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By: Menachem Posner
Built like a giant Arabic-style book stand on the banks of the Dubai Creek, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library is a marvel of engineering, with the underground parking lot large enough to accommodate 1,000 vehicles, and a staggering collection of one million printed and digital books and more than 6 million research articles.
This week, Mohammed Al Murr, chairman of the board of directors at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Library Foundation, welcomed a new addition to the collection: a custom-printed, leather-bound edition of the Tanya, the foundational book of Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy.
The handsome book was a gift of the Jewish community in the UAE, dedicated in honor of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and presented by Rabbi Levi Duchman, Rabbi to the UAE.
During the presentation ceremony, Duchman was visibly impressed by Al Murr’s knowledge of Judaism, Chassidism, and Jewish philosophy and was gratified to see how the Al Murr valued the Tanya as a significant contribution to the library.
The Tanya was first printed in 1796, in the vaunted Chassidic printing press in Slavita, Ukraine. In 1978, the Rebbe initiated a campaign to print Tanyas all over the world, which to date has brought the energy and spirit of the Tanya to 7,000 communities around the globe.
The Rebbe specified that at least 100 copies should be printed wherever Jews may find themselves, and that those local Jews actually learn from the freshly imprinted pages. But it was more than just a learning campaign, he explained. For if the goal was simply that everyone should study Tanya, it would have been sufficient to simply send copies to the Jews of each city and encourage them to study. Rather, the Rebbe said the fact that the Tanya was printed in their own hometown would encourage them to study and explore the text on a much deeper level.
Abraham Accords Spurs Longstanding Ties
While Jewish life in the Emirates has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, having seen a boom following the signing of the Abraham Accords in the fall of 2020, the community has been growing for some time before.
Chabad’s involvement with the UAE stretches back as early as 2008, when New York Jewish businesspeople who had been traveling to the UAE approached Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky—chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—requesting a rabbi to help develop Jewish life in the UAE. In 2010, Chabad rabbinical students arrived in Dubai to lead the first-ever Yom Kippur service in the Arab state, and rabbinical students had been visiting for every Jewish holiday ever since.
Duchman first came to the UAE in the winter of 2013, following up a few months later to lead the communal Passover seder in the capital city of Abu Dhabi. He moved to the country later that year.
In recent years, he has overseen an expansion of Jewish life, including kosher food, synagogues and educational opportunities for young and old.
