DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – It was a scene that would have been unimaginable a few months ago. As Emiratis in billowing white robes and headdresses watched, the Israeli bride and groom were hoisted onto the shoulders of skullcap-wearing groomsmen and carried to the dance floor, where dozens joined the crowd, waving and singing in Hebrew.
Noemie Azerad and Simon David Benhamou didn’t just throw a somewhat normal wedding celebration in the midst of a pandemic that has shut down their country and devastated the world. They enjoyed themselves in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which – like most of the Arab world – had been off limits to Israeli passport holders for decades.
The pair were among the tens of thousands of Israelis who came to the UAE in December after the two countries normalized ties in a breakthrough US-brokered deal.
Israel’s latest virus-induced lockdown, which began earlier this week, temporarily cooled the travel fever. But Israelis with stranded vacation plans, now stuck at home, hope vaccination campaigns will help contain the outbreak and make Dubai travel possible again soon.
The appeal of Dubai, the UAE’s skyscraper-strewn commercial center with sandy beaches and marbled shopping malls, has already proved powerful. Dozens of Israeli tourists, seeking revelry and relief from month-long virus restrictions, and undaunted by their government’s warnings about possible Iranian attacks in the region, weddings, bar mitzvahs and the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah have been celebrated with large gatherings that are prohibited at home.
“I expected to feel really uncomfortable here,” said Azerad, the Israeli bride, 25, from the hotel’s ballroom, bathed in the glow of the glittering Dubai skyline. But all of her favorite wedding destinations announced strict restrictions on meetings to stop the spread of the virus. Dubai closes parties at 200.
Not wanting to postpone the wedding, the choice was obvious.
“I feel like it’s Tel Aviv,” Azerad said of Dubai. “I hear Hebrew everywhere.”
Her French father, Igal Azerad, said he always hides his skullcap in his pocket for fear of assault on the streets of Paris. But in Dubai, the sight of his kippah “prompts Emiratis to tell me ‘Shalom’,” he said.
The dizzying pace of normalization has stunned even the skeptics. Despite the countries’ long secret ties, the UAE viewed Israel as a political pariah in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The modest expatriate Jewish community in the federation of seven sheikdoms remained unobtrusive, praying in an unmarked villa.
But the arrival of 70,000 Israeli tourists on 15 nonstop daily flights in December, according to travel agents estimates, changed everything. A 3.5-meter Hanukkah candlestick appeared beneath the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, where Jews gathered to light the candles and take selfies as festive Hebrew songs echoed across the huge downtown fountain.
The Jewish community’s furtive Friday night Shabbat meal has been transformed into celebrations in two cavernous banquet halls with overflow seats for Israeli visitors. Made in Israel signs have surfaced in Dubai’s supermarket and liquor stores, now selling wine from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Wine, honey and tahini from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank will hit shelves in the coming weeks and be labeled as products of Israel, according to a Dubai-based commodities company.
On social media, a trip to the UAE has become a status symbol for Israelis exhibiting photos of themselves in Dubai. A dozen or so hotels in the city say they have booked thousands of Israeli travelers and hosted a series of Israeli business conferences, holiday parties and day-long weddings. Israeli singers have scheduled concerts for the spring. Kosher catering companies from the UK and elsewhere have settled in the UAE. According to Rabbi Mendel Duchman, who helps run the country’s Jewish community center, there are plans to break down the country’s first Jewish burial ground and ritual bath, known as a mikvah.
“It was incredible, it was a tsunami,” said Mark Feldman, head of the Jerusalem-based Ziontours, noting the contrast to Israel’s “cold peace” with Egypt and Jordan. “Dubai became an oasis for Israelis in the midst of the pandemic.”
For weeks in December, Rwanda and Seychelles were the only other countries where Israelis could land without 14 days of home quarantine upon return. Dubai has remained open to business and tourism, with some restrictions beyond indoor social distance and outdoor masks. Guests at weddings and other gatherings often do not wear masks.
Even as Israelis growl at the warm embrace of their hosts, very little has been heard about the UAE’s 180 degree shift of its 1 million citizens, who receive free housing, education and health care and tend to secede from the huge expat of their country. population. The sheik’s hereditary rulers repress dissent. Even dramatic political decisions are met with approval.
Ahmed al-Mansoori, an Emirates museum director who has welcomed dozens of Israeli visitors to his collection of ancient maps and manuscripts, including a fourth century Torah scroll, acknowledged “ some cultural misunderstandings among populations that have not really addressed each other. . “
“Every Emirati has their own psychology on this,” he said when asked about the policy reversal that the Palestinians see as a betrayal of their quest for a state on Israeli-occupied land.
But he noted that Dubai, a city powered by millions of workers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, easily absorbs waves of expatriates, including from countries in bitter conflict with each other.
Despite initial concerns about Iranian threats and diplomatic repercussions from misbehaving tourists, travel agents say only minor hiccups have occurred. A few Israeli tourists got stuck in sand dunes while racing quad bikes, leading to an extensive rescue mission by a government helicopter, said Yaniv Stainberg, owner of Privilege Tourism. Some were arrested for taking pictures outside a mosque, he added. Others were berated for kissing in public, a crime punishable by the UAE’s Islamic legal system with imprisonment.
But when the virus surfaced in Israel and photos of raucous unmasked parties in Dubai splashed onto social media, Israel’s Ministries of Health and Foreign Affairs were reportedly debating whether to classify the UAE as a high-volume area. contamination, which would require quarantine upon arrival in Israel, might disrupt the countries’ new courtship.
Within days, the point was disputed. Israel entered its third lockdown on Sunday. By then the newlyweds, Azerad and Benhamou, had returned home.
“COVID has really hindered us, it is a shame for all the new friends in the region we want to meet,” said Eliav Benjamin, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, referring to Israel’s other recent normalization agreements with Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. “Vaccines will be a game changer, though.”