[soft music] - [Narrator] The foremost tribute one can offer in the Jewish tradition is to have a Torah scroll dedicated for a particular purpose.

[soft music] The Jewish community in the UAE proposes the writing and dedication of a Torah scroll in memory of His Highness Sheik Zayed.

[soft music] The cover of the Torah scroll would bear a dedication in Arabic with the name of Sheik Zayed.

This would be the first Torah dedicated to an Arab ruler in the history of the world.

[soft music] - [Woman 1] This is not the Middle East of 15 years ago.

This is really a new generation and they're looking outwards, not inwards.

- [Narrator] The United Arab Emirates is an oasis of tolerance.

[soft music] - [Woman 2] In my mind I would have thought which other country could do this?

It was obvious to me only the UAE could do this.

- [Man] It's a gift of Jews of this time.

And it's a gift of Jews from all times.

The Torah is a story, a code of laws, and an object of desire.

[lively music] If we pull this off, then this becomes the opening scene of the new narrative between Jews and Muslims for the coming centuries.

[man speaking Hebrew] [man speaking Hebrew] - [Man] Amen.

[man speaking Arabic] [lively music] [soft music] - It's fair to say that for many of the people I was meeting, I was the first Jewish person they met and certainly the first observant Jews.

[Middle East music] - [Narrator] In the early 1990s, when Eli Epstein first traveled to the United Arab Emirates on business, it was an especially tumultuous time in the Middle East.

[Middle Eastern music] So Epstein wasn't sure what to expect.

[Middle East music] He was an American and he was Jewish.

- I had additional baggage because I am a child of Holocaust survivors.

And for us growing up in what I described as a very insulated and isolated environment, anyone who wasn't exactly like us, which is they say "Ashkenazi Yiddish speaking Jews".

We're not necessarily to be trusted.

And perhaps I'm seeing that even in white fashion.

The furthest extension of the other as I could ever have imagined, were Arab Muslims in the Middle East.

And suddenly I'm taking a trip over there with quite a bit of a lot of psychological baggage with me.

So yeah, I was very nervous about it.

- [Narrator] But his experience in the United Arab Emirates was unlike anything he ever expected.

They couldn't have been nicer in the first meeting we had, and it grew with every passing encounter, such that the relationships deepened very quickly and over time, they became very precious to me.

And I am told by, for them as well.

- [Narrator] Then the United Arab Emirates declared that 2019 would be the Year of Tolerance.

- It will make the world better and better.

[boy speaking Arabic] - [Narrator] To celebrate the UAE's bedrock principle of welcoming people of all faiths, and that Pope Francis was to pay a visit as well.

It would mark the first time of Pope ever set foot on the Arabian Peninsula.

[Middle East music] - When I heard about the Year of Tolerance and the Pope's visits, it occurred to me that it would be really exceptional and very exciting to do something from the small Jewish community in the UAE.

- [Narrator] Eli Epstein's idea was to dedicate a Torah to the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan of Nahyan.

Zayed convened other rulers.

And in the early 1970s, they created the UAE.

At the same time Sheikh Zayed instilled in this new nation the idea of religious tolerance and inclusivity.

[Sheikh Zayed speaking Arabic] [lively music] - It's kind of amazing that there is one place in the Arab world now actually where the Jewish population is growing, and that is in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

We can talk about for just a moment, which was not an easy moment, the moment of realization that this Torah, which we treat with the same degree of sanctity, as we do a human life, would be a gift.

And what it means to give a gift is that it is no longer in our control.

Here we are taking something which feels like a baby and saying, we are going to adorn it in the most magnificent ways, and we are going to raise it.

And then we're going to hand it over to you.

- October, November of 2018.

And I'm doing my email from the day.

And Yehuda Sarna, in whom I believe deeply says to me that a man named Eli Epstein had proposed that a Torah be specially made and that'll be made in honor of Sheikh Zayed.

