It is the first time that emissaries  are being sent to a Jewish community in an Arab country.

For the first time the World Zionist Organization(WZO) is sending permanent emissaries to the Jewish community in Dubai, the first to serve in an Arab country.

The decision on normalizing relations between Israel and UAE has boosted this move and it was also raised during the recent visit of the Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi led by Meir Ben Shabbat, head of Israel’s National Security Council .

WZO Chairman Avraham Duvdevani called the move an ‘’important milestone in the history of the Zionist Movement through all its years of existence.’’ ‘’We will continue to operate in every way to strengthen the connection between the State of Israel and Jewish communities in the diaspora and to strengthen the Jewish identity of our people throughout the world, including tiny dispersed communities,” he added.

The World Zionist Organization that has a framework of hundreds of emissaries worldwide, including in small, dispersed communities has over the past few months been in touch with the  Jewish community in Dubai.

Within this framework The World Zionist Organization has acceded to a request from The Orthodox Union of Jewish Congregations of America(OU)to send emissaries for the first time to Dubai’s Jewish community.During this period the World Zionist Organization has been  preparing the emissaries who were chosen for their mission.

For this unique task a young married couple, Yaacov and Zolty Eisenstein were chosen to be the pioneer emissaries.They will establish and run a Jewish kindergarten,they will teach about the Heritage of the Jewish People and Israel.They will also establish an Ulpan for learning of Hebrew and will organize community events around the Jewish festivals.They will  already begin working in time for the Jewish Festivals of the month of Tishre.

The emissaries are part of the “Ben Ami ” program of the Center for Religious Affairs in the Diaspora of the WZO, which has 36 emissaries operating in 23 countries.Most of these Jewish communities are small and dispersed.

These are the first emissaries that are being sent to a Jewish community in an Arab country.