“It is incredibly special for us to use the Torah Jared commissioned in honor of His Majesty for the first time this weekend in the lead up to Bahrain’s first anniversary of signing the Abraham Accords which is all about creating a better life for the youth in our region – including this young man,” said Ebrahim Dawood Nonoo, President of the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities.
The Jewish community in Bahrain celebrated its first Bar Mitzvah in 16 years last weekend.
The even was facilitated by the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities (AGJC), the people-to-people network of Jewish communities from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries that are developing Jewish life in the region. The Bar Mitzvah took place at the House of Ten Commandments, the oldest and only operational synagogue in the GCC.
The young man read from the Torah that former senior White House adviser Jared Kushner commissioned in honor of the King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain.
The Bar Mitzvah was part of a weekend of festivities for the AGJC that started with a Shabbat dinner in Manama attended by many diplomats, Bahrainis, and residents of other GCC countries who flew in for the event.
The weekend concluded with the group hosting the first authentic Sephardic Selichot service in the GCC.In addition to the participation of the Jewish communities in the region, more than 1,000 people joined from around the world via the livestream.
“It is a very exciting time for Jewish life in the GCC as more families celebrate Jewish milestones more publicly,” said AGJC Rabbi Dr. Eli Abadie. “In addition to this young man’s Bar Mitzvah, we recently celebrated a Bat Mitzvah for a young woman in Oman and we have a number of other Jewish lifecycle events which will take place before the end of the year. This is an affirmation of the continued growth of Jewish life in the region.”
“It is incredibly special for us to use the Torah Jared commissioned in honor of His Majesty for the first time this weekend in the lead up to Bahrain’s first anniversary of signing the Abraham Accords which is all about creating a better life for the youth in our region – including this young man,” said AGJC President Ebrahim Dawood Nonoo.