‘The whole world is shaken’: Chabad rabbi murdered in UAE laid to rest in Israel

Hundreds of Israelis on Monday evening attended an emotional burial ceremony for a rabbi killed in an apparent terror attack in the United Arab Emirates, after Emirati authorities said three suspects from Uzbekistan were in custody over his murder.

Zvi Kogan, a 28-year-old UAE-based rabbi, was found dead by security services last week, following what Israeli officials and the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement he was affiliated with called an antisemitic attack.

“How can you already be gone?” his father, Alexander Kogan, said during the ceremony in Kfar Chabad, a town belonging to the movement.

“Zvi was innocent, and that’s how he arrives in heaven,” the father told the mourners at the emotionally charged ceremony under heavy rain.

“The whole world is shaken by your murder – they hate us around the world because we are Jews,” Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef told mourners.

One speaker said three babies had already been named in Kogan’s honor.

Kogan was then buried at the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem.

The United Arab Emirates signed a peace agreement with Israel in 2020 under the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

Kogan’s death was a blow to the tiny Jewish and Israeli community in the Muslim-majority UAE, which has kept a lower profile since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023.

‘Abhorrent antisemitic attack’

The three suspects were arrested on Sunday, and after “preliminary investigations” the interior ministry identified them in a statement.

“The authorities revealed the identities of the three perpetrators, all of whom are Uzbek nationals,” said the statement published on Monday by the official WAM news agency.

It named them as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33.

The ministry said authorities were taking “the necessary actions to uncover the details, circumstances and motives of the crime.”

Kogan was in the UAE as a representative of Chabad, which is known for its outreach efforts worldwide.

According to Chabad, he worked to expand Jewish life in the UAE alongside Chief Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Duchman, including ensuring the wide availability of kosher food and opening the first Jewish education center in the country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday condemned “the murder of an Israeli citizen and a Chabad emissary,” calling it “an abhorrent antisemitic terrorist attack.”

In Washington, the White House urged accountability for the “horrific crime.”

Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said on X that “we mourn the tragic loss” of Kogan and “strongly condemn this hateful act.”

“Our thoughts are with his family, the Jewish community, and all who grieve,” she said.

“Zvi Kogan’s murder was more than a crime in the UAE — it was a crime against the UAE. It was an attack on our homeland, on our values and on our vision,” wrote Yousef Al Oitaba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, in a series of tweets on Sunday. “In the UAE, we welcome everyone. We embrace peaceful coexistence. We reject extremism and fanaticism of every kind. We honor Zvi Kogan’s memory by recommitting ourselves to these values.”

Neither Emirati nor Israeli officials provided any details about the circumstances of Kogan’s murder.

Israel travel warning

In 2020, the year Israel normalized relations with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, Kogan joined his older brother Reuven and a team of rabbis in the UAE, according to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Chabad said on its website that Kogan had managed a kosher supermarket in Dubai, which an AFP photographer said was closed Monday with its window blinds down.

There is no figure for the number of Jews in the UAE, but an Israeli official has told AFP there were about 2,000 Israelis in the country, with the Jewish community estimated to be up to twice that figure.

The oil-rich Gulf state, whose population is made up mainly of expatriates, opened its first official synagogue within an interfaith center in its capital Abu Dhabi last year to cater to the small but active Jewish community that had previously prayed in private.

In the wake of the killing, Israel renewed a warning for its citizens to avoid any non-essential travel to the UAE and advised citizens already there to take extra precautions.

Kushners to donate $2 million to UAE Chabad

Responding to the murder, Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump said they would donate $1 million to the Chabad of the United Arab Emirates.

“The constant scapegoating of Israel and the Jewish people benefits no one, other than inept leaders who use hatred to deflect from their own shortcomings. It’s time for the world to channel its collective energy to uplift our shared goals and ambitions,” Kushner, who helped broker Israel-UAE normalization when serving as a senior presidential adviser to his father-in-law, wrote on X.

“To all who wish to aggravate these historic divides, know that your efforts only strengthen the resolve of the Jewish community to contribute to societies that respect and welcome us. History has shown that those who embrace the Jewish people benefit, and those who persecute the Jewish people ultimately face spectacular defeat.”

Kushner’s brother Joshua said he would match the $1 million donation.

Iran denies involvement

Kogan’s body was found in the Emirati city of Al Ain, which borders Oman, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Abu Dhabi, Israeli authorities announced early Sunday.

The Ynet news site reported that Kogan’s car was found abandoned in Al Ain. It added, without citing sources, that there were signs of a struggle in the vehicle.

The suspects were arrested in Turkey and then swiftly handed over to Emirati authorities, according to Hebrew media reports late Monday, which also played down earlier suspicions that Iran may have been behind the murder.

Tehran, which has directed many attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad and was initially suspected in Kogan’s killing, “categorically rejects the allegations of Iran’s involvement in the murder of this individual,” Iran’s embassy in Abu Dhabi said in a statement to Reuters on Sunday.