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Elie Abadie |
When Elie Abadie was in his Upper East Side home watching the signing of the historic Abraham Accords — the peace treaty between the United Arab Emirates and Israel — on TV in September, he had no idea he’d be living in the UAE some two months later. After all, the UAE had historically been so hostile to Jews that Israelis were once barred from even visiting. But last earlier this month he moved with his wife, Estie, to Dubai, where he is now the senior rabbi for the Jewish Council of the Emirates.
“I realized this is the place to be,” the Orthodox Abadie, 59, told The Post, looking out from his Dubai penthouse overlooking the Palm Jumeirah, a glitzy artificial island studded with soaring luxe skyscrapers.
The peace treaty with Israel has paved the way for the UAE’s known Jews — numbering around 300 or so, according to Abadie — to “come out of the shadows and proudly display their Jewishness.”
Now, said the former rabbi at the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue on the UES, who proudly wears kippah and traditional black rabbinical hat on the streets of Dubai, “There’s definitely curiosity and interest in Jews: who they are, what they are. Someone [recently] wanted to take a picture with a friend who had a kippah.
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