Many people may be surprised to learn the Muslim world's first rabbinical association serves some 100,000 Jews across 14 Muslim-majority states.
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Founded in 2019, just one year before the signing of the Abraham Accords, the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States includes 45 rabbis, the majority of whom are associated with Chabad.
Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, who moved to Turkey from the US 20 years ago, serves as alliance chairman and chief rabbi of the Ashkenazic community of Istanbul. He says, "Many people when they hear you're from Turkey, say, 'There are Jews in Turkey?' My answer: 'Yes, there are Jews in Turkey. There have been Jews in Turkey for 2,000 years.'"
To some, a Jewish rabbi in a Muslim country "sounds funny," Chitrik acknowledges, but "we want to publicize that it's very normal to live a Jewish life – a full Jewish life – in Islamic countries. We want to send that message to the outside world, but we also want this message of Jewish life – continuous Jewish life – to sink into the subconscious and conscious minds of the people amongst whom we are living. It shouldn't be peculiar to have a rabbi walking on the street in Istanbul or Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, or Egypt because the expression of Jewish life is OK; it's normal."
"People in Muslim countries understand that the Jew should be able to practice his religion, just as they understand that the Muslim who goes to Europe or America should be allowed to practice his religion," explains the rabbi.
Chitrik says he has encountered very little antisemitism in Turkey. He said he experienced antisemitism for the first time while visiting Jewish sites in the country with his son and tweeting about each stop. A Twitter troll with a large following made a false accusation in connection with his trip.
For Chitrik, it was noteworthy that the government acted against the accuser, even though he never filed a complaint. "The authorities stepped in anyway, questioning the man and opening "an official complaint against him," he said.
Alliance member and Kazhakstan Chief Rabbi Yeshaya Cohen related a similar story. He said that when a newspaper published an antisemitic article, a court shut the paper down. "One of the top priorities in Kazakhstan is tolerance and peace; if someone doesn't respect others, he's not respected," Cohen said.
The Jerusalem-born Cohen came to Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, in 1994. "I immediately recognized in this country something unique and special that I didn't see in the more than 22 different countries that I had visited in my life," he says.
"I was once invited to speak to parliament in Brussels," he recounts. "I arrive in Brussels, and I walk from the airport to the taxi. The first five minutes I'm in Brussels, someone came up and started yelling at me. He recognized me as a Jew, and he started screaming. I never saw such a thing in my entire life in Kazakhstan," he said, noting he wears his rabbinic garb in public in Kazakhstan and uses public transportation.
Ironically, Cohen noted, he had been invited to Brussels to speak about antisemitism in Central Asia.
The alliance's primary mission is to help rabbis provide for the religious needs of their communities, for example by getting religious articles to hard-to-reach places. In the past, the alliance has helped deliver Passover matzah to Jews in Alexandria, Egypt as well as to a solitary Jew in Libya. When the group later learned the Libyan Jew's phylacteries had been torn, the alliance delivered a new pair as well. The alliance also helps the remaining five Jews in Syria. Before the Syrian civil war, a kosher ritual slaughterer from Istanbul would fly to Damascus to provide them with kosher meat.
The alliance has helped save Jews when called upon to do so. In one of its most prominent missions, it helped rescue Afghanistan's last Jew – Zebulon Simantov, when he was secreted out of the country in early September.
"We were in touch with Simantov for about three years, sending him matzah, asking him if he needed anything," according to Chitrik.
When the Taliban retook the capital of Kabul, alliance rabbis quickly organized two WhatsApp groups that helped lead to getting him out, initially to neighboring Pakistan. "In Pakistan, it was getting dangerous for him to stay. He didn't have any legal status. So he came to Turkey," said Chitrik, who greeted Simantov at the airport.
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In Nigeria, Rabbi Yisrael Uzan helped three Israeli filmmakers who were arrested while filming a documentary on the Igbo Jews. The reason for their arrest was never made clear, though one of the filmmakers pointed to local bloggers who published false reports about them.
There are about 1,100 Jews in Nigeria, he says – 90% of whom are Israelis working on construction projects.
Uzan says he also works with the so-called Igbo Jews, though he is careful not to give them "false hope" since the Israeli rabbinate has ruled the Igbo are not Jewish. In one large Igbo community, Uzan came in with a company that built a well. "There was no water in all the village. Now the Igbo give water to the entire village of 5,000 people," he says.
Uzan also started ChabadAid, which provides food to Nigerians. During Ramadan this spring, the group distributed 260,000 meals. Nigerians don't know much about Jews, Israel, or the Middle East conflict, according to Uzan, but he views it as part of his mission to present a positive image of Jews.
Uzan says he has not encountered antisemitism. "We don't feel it on the street. Nine years in Nigeria, I've never felt any kind." Unlike in France, where he grew up, no one takes to the street when there's a Middle East flare-up, even one involving Israel."
The most important aspect of the alliance, at least for Uzan, is that it helps broadcast the news that rabbis live and work in Muslim countries. It spreads the message of coexistence.
"We have to prove to the world that this is happening. This is existing. This is the most important part. People can't believe that Jews and Muslims can live together. We want to show the world. We have so much to share together," he emphasizes.
Chitrik noted that the Abraham Accords have definitely had a positive impact on the region and its work. "Taboos have been broken, especially for the countries involved," he notes. "There has been a small Jewish community in the UAE for the past 20 years," though it had been kept fairly quiet both domestically and on the international level.
He says the UAE "now has hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists and even kosher restaurants."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
