The Persian Gulf region’s first ever modern Kosher supermarket has opened in the United Arab Emirates.
It comes amid a significant uptick in the number of Jewish people travelling and relocating to the UAE since the 2020 Abraham Accords normalised relations between the gulf state and Israel.
The kosher business, which stocks a variety of Israeli and Jewish products will also feature a Jewish food market with fresh, home-cooked meals from various cuisines.
The store is named Rimon, the Hebrew word for Pomegranate, and is in the Jumeirah 3 neighbourhood, a 7-minute drive from central Dubai’s Burj Khalifa skyscraper.
Over 100 people attended the supermarket’s official opening, the initiative was spearheaded by the UAE’s Jewish community headed by Rabbi Levi Duchman and community members Sonia and Alec Sellem.
Mr and Mrs Sellem also founded and built the region's first and only Jewish daycare facility which opened in September this year.
Rabbi Duchman and a customer at the new supermarket (Courtesy of the Jewish community of the UAE)
The UAE is already home to several kosher restaurants and cafés, kosher catering options, and an online shop, Bassar, that offers kosher meat deliveries to Dubai and Abu Dhabi addresses.
Since the UAE was founded in 1971, a small Jewish community has grown, largely made up of Western ex-pats in the emirates for work. The first synagogues were founded in 2014 and Jewish migration from Israel has skyrocketed since the Abraham accords.
Jewish communities have existed in the Arabian Peninsula since biblical times, but for most of medieval and modern history the Persian Gulf region—now home to the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman—only had Jewish communities in the 100s.
Some of the areas now within the modern UAE were documented as being home to historic Jewish populations. In the late 12th century Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela came across a Jewish community in “Kis,” located in Ras al-Khaimah, today one of the seven emirates of the UAE.
Rabbi Levi Duchman, who became the UAE’s first resident chief rabbi in 2014, said the UAE's "wonderful community keeps growing and prospering."
He explained that the community, "most gratefully continues to benefit from the extraordinary embrace we have received from the Emirates government and local authorities, for over a decade now.
“In order to enable residents and visitors full Jewish life here, we have established Jewish institutions and communities, openly celebrate Shabbat, holidays, and Simchas – and enjoy quality kosher food, any day and everywhere, across the Emirates," he continued.
