Rabbi Tzvi Kogan, H’YD, left his home on the morning of November 21, got in his car and drove to Rimon, the kosher grocery store he managed, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Then he disappeared.
When he failed to show up for a dental appointment that afternoon, his wife Rivky contacted Chabad, who contacted the police.
By then, his murderers had abducted him and were driving him toward the neighboring country of Oman, a person familiar with the investigation said.
Something “disrupted that plan” and Emirati police later found Rabbi Kogan’s body and car inside the UAE near the border.
Kogan’s friends and family told WSJ that it was a bloody end, though the exact circumstances around his death remain unclear.
According to the report, Rabbi Kogan never felt unsafe living in the UAE.
“He was going about his regular life and never thought for a second anything was going on,” said Rabbi Sholom Duchman, whose son Rabbi Levi Duchman leads Chabad in the U.A.E. and is Kogan’s brother-in-law.
Following the Abraham Accords, Jews lived openly in the country but following the October 7 assault, Emirati authorities asked the Jewish kheilla in the country to lower its profile.
Local Jews said there were incidents of Jewish students being harassed by classmates at schools, who pushed them or yelled “Free Palestine” at them. However, the schools or local authorities quickly put an end to the incidents.
Pro-Palestinian people also left negative Google reviews to lower the ratings for Rimon, the supermarket where Kogan worked.
As YWN reported last week, Rimon was closed on the Sunday after Rabbi Kogan’s murder and a reporter who visited the site said that the mezuzahs on the front and back doors of the supermarket appeared to have been ripped off.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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One Response
I’m concerned about Chabad shluchim being sent into hostile terrain. Their safety is a Mitzva – in fact the only one Mitzva that the Torah adds מאד to: ונשמרתם מאד לנפשותיכם
These barbaric thugs can’t be trusted nor can one know of their heneius plans.