Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie, Senior Rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates, accompanied President Isaac Herzog during his visit to the United Arab Emirates where he had a historic meeting with the Crown Prince.

“It was an emotional meeting, and a very significant one. For the first time in history, at least in the Arabian Peninsula, there is a Jewish president of the State of Israel visiting the country being welcomed in a such a warm way,” Rabbi Abadie tells Israel National News.

He describes it as an official welcome and an unofficial welcome, explaining that Herzog was invited after the official welcome to go to the home of the Crown Prince for an informal meeting that lasted two hours.

“For us living here it was an emotional and a very significant visit,” Rabbi Abadie says.

He and members of the UAE Jewish community also had the opportunity to meet with Herzog during the visit.

“He shared with us his views of the success of the Abraham Accords and his wishes that many other countries will join,” he says. “He's confident that many countries will join on or are in the process of joining in the near future.”

He adds: “He was very happy to discuss with the Crown Prince and with the government here how they could strengthen these Accords.”

Rabbi Abadie explained that the discussions dealt with how to use the Abraham Accords as a way to “increase cooperation in many areas of human endeavors where both countries have mutual interests,” including agriculture, medicine, science, water technology and a strategic alliance.

He explained that Herzog was “very happy with the meeting and felt very warmly welcomed.”

“He was also very happy to see that there is a thriving Jewish community that has made sure that we have all the necessary things to live as a Jewish community, places for of prayers and worship, classes, lectures, kosher food and so on. We discussed all of that.”

Speaking about the commemorations of the Holocaust that he oversaw last week in the UAE, Rabbi Abadie said this year they had three commemorations in the UAE, and that there were also commemorations in Bahrain and Egypt.

The commemorations in the UAE are unique when compared with similar events in other Jewish communities.

“It is different in way because the population here either have not heard about it or they have heard about it but they're not very sure,” he said. “Most of the of the countries that surround us here either deny the Holocaust or turn the other way without having to mention anything about it. But now, more and more of the population itself they want to know what happened in the Holocaust. Once they find out they're horrified and feel terrible that such a fate the Jews of Europe and and also North Africa faced.”

He described the three commemorations they held in the UAE as “moving ceremonies” where many of the Emiratis joined the Jewish community and were “moved significantly by the story and by the testimony of survivors.”

Hearing the Israeli national anthem played at the palace a year after the Abraham Accords was “definitely special.”

“It was special for President Herzog who confided and said that he almost shed tears when he heard the the anthem in the palace being played by the orchestra. It was a very moving moment,” he said.

Rabbi Abadie’s hope is that the Abraham Accords will continue to strengthen relationships and that other countries in the region will join.

“My hope, and I think the hope of everyone here also, is that the relationship will strengthen more, will develop more. We hope also that that many other countries will become kind of infected by the Abraham Accords in a sense they will adopt and they will join the bandwagon, and they will become signatories of the Accords. We hope that goodwill will spread throughout not just the Gulf Region but throughout all the Arab and Muslim countries. We are confident that definitely a few countries will do so in the next few years.”