Did I think there was any chance that a loose Jewish community in the Emirates, with daily praise for the government and thanks the Lord for the government they have, and that the government succeed in moving the world forward, that they could perhaps present this Torah scroll to Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, Sheik Zayed's son?

- To dedicate a new Torah scroll to an Arab ruler is quite candidly unimaginable, and should be a showstopper for anyone who considers it.

- And I wrote back and I said, I don't know.

It's a beautiful gesture.

Let me do a little exploration.

- [Narrator] So what happened during one of his regular trips to NYU Abu Dhabi to teach religion and government class, John Sexton was sitting at lunch next to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.

- His Highness and I had gotten involved in an intense conversation.

And I said, you want to see a great piece of evidence of what you and your father and the people of the Emirates have wrought.

And I leaned over and I read this to him.

Just, he, only he heard it.

The other side of the table continued their conversation.

And he teared up.

He said, that's you?

And it was then that I thought that it might be possible that we would have a moment where this presentation would be made.

- [Narrator] There was no guarantee, but John Sexton told Eli and Yehuda to go for it.

Now they needed a Torah scroll in Hebrew, a Sefer Torah.

- My dear friend, Eli Epstein, who really came with me to Spain in 2010 for the tour, together with this wife, Lori.

And we have been friends since then.

He told me that he's going to give a Sefer Torah in honor and memory of Sheikh Zayed.

And he said, I want it to be a Sephardi Sefer Torah since it's going to be in an Arab country.

And that's where Sephardic and middle Eastern Jews inhabited.

So I wanted to be a Sephardic one.

And who's best than you?

You're a Sephardic rabbi who speaks Arabic, is the one who going to be participating in this, in this endeavor.

- [Narrator] So Eli Epstein and Rabbi Elie Abadie found a workshop in Israel in the town of Bnei Brak, and commissioned the Torah scroll to be written and a case to be built to house it.

[old man speaking Hebrew] [young man speaking Hebrew] - [Narrator] The scribe, known as a sofer, does not complete the entire Torah scroll.

He leaves the last characters to be filled in by other Jews or those to whom the Torah is given, in this case, a Muslim leader of the United Arab Emirates.

- The Torah, commonly refers to five books of Moses, are a very basic scripture of Jewish belief.

These were the words of God spoken to Moses at Mount Sinai, eventually found their way onto a long written document written in ink on parchment.

That's read to this day in every synagogue around the world.

[lively music] - In the Book of Genesis, we Jews trace our lineage back to our ancestor, Abraham.

And Abraham is, in fact, the father of two sons.

[Middle East music] The older son who was born to Hagar is Ishmael and Ishmael is traditionally thought to be the ancestor of the Arab and therefore Muslim tribes.

His younger son, born to Sarah, is Isaac.

And Isaac is generally perceived to be the progenitor of the Jewish people.

So the fact is that in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Genesis, there's no mistaking that Isaac and Ishmael are brothers of the same father.

In modern dialogue situations, when everybody's being very positive to one another, Jews and Muslims often usually hugging and say, you know, you're my cousin.

We're cousins.

But the biblical tradition, the rabbinic tradition, and frankly, the Muslim tradition, make it very clear, we are brothers of the same father.

[Middle East music] - [Narrator] History shows that for most of their existence, Jews and Muslims lived side by side, both worshiping the God of Abraham, that Judaism and Islam proclaim as the one true God.

Yet, that is not the story we hear much about today.

- In the Christian West, there is this assumption that Jews and Muslims have always been enemies of one another.

They don't really understand that even before the advent of Islam, Jews were living in Mecca and Medina.

And when the Prophet came in Mecca and Medina, he tried very hard to have good relations with the Jewish community.

And this is not only true in the time of the Prophet.

This was true up to really the 18th, 19th century.

[Middle East music] - Societies and communities from Palestine to Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, prior to World War I, you will find that these communities were multi-religious, multi-ethnic for decades, for centuries.

