“Slowly, slowly, it’s improving,” said Ebrahim Nonoo, leader of Bahrain’s Jewish community, which recently hosted an online celebration of the Purim holiday for Jews in the Gulf Arab region. Nonoo is among the founders of the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities, a new umbrella group for the tiny Jewish populations in the six Arab monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The rest, like most Jews in Gulf Arab states, keep a low profile. The Gulf Arab monarchies have a few scattered remnants of bygone Jewish communities, said Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation. During the coronavirus pandemic, he said that Zoom Sabbath services organized by the Jewish Community of the Emirates on Friday evenings have been a lifeline for him.

Source: Egypt Independent March 09, 2021 08:15 UTC