Inside Dubai’s Jewish Community & Other Orthodox Jews in the News

Their Mission: Prepare 1,500 Kosher Meals, Send to Antarctica
It seemed like a dream job for a young Montreal caterer: provide all the meals for what was billed as the first organized kosher Antarctica cruise. When the American tour operator contacted Shua Lurie of L’Orchidée Traiteur, a kosher catering company in Montreal, about eight months ago, he said there would be a minimum of 15 passengers required for the planned December voyage to the seventh continent.

Orthodox Jewish Boy Attacked on Brooklyn Street
A 9-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy was randomly attacked by a stranger in Brooklyn in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime — the first of two similar incidents that occurred within an hour of each other, authorities said Thursday. The boy was walking home with his mother around 6 p.m. Sunday near Throop Avenue and Walton Street in Williamsburg.

Ark of the Covenant May be Hidden in Africa, Biblical Scholars Believe
Bible scholars believe the legendary Ark of the Covenant may have landed in Africa after it was taken out of Israel. The Ark is said to be a gold-covered wooden chest containing two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments – which Moses brought down from Mount Sinai – are written.

For the First Time, Dubai’s Jewish Community Steps Hesitantly Out of the Shadows
One Saturday last month, the handful of worshippers were waiting, chatting amiably to kill time. They had recited Sabbath morning preliminary prayers, but the tenth man was yet to arrive, and services could not proceed without the necessary quorum. Waiting for a minyan was an inconvenience as ancient and familiar as Jewish prayer itself. But the location was extraordinary: a barely-known synagogue in a residential neighborhood in the Emirate of Dubai.

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