[Middle East music] - In several parts of the Arab world, there is a kind of nostalgia for a time when Jews and Muslims lived in the Arab world, relative harmony, warm social relationships, neighborhood relationships, business relationships, intellectual exchanges.

I actually believe that that's part of the DNA of the Arab world, as is the Christian history in the Arab world.

And I think there's a kind of, there is a sense of loss of where have all the Christians gone, where have all the Jews gone.

- I grew up in Egypt till age of nine, and then we came to the United States, but I recall my most vivid memories.

I went to an English language school, which was run by Irish nuns.

And I remember in my classroom, my friends were with names now that I recall that are Christian, Jewish, Muslim.

So it was a very multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.

- As an Iranian Jew, we know that there was history of Jews from the Babylonian times.

In fact, my maternal grandparents, great grandparents or ancestors come from what was then known as Babylonia.

So coexistence has been present through history.

- I think I always grew up in a Jewish Arab diaspora.

My late father had escaped Iraq.

My mother had left Libya as a very young child, and I could never go to where they were born.

There was just, it was untouchable.

- One of the ironies of the way we see history, particularly in the West is that we imagine Jews and Christians have a good relationship, while Jews and Muslims have a bad relationship.

But all you have to do is remember back to World War II and you know very well that Jews and Christians not only didn't have a good relationship, it was a murderous relationship.

And that in fact was the norm for almost 2000 years of Christianity.

On the contrary, we had great relations, even as demie, even as subject people with the Muslim world.

[Middle East music] - [Narrator] The land now known as the United Arab Emirates stretches for 400 miles along the southern shore of the Arabian Gulf.

For centuries, the harsh landscape was habited by nomadic people who subsisted as herdsmen in the interior and pro divers in the coastal areas.

- But then it's also, I believe, in the DNA of the people of the UAE, people that for centuries in effect live a dual life, a life of the desert, nomadic, but also around oasis that imposed on them a tradition of life that was open and generous and welcoming and hospitable.

[lively music] But at the same time had to be a people who traded in pearls and came down to the course in the Middle Ages, traded with Europe.

And then in fact, communities that lived even earlier here and had trade with the Indus Valley and with Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago.

- [Narrator] Over time, these nomads formed tribal communities that eventually became the seven emirates that would later comprise the United Arab Emirates, the UAE.

- It was a community that was always an open community although it also had its, if you like, nomadic and desert component.

The combination of leadership and the people, I believe, created this miracle in the desert.

- [Narrator] But that miracle did not come easily.

In the early 20th century, the natural pearl industry of the Emirates collapsed.

The Japanese had learned to grow cultured pearls, and the people of the Emirates reverted to a hardscrabble existence until the oil boom in the 1950s reversed their fortunes once again, producing unimaginable wealth from the sands and seas.

- I remember, I mean, we're talking about '68.

We're talking about a period that was very unstable in the region.

- [Narrator] Amid this instability, one man dreamed of uniting the seven emirates under a single banner.

- The only person who consistently had confidence that he can achieve it and that he can do it was Sheikh Zayed.

- [Narrator] Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Despite the challenges, Zayed rallied his fellow rulers to create the United Arab Emirates in 1971.

- The modern United Arab Emirates that was founded almost 50 years ago by the founding father, the lead Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, who really is like George Washington is to the Americans.

He's that kind of figure and symbol to us.

- If it wasn't for Sheikh Zayed, there would have been no federation.

This was really his force of personality and bringing the seven ruling families to agree to a federation was not easy.

- One of the major differentiating propositions that I can trace all the way back to early sayings and writings by this man, Zayed, is the notion of tolerance and embrace of the strange.

[Middle East music] - [Narrator] Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was born in 1918, the youngest of four sons.

the Al Nahyan family ruled the coastal Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

Zayed's life was anything but royal.

- He had no formal education.

He was born in an isolated region of the world, and yet he accumulated experiences.

