As the Jewish community in the United Arab Emirates continues to grow following the country’s Abraham Accords agreement with Israel, a new kosher supermarket – the country’s first – has opened in Dubai.
The store, named Rimon, opened last night, marking an important milestone for the expanding community and a critical addition to Jewish life for locals and the many Jewish visitors from around the world by providing easy access to kosher produce throughout the year and curtailing the need for packing suitcases with kosher food.
The supermarket is located at Al Wasl, a 7-minute car ride from the Burj Khalifa.
The initiative to open a kosher supermarket in the UAE was spearheaded by Rabbi Levi Duchman and community members Sonia and Alec Sellem, with support and encouragement from local authorities.
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11 Responses
It’s so beautiful to see our Jewish brothers and sisters living in UAE. They now have a retail kosher food store. Kol hakavod to Chabad and their heroic shluchim.
Galus is great.
wait.. a kosher supermarket and its not called evergreen? can’t be!
stupid.
and are those people standing outside the shop supposed to be yidden?
they sure don’t look like yidden to me…
This bothers me for many reasons:
We should prioritize building Eretz Yisrael as a Jewish & Torah land; we should not be wasting our efforts to build-up a new galus [or galut] outside of Eretz Yisrael.
Until very recently, these people were our deadly-enemies, and their decision to accept Israel was NOT unanimous — many of them still do not accept Israel, and are not happy about Jews in their country.
If their government were overthrown, then Jews living there could easily become unwelcome and unsafe — literally overnight.
This place is literally in the middle of a desert.
If Jews are going to live in the middle of a desert, then that desert should be in Eretz Yisrael.
These are further signs Golus will soon end and we will be living in times of Moshiach. Please HaShem, make it soon, very soon!
I fully agree with @SQUARE_ROOT’s comment.
SQUARE_ROOT: “This bothers me for many reasons: We should prioritize building Eretz Yisrael as a Jewish & Torah land; we should not be wasting our efforts to build-up a new galus [or galut] outside of Eretz Yisrael.”
[and Baby Squirrel fully agrees].
I guess you must be also equally bothered by the growing communities of Monsey, Lakewood, BoroPark, Flatbush, Deal, Passaic etc etc etc.
Oh, but those Jewish cities are “your” type of communities, which you are proud of. “Your” type of communities deserves nice kosher food stores, and fancy kosher restaurants with gourmet glatt food. After all. you need a place to fress sushi and the latest foodie indulgences (of course l’kovid shabbos – l’shem shomayim, for the mitzva).
But, “those” communities shouldn’t be built up with the Jewish infrastructure of even a kosher food store – because “they” aren’t your type, not from your chevra, and “they” belong only in Eretz Yisroel.
Hypocrisy at it’s finest hour.
How quickly people forget the words of Chazal: “עתידה ארץ ישראל שתתפשט בכל הארצות”
ראה ספרי דברים בתחלתו. פס”ר פ’ שבת ור”ח. יל”ש ישעי’ רמז תקג. Yiddishkeit and our hashkofos are based on what Chazal say, not on personal one’s feeling and ideas based on סברת הבטן ואינה מבוססת כלל על קבלת חז”ל
@Rebbitzen_Goldenpick:
Firstly this is not a way to talk or to criticize what someone said as you are projecting and presuming that @SQUARE_ROOT “loves” the lifestyle of Boro Park or other places in golus America which he never said he did, and then accusing him of only criticizing the actions of Kehillos that aren’t “his type” to then label it hypocrisy; this is an assumption to make his opinion seem more illegitimate. Nothing that you said actually criticized the direct points he made.
Secondly, it is well known that expanding a Yiddishe Kehilla where Jews are already present and have been present for generations is entirely different from deliberately moving to a unrelated country in chutz laaretz for the first time to start a new community (where the population at large is still hostile to Jews and anything Israel) and leaving Eretz Yisroel in order to do so.
Many individuals that are hastily moving to Dubai or Abu Dhabi with such excitement and fervor are choosing to go there for no apparent reason other than because the place now allows entry to Jews and the weather there is warm, and to make a lot of כסף ($$$) in business dealings with the goyim. To leave Eretz Yisroel to go live and ‘be happy’ in such a place is especially damning.
(and btw I personally am of the opinion that all Yiddishe Kehillos are ultimately better off in ארץ הקודש and I dislike the current comfortable golus-restaurant culture that many of us yidden have, including but not limited to excessive befriending / fraternization with the goyim.)
@BS:
With so much סברת הבטן you will get indigestion! You complain that the Yidden leave Eretz Yisroel and go there “to make a lot of כסף ($$$) in business dealings with the goyim”!
Obviously, you have a right to your opinion that it is forbidden to do so, even if the Talmud disagrees with you. But when there is a dispute of opinion between רבא and BS, my vote goes with רבא.
“אמר רבא: לשוט – דברי הכל אסור, למזונות – דברי הכל מותר, לא נחלקו אלא להרויחא; מר מדמי ליה כלשוט, ומר מדמי ליה כלמזונות” (מועד קטן יג:-יד.).
“והראב”ד ז”ל פירש… דפלוגתא דר’ יהודה ורבנן איירי ביוצא חוצה לארץ, והכי מוכח בירושלמי, דגרסינן התם: רבי יהודה כדעתיה אסור לפרש בים הגדול, מעתה, כיוון שיצא חוצה לארץ יהא אסור לגלח, הואיל ויצא שלא ברצון חכמים, כהדא חד כהן אתא לגביה דרבי חנינא, אמר ליה: מה אני לילך לצור לחלוץ או לייבם, ואסר ליה. ומסתבר כהאי פירושא” (רא”ש, מועד קטן פ”ג סי’ א).
More so, in תחומין כ’, עמ’ 403 the renown Possek, Rav Nechemya Zalam Goldberg states שכשם שמקילים לצאת לחו”ל לצורך הרווחת נכסים, כך יש להתיר לצאת לחו”ל לצורך הרווחת הגוף והרווחת הנפש, היינו – לצורך נופש.
In any event, you rush to defend the kovod of “Square Root”, yet have no issue to be מקטרג on a community of Yidden, wantonly criticizing them, without any basis. Instead learn a little Torah, ask a Rov a shaylah, and be melamed zchus on other heiligeh Yidden.