DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – It was a scene that a few months ago would have been unthinkable. As the emiratis in flowing robes and white headdresses watched, the Israeli bride and groom were hoisted on the shoulders of groomsmen with a cap and carried to the dance floor, where dozens joined the crowd swinging and singing in Hebrew.
Noemie Azerad and Simon David Benhamou did not throw a somewhat normal wedding party in the midst of a pandemic that closed their country and devastated the world. They were having fun in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which – like most of the Arab world – was off limits to holders of Israeli passports for decades.
The pair were among tens of thousands of Israelis who migrated to the United Arab Emirates in December, after the two countries normalized ties in a US-brokered deal.
Israel’s latest virus-induced blockade, which began earlier this week, temporarily cooled the travel fever. But Israelis with frustrated vacation plans, now stuck at home, hope that vaccination campaigns will help stem the outbreak and make travel to Dubai possible again soon.
The attraction of Dubai, the UAE’s skyscraper-filled shopping center with sandy beaches and marble malls, has already proven itself powerful. Countless Israeli tourists in search of revelry and relief from months-long virus restrictions that are not intimidated by government warnings about possible Iranian attacks in the region, they celebrate weddings, bar mitzvahs and the eight-day Jewish Hanukkah festival with large gatherings banned at home.
“I expected to feel really uncomfortable here,” said Azerad, 25, the Israeli bride, from the hotel’s ballroom, bathed in the glow of Dubai’s sparkling skyline. But all of her favorite wedding destinations have announced strong restrictions on meetings to check the spread of the virus. Dubai ends parties at 200.
Not wanting to delay the wedding, the choice was obvious.
“I feel like it’s Tel Aviv,” said Azerad of Dubai. “I hear Hebrew everywhere.”
His French father, Igal Azerad, said he always hides the skullcap in his pocket for fear of an attack on the streets of Paris. But in Dubai, the sight of his kippah causes “the emiratis to come and say ‘Shalom’ to me,” he said.
The dizzying pace of normalization surprised even skeptics. Despite the countries’ secret ties, the United Arab Emirates considered Israel a political outcast during the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The modest Jewish expat community in the federation of seven sheikdoms remained discreet and prayed in an unnamed village.
But the arrival of 70,000 Israeli tourists, according to travel agency estimates, on 15 daily nonstop flights in December changed everything. A 3.5-meter Hanukkah chandelier appeared under the Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, where Jews gathered to light candles and take selfies while festive Hebrew songs echoed from the huge fountain in the city center.
The Jewish community’s sneaky Shabbat meal on Friday night turned into celebrations in two cavernous banquet halls with seating for Israeli visitors. “Made in Israel” signs appeared in Dubai’s supermarket chains and liquor stores, which now sell wine from the Golan Heights attached to Israel. Wine, honey and tahini from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank will hit shelves in the coming weeks and will be labeled products from Israel, according to a commodity company in Dubai.
On social media, a trip to the United Arab Emirates has become a status symbol for Israelis who display their pictures in Dubai. A dozen hotels across the city say they have booked thousands of Israeli travelers and hosted a series of Israeli business conferences, holiday parties and all-day weddings. Israeli singers plan concerts for the spring. Kosher catering companies from the UK and elsewhere have established themselves in the United Arab Emirates. Plans are underway to build the country’s first Jewish cemetery and ritual bath known as the mikvah, according to Rabbi Mendel Duchman, who helps run the country’s Jewish Community Center.
“It was unbelievable, it was a tsunami,” said Mark Feldman, head of Jerusalem-based Ziontours, noting the contrast with Israel’s “cold peace” with Egypt and Jordan. “Dubai has become an oasis for Israelis in the midst of the pandemic.”
For weeks in December, the only other countries where Israelis could land without a home quarantine for 14 days after returning were Rwanda and Seychelles. Dubai remained open for business and tourism, with few restrictions other than internal social distance and external masks. Guests at weddings and other gatherings generally do not wear masks.
Even as Israelis are thrilled by their hosts’ warm embrace, very little has been heard about the 180-degree shift in the UAE from its 1 million citizens, who receive free housing, education and medical care and tend to isolate themselves from the vast expatriate from his country population. The sheikh’s hereditary rulers suppress dissent. Even dramatic political decisions are met with acquiescence.
Ahmed al-Mansoori, a UAE museum director who received dozens of Israeli visitors in his collection of ancient maps and manuscripts, including a 4th-century Torah scroll, acknowledged “some cultural misunderstandings among populations that have not really dealt with before . “
“Each emirate has its own psychology about it,” he said when asked about the reversal of the policy that Palestinians see as a betrayal of their search for a state in Israeli-occupied land.
But he noted that Dubai, a city powered by millions of workers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, easily absorbs waves of expats, including from countries in bitter struggles with each other.
Despite initial concerns about Iranian threats and the diplomatic consequences of tourists who misbehaved, travel agents say there were only minor hiccups. Some Israeli tourists were trapped in sand dunes while running on quads, which led to an elaborate rescue mission by a government helicopter, said Yaniv Stainberg, owner of Privilege Tourism. Some were arrested for taking pictures at a mosque, he added. Others were reprimanded for kissing in public, an offense punishable by the Islamic legal system of the United Arab Emirates with a prison sentence.
But as the virus spread across Israel and pictures of strangely masked groups in Dubai spread across social media, Israel’s ministries of health and foreign affairs were debating whether to classify the UAE as a high infection zone, which would require quarantine on arrival in Israel and perhaps ruin the countries’ new courtship.
Within days, the question was debatable. Israel entered its third blockade on Sunday. By this time, newlyweds Azerad and Benhamou had already returned home.
“COVID really got in the way, it’s a shame for all the new friends in the region that we want to meet,” said Eliav Benjamin, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, referring to other recent Israeli standardization agreements with Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. “Vaccines, however, will be a game changer.”