- [Narrator] Zaki Nusseibeh came to Abu Dhabi in 1968 to work as a journalist.

After interviewing Sheikh Zayed, he was so impressed that he spent the rest of his career as Zayed's translator and close adviser.

- I remember he said, I am going to set up this federation and I will succeed in this.

And the federation will build a network of Arab regional and international relationship.

And then he said, I will use the wealth that has come our way in order to make our people prosperous and stable, but also to help not only our Arab and Muslim resident, but also to help all those in need throughout the world.

And then the third pillar of that vision was his saying, I will work to bring modernization to Abu Dhabi because we need the services and facilities that modernization brings.

He succeeded in doing this so that by the '80s, the Emirates began to emerge on the region and seen as a leading player with vision for the future.

[Middle East music] - The first thing that I think Americans and Christians should understand about the UAE is it is on the cutting edge of the Middle East.

I'm all over the middle east from Saudi Arabia to Egypt.

There's nowhere else like the Emirates.

It just doesn't exist.

[lively music] On my first trip, the airplane stopped at the airport there in Dubai.

That's the first time I ever visited the Emirates.

And my first thought was, what in the world is this place?

It's like, we didn't fly into an airport.

We flew into this incredible shopping mall, a high-end shopping mall with more stores and restaurants and lounges to relax in, not ever seen in my life.

- This kind of economic explosion that took place there that's this festival of building.

I think what really made it known to Americans was Dubai, you know.

They became aware that there's was this crazy kind of city built overnight.

That looked like something out of another planet, you know, sort of these incredible skyscrapers and these kind of wonderland hotels and malls with gigantic aquariums and ski slopes.

So I think they've deliberately sort of cultivated this kind of Xanadu, a reputation that has put them on the map.

- The UAE is home to more than 200 nationalities.

The community that calls the UAE home is actually very diverse, and it's been this way for a very long time.

If you walk into a mall or a hospital, school, you name it, you are bound to find somebody from a different nationality.

- One thing that I always say about the UAE is we think here in New York, we're diverse.

I thought there are people from all around the world here.

When you're in the UAE, you will not find two people from the same nationality standing next to each other.

The confluence of different nationalities there is amazing.

- The UAE has a population today of 10 plus million, but the local population, the Emirati population is 10% of that.

So for the UAE to survive as a country and to develop, there is no way it cannot be inclusive.

- [Narrator] In 2004, Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates died.

He had led the UAE since its founding in 1971 for more than three decades.

The late Sheikh Zayed was succeeded as the UAE's president and ruler of Abu Dhabi by his eldest son Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

At the same time, another of Zayed's son, Mohammed bin Zayed, often referred to in the media, simply as MBZ, was named the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

He was also appointed a deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces and is often the public face of the UAE.

- The Emiratis have been very lucky with their leadership.

They had Sheikh Zayed in the '60s and '70s, who really lifted the country with its oil wealth and made something out of it.

And then Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed comes along.

He is thinking 20 years down.

You don't get leaders like that too often.

- [Narrator] And you don't often get leaders who are as private as Mohammed bin Zayed, which is why Robert Worth was amazed when he was able to secure an interview with MBZ for the New York times magazine.

- First of all, it was exciting because I had been wanting to meet him for such a long time.

He's a person with a fascinating reputation.

Everybody knows how important he is, but very few people have actually met him.

There's a lot of talk about him.

So it was great to get to sit down with him.

And what I experienced in my brief interview very much followed what I'd heard from people I already met, who knew him that he comes across as soft-spoken, very deliberate and thoughtful, not someone who seems particularly conscious as some politicians are, of an audience around him, but rather someone who's focused on the person he's talking to.

He's obviously thought a lot about his country's role in the region and its particular vulnerabilities, a small country in a very, very volatile area right next to Iran.

- [Narrator] This is also the political reality that informs the UAE's policies, promoting religious tolerance and inclusivity.

