Rabbi David Woznica reflects on his diplomatic delegation trip to UAE, Bahrain, and Israel at Shabbat Evening Services, Friday, July 14, at 6:15 p.m.
On June 20, Stephen Wise Temple’s Rabbi David Woznica began a momentous tour of the Middle East as part of a diplomatic delegation of American rabbis invited to celebrate the Abraham Accords. The 12 rabbis, representing Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative streams of Judaism, were invited on the trip by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, the two Muslim-majority countries that, along with Israel, signed the American-brokered Accords in 2020, normalizing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
Rabbi David Woznica and his wife Beverly speak with Natan Sharansky in Jerusalem in June of 2023. (Photo Courtesy Rabbi David Woznica)
The delegation began its trip in the UAE, where they met with Dr. Ali Al Nuaimi in Abu Dhabi. Dr. Al Nuaimi, a strong supporter of the Accords, is the Chairman of the Manara Center, a position analogous to the chairman of the United States Senate Foreign Relations committee. Rabbi Woznica then stopped by the home of the former United States Ambassador to Oman, Marc J. Sievers, who serves as the director of the American Jewish Committee office in Abu Dhabi. Amb. Sievers’ wife, as it happens, was a Wise member in the mid-1990s. As the delegation moved on to Dubai, they meet with the first-ever Israeli consul general in the most populous of the seven Emirates, Liron Zaslanski.
The trip’s next stop was Bahrain, home of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence. The delegation received a briefing on matters relating to Bahrain, the Jewish people, and Israel by the newly-appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Centre, Shaikh Khalifa bin Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Khalifa. They also got a chance to meet with the leader of the UAE’s Jewish community, Ross Kriel, who delivered a special video message.
From there, the group embarked on the last leg of their tour, landing in Israel early this week. The delegation was welcomed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem by none other than Natan Sharansky, a past guest of Wise and now the Chairman for the Institute of Global Antisemitism and Policy. In an hour-long briefing, he discussed Ukraine, Jewish identity and Israel, and antisemitism.
Stay tuned to WiseLA.org/News for more updates from Rabbi Woznica’s trip.