them in school you must nominate a religion on the application form and there are only three options: Hindu, Muslim or Christian. No option to put 'none' or 'other' or even Buddism for that matter.

I would not agree that Dubai is a Melting Pot of nationalities . It is a Multi-Cultural City but the different cultures do not integrate in the same way as say London or New York,And there is huge discrimination - wages very much depend on a persons passport not their qualifications.

They might recognise Eliezer Ben Israel as a Jewish name.

Joking there, but my name is very obviously Jewish. My wife is Muslim so she would be putting Islam down as the religion for school but thinking out loud I'm not having my daughter educated in a Muslim school in Dubai so that rules out the move anyway.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to put in their thoughts.

Unless your last name is 'Israel' or 'Yahudi' there are no names that will be recognized as "very obviously Jewish" in the Emirates.

You don't have to have your daughter educated in a Muslim school either, there are dozens of international schools without sectarian curricula. (In fact, any decent job will include the tuition.)

Afz - that is true. But a Muslim friend of mine who felt the same way was required to educate her daughter in a Muslim school. None of the other schools would accept her even though English was the language of her home and both of her parents had college degrees from the US. No one ever directly said it was because she was Muslim; but I think that was a large part of it. It may have been different if she was US or UK born (or a citizen of them) ; but it greatly frustrated her.

PS. This friend (who was educated in the US) was the only one who ever recognized Friedman as a Jewish name.

Hi, I'm an orthodox Jew and my company wants to transfer me to dubai.

Will I be able to have kosher food and I hear above (susan) that there is a possibility of a minyan....

any info on judaism in the gulf region?

thanks

#16
AFAIK, the only organized indigenous Jewish community in the Gulf region is in Bahrain's capital, Manama.
There may be an expat Jewish presence in Dubai, but I know nothing about it. I'd suggest gleaning information from a Dubai expat forum on the web.

As far as indigenous Jews go, I think in Manama there are 12 of them or something like that, definitely in the low two digits. There are tens of thousands of expat Jews working in Dubai and throughout the Gulf, but virtually none of them are Orthodox. I very much doubt you'd be able to get kosher meat.

I think there's about 30-40 Jewish people in Bahrain. The Bahraini Ambassador to the US comes from the Jewish community of Bahrain.

I don't even think the Jewish community in Manama is organized anymore. Several years ago I remember reading that they were no longer able to have a minyan anymore and the synagogue closed.