- With the immense capabilities in terms of oil and wealth and so forth and a very unusual economic situation where you have this tremendous foreign population, all of these people from all over the world working there and how to manage that, how to build a viable society, where citizens are a small minority.

[soft music] - [Narrator] A crucial indicator of that future path was the decision to invite Pope Francis to visit the United Arab Emirates, a visit that took place in February, 2019.

During the UAE's Year of Tolerance.

[Middle East music] - This inclusive, open-minded outlook still shapes our society today.

This is now part of Emirati DNA.

And there is absolutely no better way to celebrate the Year of Tolerance than with a visit from Pope Francis.

It was the first visit by a Pope to the Arabian Peninsula ever, the birthplace of Islam.

And we were incredibly privileged, honored and excited to welcome Pope Francis to Abu Dhabi.

The Pope held a mass, [people singing Catholic songs] that mass, at an audience of 180,000 people in Abu Dhabi.

[people singing Catholic songs] But it wasn't just the 180,000 that was impressive.

It was the diversity of the 180,000.

If you look at the pictures, you'll see people from the Philippines, people from India, people from Beirut, numerous African and European countries.

It was truly inspiring to see this group come together with the Pope in Abu Dhabi.

- The Holy Spirit.

Peace with you.

[lively music] - [Narrator] The capstone of the visit was the signing of the document on human fraternity.

It was a joint statement by Pope Francis and one of the highest Muslim authorities in the Islamic world, His Eminence Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo.

Dr. El-Tayeb said the document is historic.

And he calls for policymakers to stop bloodshed and conflict.

Muslims must protect their Christian brothers.

I will work with my brother and friend, Pope Francis to protect all communities.

[Pope speaking Italian] - It was huge.

It was a huge deal.

And I think this is part of the UAE agenda and vision and Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed's vision of saying we're open to the world and to the world religions.

- It's both real politic and part of a gentlemanly, more inclusive tolerant view than you'll find in most other Arab societies.

[lively music] - [Narrator] The most surprising beneficiary of that tolerance has been the Jewish community of the United Arab Emirates, a community of worshipers that didn't even exist before 2008.

- It is in fact the only example of the growing Jewish community in the Arab world in many hundreds of years.

[soft music] - I told an aunt of mine we were moving to Dubai, and she went, oh, cookie, that's so wonderful for you and then phoned me later that night to say cookie, I didn't realize you were moving to the United Arab Emirates.

- We would sit around the Shabbat table on a Friday evening and wonder whether there were any other Jews in the UAE.

- I honestly thought we were the only Jews, maybe five, six of us in Dubai at that time.

- 15, 20, 25 Families.

It wasn't a hundred.

It was a very small number.

- But it felt big at the time.

- Yes.

- Even if we were a small minority.

- That was the first phase of our community, was just finding the other Jews that were in town in a context where I think people felt unsure about what it meant to be a Jew here and whether it was allowed in some sense.

- There was something very special about practicing Judaism in Dubai.

I mean, often we may hear the Muslim call to prayer one at the same time is saying one of our own prayers.

And that was a very beautiful moment.

[Jews chanting prayers in Hebrew] - I think that what we created was the true essence of being Jewish and a Jewish community, the coming together, people of all walks of life and at different stages of life, the support that we gave each other and the strength.

It's a true sense of community.

- [Narrator] Of course, a congregation needs a rabbi.

That's where Yehuda Sarna comes in.

- I serve as the University Chaplain at NYU, which first brought me to NYU in Abu Dhabi in 2010 where I've been going once or twice a year, in order to minister the Jewish students, staff and faculty, as well as the population as a whole.

And then most recently, several years ago, I began meeting a Jewish community, which had formed organically in the Emirate of Dubai.

And with all the energy and momentum, that the Year of Tolerance has brought, the Pope's visit and the announcement of the building of a house of Abraham in Abu Dhabi, which will have not only a mosque, not only a church, but also a synagogue within.

