The history of the Jews in Qatar is relatively limited unlike some of the neighboring countries in the Gulf of Persia.
In modern days a small number of expats of Jewish origin reside in Qatar, mainly in Doha. Kosher food was produced during the 2022 World Cup and Rabbi Eli Chitrik visits Qatar several times a year in behalf of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States.
In 2005 Qatar University with the Qatari Minsitry of Foreign Affairs invited a Jewish delegation from Israel to take part in an international conference on religious dialogue despite opposition from some quarters. It was the first time that Jewish scholars attended the International Conference on Religious Dialogue held every year in Qatar. [1]
Various kinds of Jewish people visit and live in Qatar. Professor Gary Wasserman wrote a book The Doha Experiment: Arab Kingdom, Catholic College, Jewish Teacher describing his stay teaching and working in Qatar where Wasserman encountered barely any personal animosity due to being Jewish. [2]
In 2013 Qatar assisted Yemenite Jews to move to Israel. The first group of Yemenite Jews departed from Doha on Qatari flights and arrived in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. [3] [4]
A significant sign of Qatar's new openness to outsiders that includes Jews was that over 10,000 Israelis and many other Jews [5] visited for the 2022 FIFA World Cup many of whom were provided with tens of thousands of Kosher meals showing that there is official recognition and permission to practice Judaism. [6] [7] [8] [9] As early as 2019 it was reported that Qatari officials had consulted with American Rabbi Marc Schneier as to how to welcome the thousands of Israelis and Jews who intended to attend the world Cup finals in 2022. [10] [11]
In 2021 the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities was established to serve Jewish populations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. [12] A 2023 report by the United States Department of State stated that during Ramadan the US ambassador hosted an interfaith Suhur (morning meal before sunrise or after the fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan) bringing together Muslim, Christian, and Jewish representatives and in September, the US embassy helped facilitate the visit of a rabbi who conducted Jewish religious services. [13] In a strange twist, rabbis from the anti-Zionist Jewish movement Neturei Karta attended the funeral of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Qatari capital Doha in 2024. [14]
Some reports suggest that Qatar's recent official benevolence and tolerance of Jews and Judaism inside Qatar itself is aimed at easing its political isolation and improving its own image by reaching out to American Jews. [15] [16] [17] [18] Qatar's efforts to reach out to wealthy and influentuel American Jews was reported by Axios in 2023: "Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump organized a private meeting in New York last Wednesday with Qatar's prime minister and a bipartisan group mostly of Jewish businessmen and billionaires, three sources with direct knowledge of the meeting tell Axios." [19]
In a 2023 report by the Board of Deputies of British Jews a delegation of World Jewish Congress officials, led by its president Ronald Lauder, engaged in discussions with leaders in Qatar. During these high-level meetings the concerns of global Jewry regarding the plight of Israeli hostages in Gaza were expressed seeking the intervention of Arab leaders to secure the release of the Israeli hostages. [20]
Antisemitism is rife in many areas of life in Qatar as well as fostering antisemitism beyond its borders. The media giant Al Jazeera is based in Qatar and has frequently been accused of fostering and spouting antisemitism. [21] [22] Antisemitic cartoons appear often in Qatari newspapers [23] and school books. [24] The United States Department of State has found persistent antisemitism in Qatari school textbooks [25] [26] [27] such as that Jews seek world domination. [28] Some writers have called for a cut-off of funding to American colleges by Qatar and other wealthy Muslim countries because the multimillion-dollar donations to Middle Eastern studies centers and departments have advanced Islamist ideology and fostered Jew-hatred at U.S. universities. [29]
Qatar has supplied money for antisemitic activists and activism against Jewish students and Jewish interests on American college and university campuses. [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] Some American politicians have spoken out against the antisemitic outcomes of Qatari funding of US institutions, such as Representative Jack Bergman, who has stated that: "For years, the Qatar Foundation philanthropies and the Qatar Investment Authority have played a key role in the organization and funding of the radical antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement on U.S. college campuses. Since 2017, Qatar has hired at least 100 different firms for lobbying and public relations, according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act database. Qatar has also lavished tens of millions of dollars on nonprofit Washington think tanks, including the Brookings Institution. And Qatar has given over $5 billion to U.S. universities, according to records published by the U.S. Department of Education." [35]
In 2016 the Simon Wiesenthal Center objected to the continued display of titles inciting to hatred of Jews at the Doha International Book Fair. [36] A 2024 first ever Web Summit Qatar bringing together thousands of investors and startups was also tainted with antisemitism due to a large number of investors and tech experts advertised as speaking at the Doha conference who are on record of promoting antisemitic tropes. [37]
Even though Qatar has been a mediator in the 2024 Israel–Hamas war, it has neverthless been accused of antisemitism in the process. [38]
As an indication of the opening up of Qatari society to western influence and giving appropriate attention to the Jewish population, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported in December 2003 that a forum on U.S.-Islamic relations in Qatar would feature both Israeli and U.S. Jewish participants. Former president Clinton and Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, were the scheduled keynote speakers at the 2004 US-Islamic Forum in Doha. The forum was sponsored by the Project on US Policy Towards the Islamic World and funded by the Saban Center, founded by American-Israeli entertainment mogul Haim Saban. Participants came from predominantly Islamic countries, including Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. Martin Kramer, the editor of the Middle East Quarterly, was the sole Israeli participant since Saban and attended as an American. [39]
A news report that described the preparations for U.S. troops stationed in Qatar:
The Jewish members of America's armed forces will again receive kosher K-rations this Pesach throughout the holiday, provided by the U.S. Defense Department.
