Eitan Neishlos works to preserve the memory of the Holocaust in the United Arab Emirates

Sitting in his comfortable home in Dubai, overlooking the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper, Eitan Neishlos he contemplates his family’s past and the present and future of the Jewish people.

The Israeli-born, South African-raised philanthropist and entrepreneur was honored by The Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world for his tireless efforts to lead Holocaust education and promote tolerance and coexistence among Jews and Arabs.

NEISHLOS AND Amjad Taha on an outreach tour of Australia, meeting Senator Debra O’Neill and Senator David Fawcett. (Credit: Courtesy of Eitan Neishlos)

While the Israel-Hamas war has led him to focus on caring for the victims of the conflict in southern Israel, he remains optimistic about the shared future of Israelis and Arabs in the region. For Neishlos, the memory of his grandmother Tamara Ziserman burns brightly in his consciousness.

Ziserman survived the horrors of the Holocaust hidden in a basket by her Christian neighbors, the Chodosevitch family. She survived, but the Nazis executed her righteous rescuers. The Neishlos family ensured that the family was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel.

In both deeds and words, Eitan Neishlos has emerged in recent years as a faithful steward of Holocaust memory. As an ambassador for the Gulf States chapter of the International March of Life, he established a movement to raise Holocaust awareness in the Arab world.

WITH HE AHMED OBAID ALMANSOORI at Auschwitz in the March of the Living. (Credit: Tali Natapov)

In April 2022, Ahmed Obaid Al Mansoori, the founder of the first Holocaust memorial gallery in the arab worldhe lit a memorial torch at Auschwitz-Birkenau with Neishlos as they proclaimed together: “Never again.” Later that year, in November, Neishlos collaborated with Dubai’s Crossroads of Civilizations Museum and the International March of Life to produce a historic event commemorating the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

At that event, Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler met with young Jews and Muslims in Dubai, sharing her story with Emirati youth. In September 2023, Neishlos, together with the International March of the Living and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, embarked on a joint initiative to restore more than 8,000 shoes belonging to children who died in the Holocaust as part of its Soul to Sole campaign , ensuring that their memory will live on for generations to come.

VISIT GAZA-ADJACENT communities after October 7. (Credit: Courtesy of Eitan Neishlos)

NEISHLOS IS passionate not only about the Jewish past, but also about the present and future, which is why he moved to Dubai a few years ago as part of his mission to embrace the spirit of the Abrahamic Accords.

“At the risk of sounding too biblical,” he says with a smile, “Abraham had two children, Isaac and Ishmael, and for thousands of years their descendants were divided. But with the coming of the Abraham Accords, an old dispute is reconciled, offering a deep-rooted shadowy palm of unity, tolerance and coexistence.”

When Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Neishlos immediately shifted gears to defend his brothers and sisters in the Holy Land. He was in Israel that fateful weekend for a planned philanthropic event with his parents from Australia and colleagues from Dubai.

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On the morning of October 7, he and his family were forced to take refuge in bomb shelters in Tel Aviv when the sirens began to sound. After returning to Dubai, he traveled to Washington, DC to participate in the March for Israel on the National Mall on November 14, 2023, the largest pro-Israel rally in US history.

Later that day, Neishlos delivered an emotional address on Capitol Hill to members of the US Congress, Israeli delegates, and Jewish and Christian leaders about the need to strengthen support for Israel amid growing anti-Israel protests and rising anti-Semitism on college campuses in USA and in European capitals.

“I tried to convey the Jewish experience to the leadership in the halls of power in Congress,” he explains. Also present were Israel’s former permanent representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, and the current president of the Jewish Agency, Doron Almog, who also spoke at the meeting with members of Congress.

In January 2024, Neishlos returned to Israel and visited Kfar Aza, which had been attacked by Hamas terrorists in October. He recalls a chilling conversation he had with the mother of a hostage, worried about the abuse her daughter had suffered at the hands of Hamas. She told him: “I want my daughter back because I need her to have an abortion if necessary.”

Neishlos says visiting Kfar Aza instilled in him the need to give voice to those who needed to be heard. To that end, Neishlos teamed up with Canadian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht and Israeli filmmaker Dotan Naveh to create a documentary that will chronicle the lives of women who survived the Kfar Aza massacre.

The film is currently in post-production and is set to release next year. “I think this movie is going to be very important,” says Neishlos. “We want to look into the eyes of women around the world. This is woman to woman – not to deny the pain, not to deny what happened and to bring women together.”