The community came together and decided that in addition to forming itself, they want you to have a rabbi who would represent them on the regional and international stage.

- I remember finding Rabbi Sarna and saying Rabbi Sarna, we want you to be our chief rabbi.

And he said, I will on one condition.

And I thought to myself, wait for him to speak.

And I scanning of my mind, and he said, I will not accept any payment for the role.

That's my condition.

And I had thought for one or two seconds and I said that we can accept that condition.

- [Narrator] Although they had a rabbi, they still met in an unmarked villa, in a residential neighborhood in Dubai.

They kept the location quiet.

Some even joked that they were an underground congregation.

- Coming into a place where you are, where you feel that you're the only ones in a sense, and you're creating a community, you do take on that sense of major responsibility that you are carrying.

- I saw other people in our community feeling comfortable, declaring that they were Jewish.

I did not have that comfort level until this year.

You know, there's been this like energy and spirit and idea, this larger idea of moving forward and formalizing and becoming a real thing.

And then if I think back to just being here five or six years ago, beyond my imagination at that point.

- The fact that there is for the first time in century, a new Jewish community established in the heart of the Arab world is nothing short of historic.

This is in a way, represents in a way its own call to prayer.

[Middle East music] - [Narrator] Dedicating a Torah scroll to late Sheikh Zayed was the next step in this historic journey, but first they needed to finish writing the Torah and making its case.

[soft music] The unfinished Torah and case was shipped from Israel to New York, where Eli Epstein and rabbis Yehuda Sarna and Elie Abadie brought it to a workshop in Brooklyn.

[soft music] With the Torah case finally finished, they turn to the penultimate step in the Torah's preparation.

Joined together as a community to write the final characters of the Hebrew Bible and celebrate a sacred and historic moment.

- I think we will start.

You are writing the first letter.

- We need to engage the community to have them participate, yet at the same time, maintain the holiness of the moment.

[Jewish people singing in Hebrew] Writing of the concluding of a Sefer Torah is a very happy and auspicious occasion.

[Jewish people singing in Hebrew] [soft music] - [Narrator] Finally on Monday, November 25th, 2019 in Abu Dhabi.

[soft music] The Torah scroll was presented to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

The dedication was in honor of his father, the late Sheikh Zayed, founder of the United Arab Emirates.

- Your Highness, Your Excellencies, we are here as the children of Abraham to affect a historic moment, a moment which weaves together, love, gratitude, respect, and hope.

[soft music] I'm under no illusions that this gift will solve complicated geopolitical problems.

What this gift does do is it gives us material for creating a new narrative in the Middle East.

We'll begin with the ancient Hebrew blessing recited upon meeting a sovereign.

[rabbi chanting in Hebrew] the Jewish community of the Emirates retains deep ties to other Jewish communities around the world.

As word spread about the Year of Tolerance from the publication of the book, Celebrating Tolerance, to the Pope's visit and ultimately to the announcement of the construction of the Abrahamic family house, this community and others feels like it is incumbent upon us to become full partners in this vision.

It is a gift from all Jews, as Jews, not as citizens representing any other country.

The most sacred object in the Jewish tradition is the Torah, the five books of Moses.

It is our identity, our love, our spirit, our oxygen.

Without it, we cannot live.

The power of this gift is in the gift itself which is everything that the Torah represents.

It's about the Torah.

It's about the Torah.

It's about the Torah's history.

It's not about the value of this particular Torah.

It's about the value of Torah.

It typically takes a scribe one full year to write a Torah, which must be meticulously composed, special ink, special parchment, pure intentions.

Involved in the composition of the Torah, we had Sephardic Jews and Askenazi Jews.

We had reform, conservative and orthodox Jews.

We had young, we had old.

We had students, we had grandparents.

It was intergenerational.

Sometimes children, parents and grandparents together, writing letters.

