Dubai to Host First Jewish Studies Conference

In a first for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Jewish studies conference was held in Dubai on Wednesday. The event was organized by Yeshiva University out of New York in partnership with the Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities. It was held at the Crossroads of Civilizations Museum in Dubai.

The focus of the historic event was to promote dialogue and an atmosphere of mutual respect between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. The title of the conference was “Interacting philosophies, shared friendships.”

The Emiratis normalized relations with the Jewish state in 2020 in the ground-breaking Abraham Accords. The Jewish studies event focused on the intersection between Islam and Judaism and the mutual historical influences between the two religions.

The conference highlighted the teachings of Moses Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher and scholar in the Middle Ages who lived in a world where Judaism and Islam often crossed paths. Maimonides was born in 1138 in Cordoba, Spain and died in 1204 in Egypt—a prolific and revered Torah scholar who lived most of his life in close proximity to the Muslim world.

The UAE is leading the way among the Muslim Arab world in promoting tolerance and a peaceful co-existence with their Jewish neighbors. The Emiratis are the first Muslim nation to institute Holocaust education into its school curriculum.

“In the wake of the historic Abraham Accords, the UAE will now include the Holocaust in the curriculum for primary and secondary schools,” the UAE Embassy announced earlier this year.