From Detroit to Dubai: Local Leaders Travel to the UAE on a JDC Entwine Mission

Adam Finkel along with eight other young professionals from Detroit, and a handful of peers from the U.S. and Israel saw an emerging Jewish community full of possibility, through the lens of shared responsibility.

As I sat down to write this piece, another historic first occurred: Israel, the U.S., Bahrain and the UAE held joint military exercises together. This moment is but one of many over 15 months of near-miraculous progress since the launch of the Abraham Accords.

The groundbreaking diplomacy between Israel and a number of its Arab neighbors, long sworn enemies, overturned traditional thinking in the region, leading to new chapters of economic activity, security cooperation, cultural partnerships and expanding Jewish life.

At the heart of these tectonic shifts are people fostering change and building bridges in ways never thought possible. And I got to see and experience it firsthand last month.

I was joined by eight other young professionals from Detroit, and a handful of peers from the U.S. and Israel who explored this transformative narrative in the UAE. We saw an emerging Jewish community full of possibility, through the lens of shared responsibility.

NEXTGen Detroit helped to organize the trip run by Entwine, the young professionals’ platform of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Tomer Moked, director of NEXTGen Detroit, said the trip came on the heels of a virtual experience organized by Entwine during the pandemic for young professionals in the community to have an immersive visit to see Jewish life in Morocco.

“We knew it would be incredibly interesting to make connections between Detroit and other global Jewish communities,” Moked shared. “The idea to send the leadership of NEXTGen Detroit, current and former board members, leaders who are known and committed to the community, and then bring back those stories, insights and lessons, was a mission we wanted to help make possible.” 

According to Moked, JDC is a valued agency doing humanitarian work around the world in both Jewish and non-sectarian settings. Entwine organizes trips to communities that JDC serves to engage young professionals who see global Jewish responsibility as part of their identity. 

“NEXTGen Detroit is thrilled with the partnership, and we hope to grow it in the future in ways that continue to advance our local community,” Moked said.

JDC’s Partnership with the UAE

“JDC Entwine began our relationship with the Jewish community of the UAE in 2019 through Detroit native Jessica Katz, the 2019 Entwine Ralph I. Goldman (RIG) Fellow, who was deployed to serve in Dubai. Since then, our work in the UAE has blossomed into a full-time Jewish Service Corps placement and now Entwine’s first week-long Insider Trip,” said Jenette Axelrod, JDC Entwine senior operations manager.

“I am proud that these are truly opportunities for mutual learning and collaboration between Entwine participants and the local community, forging ties between Jews globally and reinforcing our responsibility to one another.” 

Given COVID-19 travel restrictions and the relatively low rates of infection, the UAE was chosen for Entwine’s first Insider Trip since the start of the pandemic. The trip was run in partnership with NEXTGen Detroit, the William Davidson Foundation and Jewish Twin Cities YALA — locations where grassroots Jewish life is thriving. JDC and the Detroit Jewish community (including Federation, JDC board members, local foundations and dozens of generous individual donors) share a rich and proud history of partnership and generosity, including JDC’s past president, Penny Blumenstein. The relationship goes back over half a century and has yielded wide-ranging impact in helping people in need globally, including pioneering national early childhood initiatives in Israel, and providing food, medicine and homecare to impoverished elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union and beyond.

“This trip was a combination of many partnerships and, personally for me, it was an honor to be able to be a part of bringing together so many elements of my life — JDC, Entwine, NEXTGen, Detroit Federation, the Dubai Jewish community and all the people involved,” said Katz, who served as trip chair given her experience as the RIG Fellow.

“The opportunity to revisit a place and community that has seen such tremendous change, somewhat unrelated to COVID, only two years after being there, and to do it with peers and members of the Detroit community was pure joy and incredible,” she added.

The Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship in Global Jewish Leadership is JDC’s premier leadership opportunity, awarded to one person annually, for rising Jewish communal or lay leaders, young thinkers and doers from all fields — policymakers, writers, business innovators, artists and community builders.

“The experience I had in 2019, pre-Abraham Accords, was unique and completely different to what the Jewish community has evolved into today,” Katz said. “Projects I worked on or merely brainstormed alongside community members are beginning to come to fruition; outside the community, the Abrahamic House (a UAE government-funded campus including a mosque and a church) was a conversation while I was there before — but we drove by the physical building more than halfway through construction and I was amazed by the fast progression! 

“In doing the work of a JDC Fellow, often the feeling is one of planting seeds and wondering if something might grow from it. This was an experience to physically see the growth and connect with those continuing to do the work,” Katz said.

“When we have the opportunity to travel abroad, we are always reminded of the vast differences of Jewish community; but to me, it’s also a reminder of the similarities — the things that keep us, especially as Jews, connected on a global level — and to be able to bring home this experience with other Detroiters means we get to continue to build connections together and have an impact beyond the weeklong trip.”

Detroit Delegation

Shimon Gal Levy, an executive board member of NEXTGen Detroit, was part of the delegation and was amazed by the confluence of history and modernization. 

“Seeing up close how the Jewish tradition in Dubai has been practiced for less than a decade was fascinating,” said Levy, who translated for the group from Hebrew into English when the participants met a Jewish family that left Yemen; a conversation that was a highlight for many attendees.

Roman Golshteyn, another NEXTGen executive board member, described the trip as a historical and life-changing experience. For him, some highlights included meeting local leaders of Dubai’s Jewish community, connecting with local Emirati leaders supportive of the growing Jewish community, and seeing up close how the idea of normalizing relationships between Arabs and Jews is becoming a reality. 

Another highlight Roman mentioned was a visit to the Crossroads of Civilizations Museum, which has Judaica, Israeli artifacts and documentation about the Holocaust within its exhibitions. The founder of the museum, Ahmed Al Mansuri, befriended Justice Richard Bernstein of the Michigan Supreme Court during Bernstein’s travels to the UAE over the last year.

Golshteyn says that he realizes the more we have the ability to converse, work and trade, the better off we will be. “I was able to experience firsthand how the stereotypes are being broken down in both ways and, by the end of the trip, I was convinced that it is extremely important for our local Jewish community to support and assist the growth of Dubai’s Jewish community.”

The delegation celebrated Shabbat in Dubai alongside Ambassador Houda Nonoo, the first female Bahraini ambassador to the United States and the first Jewish ambassador from the Arab region. Bahrain became the fourth Arab state to recognize Israel. Nonoo shared how she recently visited Israel and brought back a mezuzah to place on Bahrain’s synagogue. She also recently celebrated her son’s wedding with her community. 

“It is my hope,’’ Golshteyn said, “that these relationships we saw in person continue to grow, and the relationship between Jews and Muslims continues to improve so much that it spills over into neighboring countries and causes a positive geopolitical shift in the region.”