That's the idea.

Therefore the highest tribute in our tradition is to have a scroll dedicated in one's honor.

The highest bond of trust occurs when one gives the Torah as a gift to another.

We are here today to complete this Torah dedicated to the legacy of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and entrusted to Your Highness and Your Excellencies who ensure his legacy of tolerance lives on.

Once complete, this will be the first Torah scroll ever dedicated to an Arab ruler.

I now invite Sheikh Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance to complete the final letters with Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie.

[soft music] - The last letter is Lamed, L letter of the last letter of the word is Israel.

The first letter of the Torah is a Bet [speaking Hebrew] the Book of Genesis.

So we take those two letters and symbolically make the word "lev".

Lev means heart, which means that we ought to incorporate the Torah and all its teaching into our heart and live as such.

- And now for the prayer, which the Jewish community recites weekly for the welfare of the United Arab Emirates.

- May he who gives salvation to kings and dominion to princes, bless and protect the president of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Nahyan, And he's deputy ruler of Dubai, Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and all the rulers of the other Emirates and their crown princess.

May this land be blessed with stability, prosperity and peace.

May this be as well and in the sermon.

[boy speaking Hebrew] - That was like the Year of Tolerance?

- Yeah.

- We've been witnessed today a sacred moment, belonging to the storytellers and the children of Abraham.

We must ensure in shalah that this story inspires others as well to love, gratitude, respect and hope.

It's a gift of Jews of this time.

And it's a gift of Jews from all times.

- We're in the holding room and then Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed came in and Sheikh Nahyan.

And I have to say that when Rabbi Sarna spoke and when the Torah was out there in its full beautiful regalia, in the gold case, it was so overwhelming and so overcoming, and your speech was so on point.

And when Mohammed bin Zayed responded to us and told us how important we were to his community and how important the Torah was in terms of the way we convey our religion, and it was overwhelming.

So from my point of view, this was the pinnacle of my career as an ambassador.

And it was only day one.

[people laughing] - I felt like meeting him was a very spiritual experience.

He spoke softly, deliberately, you know, looked at me in the eyes.

- He came across as humble man.

And his communication was exquisite.

Speaking about his father, speaking about him as a young man, himself as a young man and the lessons that his father gave about, you know, his belief in the message of Islam and being true to that message in terms of really where the faith should take them to, and disconnect of the radical Islamists today from that message.

That was really amazing.

- I sensed when I was standing behind the table where the Torah scroll was and His Highness started approaching that table, looking.

- Yeah, what were you thinking in that moment?

- I was thinking, I felt that he approached it with such respect and trepidation, but with a lot of curiosity.

I sensed also that he wasn't sure if he's able to get even closer.

And so that's when I thought maybe I also broke protocol by inviting him to come around the table and come and see it from the front, so to speak.

And he accepted my invitation.

And I think that kind of a broke a little bit the ice, and he was able to feel as part of this whole ceremony.

And then we started that conversation about the meaning of the Torah scroll.

- You've got to tell me what your conversation was with His Highness when he came up to the Torah.

- He was first of all very interested about the story of the Torah.

What it is and its relationship to the Jewish people, of course.

And so I explained all that to him, how old it was, that it was given to Moshe, to Moses and that practically every single Torah scroll in the world is exactly the same.

They follow the perfect rules, even the paragraphing off of the page is exactly the same.

And he said that explains the strength and the unity of the Jewish people.

- I felt in the moment like, this was some kind of landmark, like it was some kind of, it was an anchor in a way which could redefine the terms, a broad relationship.

- Civilization.

- Yeah.

- Civilization.

When you think about closing that gap, we can say we should and can easily celebrate that moment.

We don't know where it's going to go to.

- We don't know.

- And we're on uncharted waters, going forward, but to realize that this could lead in so many positive directions of a sense of really renewing a sense of how connected we all are and how we really are in this together, [speaking Hebrew] - What does that mean?