Thousands of packages containing kosher for Pesach MREs (meals ready to eat) have already reached U.S. army and navy supply bases, with special shipments aimed at Jewish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan...
The Jewish Chaplains Council estimates that the number of Jews stationed in Iraq is between 500 and 600. Of the 30 Jewish chaplains on active duty worldwide, eight chaplains are stationed in Iraq, including two female rabbis.
Each chaplain stationed in Iraq will hold two seders at base camps, with central seders in Baghdad, Falluja, and Tikrit. There will also be two seders at the army headquarters in Bahrain, and air force headquarters in Qatar. Jewish soldiers stationed in remote locations will be able to attend seders led by soldiers who received special training for that purpose. [40]
In 2007 a report stated,
Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, are making some of their most public overtures ever to Israel and American Jews to undercut Iran's growing influence, contain violence in Iraq and Lebanon and push for a Palestinian solution...Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have stepped up contacts with Israel and pro-Israel Jewish groups in the USA. The outreach has the Bush administration's blessing: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said six Persian Gulf states and Egypt, Jordan, and Israel are a new alignment of moderates to oppose extremists backed by Iran and Syria. She has said an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would weaken militants such as Hamas and Hezbollah...Saudi and Gulf Arab contacts with Israelis and American Jews go back more than a decade but have never been so public. Arab countries have treated Israel as a pariah since it gained independence in 1948. Most Arab countries ban travel to Israel, investment there, and other commercial ties with the Jewish state and routinely refer to it as the "Zionist entity." ...Among the other recent Arab-Jewish contacts: Saudi national security adviser Bandar bin Sultan met privately with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in Jordan in September, said Daniel Ayalon, Israel's former ambassador to Washington. He said it was the highest-level Saudi-Israeli meeting he'd ever heard of. The United Arab Emirates has invited a delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The conference, a 51-member umbrella group, is a strong supporter of Israel. Israeli deputy prime minister Shimon Peres met the emir of Qatar in late January after taking part in a debate with Arab students there. It was the highest-level Israeli meeting with the Persian Gulf nation since 1996 when Peres visited as prime minister." [41]
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.
Scholars have studied and debated Muslim attitudes towards Jews, as well as the treatment of Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout the history of Islam. Parts of the Islamic literary sources give mention to certain Jewish groups present in the past or present, which has led to debates. Some of this overlaps with Islamic remarks on non-Muslim religious groups in general.
A number of organizations and academics consider the Nation of Islam (NOI) to be antisemitic. The NOI has engaged in Holocaust denial, and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade; mainstream historians, such as Saul S. Friedman, have said Jews had a negligible role. The NOI has repeatedly rejected charges made against it as false and politically motivated.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian political cartoonist. His work deals with themes such as anti-Western sentiment, anti-capitalism, and opposition to U.S. military intervention in foreign countries. He is best-known for his images depicting the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the Arab Spring.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to The New York Times, is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations".
This is a list of countries where antisemitic sentiment has been experienced.
Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are "sensational reports, misrepresentations or fabrications" about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion.
The history of the Jews in the United Arab Emirates describes the historical and modern presence of Jews over the millennia in the Middle East and the recorded meetings with Jewish communities in areas that are today in the geographic territories of the United Arab Emirates.
The history of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to Biblical times. The Arabian Peninsula is defined as including the present-day countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen politically and parts of Iraq and Jordan geographically.
Antisemitism, the prejudice or discrimination against Jews, has had a long history since the ancient times. While antisemitism had already been prevalent in ancient Greece and Roman Empire, its institutionalization in European Christianity after the destruction of the ancient Jewish cultural center in Jerusalem caused two millennia of segregation, expulsions, persecutions, pogroms, genocides of Jews, which culminated in the 20th-century Holocaust in Nazi German-occupied European states, where 67% European Jews were murdered.
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents. FBI data shows that in every year since 1991, Jews were the most frequent victims of religiously motivated hate crimes. The number of hate crimes against Jews may be underreported, as in the case for many other targeted groups.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
The Jewish community in Sweden has been prevalent since the 18th century. Today Sweden has a Jewish community of around 20,000, which makes it the 7th largest in the European Union. Antisemitism in historical Sweden primarily manifested as the confiscation of property, restrictions on movement and employment, and forced conversion to Christianity. Antisemitism in present-day Sweden is mainly perpetrated by far-right politicians, neo-Nazis, and Islamists.
Antisemitism in France has become heightened since the late 20th century and into the 21st century. In the early 21st century, most Jews in France, like most Muslims in France, are of North African origin. France has the largest population of Jews in the diaspora after the United States—an estimated 500,000–600,000 persons. Paris has the highest population, followed by Marseilles, which has 70,000 Jews. Expressions of antisemitism were seen to rise during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the French anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s. Following the electoral successes achieved by the extreme right-wing National Front and an increasing denial of the Holocaust among some persons in the 1990s, surveys showed an increase in stereotypical antisemitic beliefs among the general French population.
Antisemitism in Venezuela has occurred throughout the history of the Jews in Venezuela. However, under the presidencies of both Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, allegations of antisemitism grew following actions and statements by the Venezuelan government, while also occurring in public incidents. The Bolivarian government would also use the words of "Jewish" and "Zionist" interchangeably in order to avoid accusations of antisemitism.
Joey Allaham is a lobbyist and former New York City restaurant entrepreneur. He founded a number of restaurants in New York including Prime Grill, Prime KO, and others. From 2017 to 2018, Allaham was a lobbyist for the government of Qatar. The New York Times describes him as an "international fixer".
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.