DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (PA) – It was a scene that just a few months ago would have been inconceivable. While Emiratis, dressed in white clothes and hairstyles, watched, the Israeli bride and groom were lifted on the shoulders of men wearing caps and transported to the dance floor, where dozens joined the crowd swinging and singing in Hebrew.
Noemie Azerad and Simon David Benhamou did not just throw a somewhat normal wedding in the middle of a pandemic that closed their country and devastated the world. They enjoyed Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which – like most of the Arab world – had been banned from holders of Israeli passports for decades.
The pair were among tens of thousands of Israelis who approached the United Arab Emirates in December, after the two countries normalized ties in a major negotiated deal with the United States.
Israel’s latest virus-induced blockade, which began earlier this week, has temporarily chilled the fever of travel. But Israelis with troubled holiday plans, now locked up at home, hope vaccination campaigns will help limit the outbreak and make travel to Dubai possible again.
The bait in Dubai, the mall with skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates, with sandy beaches and marble malls, has already proved strong. Lots of Israeli tourists looking for fun and relief from viral restrictions for months and unaware of their government’s warnings about possible Iranian attacks in the region, they celebrated weddings, the mitzvah bar and the eight-day Hanukkah Jewish festival, with large gatherings forbidden at home.
“I expected to feel very uncomfortable here,” said Azerad, a 25-year-old Israeli bride in the hotel’s ballroom, bathed in the glow of Dubai’s bright skyline. But all of her favorite wedding destinations have announced tough restrictions on gatherings to check the spread of the virus. Dubai has 200 parties.
Not wanting to delay the wedding, the choice was obvious.
“I feel it’s Tel Aviv,” Azerad said of Dubai. “I hear Hebrew everywhere.”
Her French father, Igal Azerad, said she always hid her cap in her pocket for fear of being attacked on the streets of Paris. But in Dubai, the sight of his kippah causes Emiratis to come and call me “Shalom,” he said.
The dizzying pace of normalization astonished even skeptics. Despite the countries’ long-standing secret ties, the United Arab Emirates had considered Israel a political pariah during the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The modest Jewish expatriate community of the seven sheikhs kept a low profile and prayed in an unmarked villa.
But the arrival of 70,000 Israeli tourists, according to travel agency estimates, on 15 non-stop daily flights in December has changed everything. A 12-foot (3.5-meter) Hanukkah chandelier appeared beneath the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, where Jews gathered to light candles and take selfies, while Jewish festive songs erupted. over the massive fountain in the city center.
The stealthy Friday night mass of the Jewish community turned into holidays at two cavernous banquet halls with spillover chairs for Israeli visitors. “Made in Israel” signs have appeared in Dubai’s food and alcohol chain, which now sells 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 will be labeled as Israeli products, according to a Dubai-based product company.
On social media, a trip to the United Arab Emirates has become a status symbol for Israelis posting photos with them in Dubai. A dozen hotels in the city say they have booked thousands of Israeli travelers and hosted a series of Israeli business conferences, holiday parties and weddings for several days. Israeli singers have planned concerts for spring. Kosher catering companies in the UK and elsewhere have set up shop in the UAE. Plans are underway to launch the country’s first Jewish cemetery and a ritual bath known as the mikvah, according to Rabbi Mendel Duchman, who is helping lead the country’s Jewish Community Center.
“It was incredible, it was a tsunami,” said Mark Feldman, head of Ziontours in Jerusalem, noting Israel’s contrast to Israel’s “cold peace” with Egypt and Jordan. “Dubai has become an oasis for Israelis in the midst of a pandemic.”
For weeks in December, the only other countries where Israelis could land without a 14-day quarantine on return were Rwanda and Seychelles. Dubai has remained open for business and tourism, with few restrictions beyond social distance inside and masks outside. Guests at weddings and other gatherings often do not wear masks.
Even as Israelis watch the warm embrace of their hosts, very little has been heard about the 180-degree UAE crossing of 1 million citizens, who are given free housing, education and health care, and tend to isolate themselves from the vast expatriate of their country. population. The hereditary rulers of the sheikh suppress dissent. Even dramatic political decisions are met with agreement.
Ahmed al-Mansoori, a director of the emirate’s museum who welcomed dozens of Israeli visitors to his collection of ancient maps and manuscripts, including a 4th-century Torah scroll, acknowledged “some cultural misunderstandings among non-native peoples. -they’ve really been busy before. “
“Each emirate has its own psychology in this regard,” he said when asked about reversing the policy that Palestinians see as a betrayal of their search for a state on Israeli-occupied land.
However, he noted that Dubai, a city fueled by millions of workers in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, easily absorbs waves of expatriates, including from countries embroiled in bitter fighting.
Despite initial concerns about Iranian threats and the diplomatic consequences of non-behaving tourists, travel agents say there were only minor hiccups. Several Israeli tourists were stranded in sand dunes while driving quads, prompting a rescue mission by a government helicopter, said Privilege Tourism owner Yaniv Stainberg. Some have been arrested for photographing a mosque, he added. Others have been accused of kissing in public, a crime punishable under the United Arab Emirates’ Islamic legal system with imprisonment.
But as the virus rose in Israel and photos of disappointed parties in Dubai penetrated social media, Israeli ministries of health and foreign affairs would discuss whether to classify the UAE as an area with high infections that would require a quarantine upon arrival in Israel and can destroy the new courtship of the countries.
In a few days, the idea was debatable. Israel entered the third blockade on Sunday. By then, the newlyweds, Azerad and Benhamou, had returned home.
“COVID has really hindered us, it is unfortunate for all the new friends in the region we want to meet,” said Eliav Benjamin, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, referring to the recent recent normalization agreements. Israel with Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. “Vaccines, however, will change the game.”