- We're breathing the air together.

[soft music] - Here's an Arab leader, fairly young who has taken the bold step of saying I'm proud of this.

And I am proud of being presented this very valuable recognition.

I can only imagine that 10, 20 years from now, when we look back at it, we'll say this was an important moment.

[soft music] - [Narrator] Breathing the same air.

That echoes the late Sheikh Zayed's principle of welcoming the stranger, regardless of that person's faith tradition.

The Jewish community of the UAE is the fruit of that openness and religious tolerance.

- Never in our lives did we ever actually imagined that someone would come forward and create a open, established Jewish community.

- I'm overjoyed if people can now travel that freely, that is real, that there's a real Jewish community.

It could be openly Jewish.

- I think what has been created is definitely a sign of hope and definitely a sign that what has been created there can continue throughout the rest of the region and beyond.

[soft music] - Good evening.

- [Narrator] On a Sabbath evening in 2020, between Resha Shamma and Yom Kippor, The UAE's Minister of State for Youth, Her Excellency, Shamma Al Mazrui, joined a Zoom service with Jews in America, in the Emirates.

and in Israel.

- And please consider me a new student of the Jewish tradition and wisdom, your values, your ethics that guide you through a full year of weeklies to our portions.

I want to learn from you today.

Our youth want to learn from you.

Our nation wants to learn from different nations.

And likewise, we invite you to come sit with us at the table.

- Where are we getting to is the point where the UAE will be known as a beautiful place for Jews and for everybody that wants to pray and commune in the way that they like to do with a real sense of respect for our context and understanding where we are.

That's the future we're going to.

- [Narrator] Nothing embodies the present and future more concretely than a bold new project announced by the UAE, the building of the Abrahamic family house.

The Abrahamic family house, three stunning houses of worship in one dramatic space, a church, a synagogue, and a Mosque, set on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi.

- When the Abrahamic center was launched, having the mosque, the church and the synagogue all together on one campus, it was a fabulous moment, but in my mind, I thought which other country could do this.

And it was obvious to me only the UAE could do this.

They are perfectly placed.

And with this program of tolerance, they are really trying to lead this movements of diversity.

- I think we're part of a grand adventure, and we don't know where it will end.

I think we're all coming into it with goodwill and good faith.

And our hope is that it leads to great progress that Jews and Muslims and Christians can live together in peace.

It seems like such a small thing.

I'm an old man.

Now I have gray hair, but more important, I not only have children, I have a grandson.

And I want to know that my grandson can get along well with his Christian neighbors, with his Muslim neighbors and live in a country where we respect one another and more than tolerate one another, where we celebrate together.

And I think what's going on in the Emirates is a great harbinger for that possibility.

[inspiring music] - I'm very optimistic about the future of the country.

I think that from the days of our founding fathers and the generations before us, they have built so much and have created so much in such a short amount of time.

And it's a huge responsibility for us, the newer generation because with the developing world and the development and technology and all of that, we have to work twice as hard and we have to aim twice as high so that we can continue this journey and continue writing our history as people of the Emirates.

[inspiring music] - They say come back in two years, come back in five years, My God, this is going to be an amazing place.

[inspiring music] - This is the miracle on the desert as I call it.

This community is a miracle on the desert.

It's amazing to me.

[inspiring music] - I want people to say, you know what?

There is a way for us to reopen the door between Jews and Muslims wherever we might be.

And that the key that unlocks the door is the Torah.

It's so simple.

[inspiring music] - I work with a generation of youth that has the power to transform our values into verbs.

Love is the basis of our faith relationships to unlock to Yahweh to God.

If he is large enough to contain our world, he is certainly large enough to contain our differences.

And in this day and age, personally, I believe that love is what the family of Abraham needs the most.

[speaking Arabic] And may God bless us all.

[man speaking Hebrew] - Amen.

[man speaking Arabic] [soft music]

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