Back in Israel on the first anniversary of October 7, Neishlos spent a day with several women from Kfar Aza. He says: “It was inspired. I will never forget what one of the women said to me. She said that October 7 was not the hardest day. It’s every day after that.

It is the loss of everything. It is the loss of trust, the loss of the sense of security, the loss of being able to have a cup of coffee with the person you love. The tragedy continues.” During his visit to Israel in October, Neishlos visited the “Faces of October 7” exhibition, which featured portraits by renowned Israeli graffiti artist Benzi Brofman of the victims of October 7, including hostages still held by Hamas.

The multimedia exhibition, which combines art and storytelling, was organized in partnership with Neishlos and the organization StandWithUs. Commenting on the exhibition, he said: “It was all about providing a safe space for victims of many nationalities and religions to mourn – so that Israelis can mourn, so that they can commemorate, and for us to communicate with empathy. to everyone around the world, let’s look them in the eye and not deny their pain and join our cries to bring them home now.”

MOST RECENTLY, Neishlos traveled to Australia in November with Emirati author and political strategist Amjad Taha on an outreach tour to promote peace and coexistence between Jews and Arabs amid rising global anti-Semitism and widening social divisions .

Neishlos and Taha initiated the mission together with Jewish National Fund-Australia and StandWithUs Australia. The two met for the first time at the Israeli Embassy’s Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Abu Dhabi, where they spoke with a Holocaust survivor who addressed the gathering.

Following this meeting, Neishlos and Taha decided that more must be done to promote mutual dialogue, tolerance and peace so that the evils of the past and present do not occur in today’s world. Discussing the pair’s joint visit to Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Neishlos says: “We sent a message that anti-Semitism is not an opinion – it’s a crime.

We took that message to schools, universities and places of worship of different faiths and spoke to Australian leadership on both sides of the aisle.” Neishlos says he and Taha wanted to show their audience that different cultures can live and thrive together, which he says has been the experience of the UAE, where more than 220 cultures live in peace.

“The idea is to dispel the stereotypes and misinformation that lead to the dangerous rise of anti-Semitism. It was a message of hope – a message that it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, whether you are in Johannesburg, Toronto, Sydney, Dubai or Tel Aviv. As Amjad likes to say, “Together we stand and together we thrive.”

Despite the general amity that exists between the various groups in the UAE, Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Chabad rabbi based in Abu Dhabi, was assassinated in late November. Three suspects from Uzbekistan were arrested for the murder. Neishlos says Rabbi Kogan was a “beautiful, beautiful man”, saying he exemplified the UAE’s vision of unity, peace and coexistence.

“We were all shaken,” Neishlos reports. “The community is united, but we are even more so now. We gathered together. We cried together. We have enjoyed driving together and are making plans for the future together.”

He was encouraged by the swift action taken by Abu Dhabi authorities to apprehend the culprits and says the UAE’s deputy ambassador to Israel, Khaled Al-Mutawa, visited Rabbi Kogan’s Shiva memorial tent in Israel. The Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement after the murder, reaffirming their commitment to upholding the principles of tolerance and peaceful coexistence between diverse religions and cultures.

Quoting Rabbi Levi Duchman of the United Arab Emirates on the Jewish community’s response to the murder, Neishlos says: “He said to me, ‘Eitan, from here on out, there’s only one way. We will only grow stronger, bring more light and do more good.

“I think it’s a remarkable response in terms of bringing justice, in terms of making the community feel engaged and feel safe and move our lives forward here, in the same context that we’ve thrived in and under this shadow palm they have from the Abraham Accords and the value systems of the United Arab Emirates and their leadership”.

Neishlos notes that after the tragedy, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump donated $1 million to Chabad of the United Arab Emirates to support the Jewish community in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In this light, he believes that the fact that Kushner, one of the architects of the Abraham Accords, sent a personal gift to Chabad means that the United States and the Trump administration will show continued support for strengthening the agreements.

The Jewish community in the Emirates is “encouraged”, says Neishlos, and protected by the country’s values, which maintains that anti-Semitism is not an opinion but a crime. He uses the same word to express his mission.

“I am encouraged with my mission, which is from Dubai to the rest of the world – a call to action for global Jewry and friends of our people to support us in this critical time and ensure that the values of the Abrahamic Accords will grow. and protect every place a Jew calls home.

“In the coming years, I believe we will see Arab-Jewish solidarity further strengthen and the values of the Abraham Accords at the forefront of our region’s public discourse. Together, Jews and Arabs will stand up to anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination, demonstrating to the world what true kinship, coexistence and multiculturalism look like.”