Sitting in his comfortable Dubai home overlooking the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper, Eitan Neishlos contemplates his family’s past and the present and future of the Jewish people.
The Israeli-born, South Africa-raised philanthropist and entrepreneur has been honored by The Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world for his assiduous efforts in spearheading Holocaust education and promoting tolerance and coexistence between Jews and Arabs.
While the Israel-Hamas war has caused him to adjust his focus to caring for the victims of the conflict in Israel’s South, he remains optimistic about the joint future of Israelis and Arabs in the region. For Neishlos, the memory of his grandmother Tamara Ziserman burns bright in his consciousness.
Ziserman survived the horrors of the Holocaust hidden in a chimney 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 remembrance. As the ambassador of the International March of the Living chapter in the Gulf states, he established a movement to increase Holocaust awareness in the Arab world.
In April 2022, Ahmed Obaid Al Mansoori, founder of the first Holocaust memorial gallery in the Arab world, lit a torch of remembrance at Auschwitz-Birkenau with Neishlos as they together proclaimed, “Never again.” Later that year, in November, Neishlos partnered with the Crossroads of Civilizations Museum in Dubai and the International March of the Living to produce a historic event commemorating the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
At that event, Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler met with Jewish and Muslim youth 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 over 8,000 shoes belonging to children who perished in the Holocaust as part of its Soul to Sole campaign, ensuring that their memory will stay alive for generations to come.
NEISHLOS IS passionate not only about the Jewish past but also about the present and future, which is why he moved to Dubai several years ago, as part of his mission to embrace the spirit of the Abraham 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 arrival of the Abraham Accords, an age-old dispute is reconciling, offering a shaded palm deeply rooted in unity, tolerance, and coexistence.”
When Hamas terrorists attacked Israel’s South on Oct. 7, 2023, Neishlos immediately shifted gears to help defend his brothers and sisters in the Holy Land. He was in Israel on that fateful weekend for a planned philanthropic event, along with his parents, from Australia, and colleagues from Dubai.
On the morning of Oct. 7, he and his family had 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 at 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 rising anti-Israel protests and growing antisemitism on US college campuses and in European capitals.
“I was trying to get across the experience of Jews to the leadership in the halls of power in Congress,” he explains. Also present were former permanent representative of Israel to the United Nation Gilad Erdan and current Jewish Agency Chairman Doron Almog, who also spoke at the gathering with members of Congress.
In January 2024, Neishlos returned to Israel and toured Kfar Aza, which had been attacked by Hamas terrorists in October. He recalls a chilling conversation he had with the mother of a hostage, concerned about the abuse that her daughter had suffered at the hands of Hamas. She said to him, “I want my daughter back because I need her to have an abortion if necessary.”
Neishlos says that visiting Kfar Aza instilled in him the need to give a voice to those who had to be heard. To that end, Neishlos teamed up with Canadian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht and Israeli director Dotan Naveh to create a documentary that will chronicle the lives of women who survived the massacre in Kfar Aza.
The film is currently in post-production and is due to be released next year.“I think this film will be very important,” says Neishlos. “We want to look at women’s eyes around the world. This is woman to woman – not to deny the pain, not to deny what happened, and to bring women together.”
Returning to Israel on the first anniversary of Oct. 7, Neishlos spent a day with several women from Kfar Aza. He says, “It was inspiring. I’ll never forget what one of the women said to me. She said that Oct. 7 was not the hardest day. It’s every day after that.
It’s the loss of everything. It’s the loss of confidence, the loss of the feeling of security, the loss of being able to have a cup of coffee with your loved one. The tragedy just carries on.” During his visit to Israel in October, Neishlos visited the “Faces of October 7” exhibition, which featured acclaimed Israeli graffiti artist Benzi Brofman’s portraits of the victims of Oct. 7, including hostages still in Hamas captivity.
The multimedia exhibition, which blends art and storytelling, was organized in partnership with Neishlos and the StandWithUs organization. Commenting on the exhibition, he said, “This was all about giving a safe space for victims of multiple nationalities and religions to mourn – for Israelis to be able to mourn, for them to be able to commemorate, and for us to communicate with empathy to everyone around the world, to look them in their eyes and not to deny their pain, and to join us in our cries to bring them home now.”
MORE RECENTLY, Neishlos journeyed to Australia in November with Emirati author and political strategist Amjad Taha on an outreach tour aimed at promoting peace and coexistence between Jews and Arabs amid the global rise in antisemitism and growing social divisions.
Neishlos and Taha jointly initiated the mission with the Jewish National Fund-Australia and StandWithUs Australia. The two first met at the Israeli Embassy’s Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Abu Dhabi, where they spoke to a Holocaust survivor who addressed the gathering.
From this encounter, Neishlos and Taha decided that more needed to be done to promote mutual dialogue, tolerance, and peace so that the evils of the past and the present would have no place in today’s world.Discussing the pair’s joint visit to Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra, Neishlos says, “We delivered a message that antisemitism is not an opinion – it’s a crime.
We delivered that message to schools, universities, and places of worship of different religions, and we spoke to the leadership of Australia on both sides of the aisle.” Neishlos says that 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 United Arab Emirates, where over 220 cultures live in peace.
“The idea is to shatter the stereotypes and the disinformation that’s driving the dangerous rise of antisemitism. It was a message of hope – a message that it doesn’t matter where you’re from in the world, whether you’re in Johannesburg, Toronto, Sydney, Dubai, or Tel Aviv. As Amjad likes to say, ‘Together we stand, and together we thrive.’”
Despite the overall amity that exists among different groups in the UAE, Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Chabad rabbi based in Abu Dhabi, was murdered in late November. Three suspects from Uzbekistan were taken into custody for the murder. Neishlos says that Rabbi Kogan was a “beautiful, beautiful man,” stating that he exemplified the UAE’s vision of unity, peace, and coexistence.
“We were all shaken up,” Neishlos reports. “The community is united, but we are even more so now. We congregated together. We mourned together. We got comfort from the leadership together, and we’re making plans for the future together.”
He was heartened by the swift action taken by the authorities in Abu Dhabi to apprehend the culprits, and says that the UAE Deputy Ambassador to Israel Khaled Al-Mutawa visited the shiva memorial tent for Rabbi Kogan in Israel. The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement after the murder, reaffirming their commitment to uphold the principles of tolerance and peaceful coexistence among diverse religions and cultures.
Quoting Rabbi Levi Duchman of the United Arab Emirates regarding the response of the Jewish community to the murder, Neishlos says, “He said to me, ‘Eitan, from here on, there is only one way. We will only grow stronger, bring in 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 carrying on our lives here in the same context that we’ve been thriving in, and under this shaded palm that we 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 UAE to support the Jewish community in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In that light, he feels that the fact that Kushner, one of the architects of the Abraham Accords, sent a personal gift to Chabad signifies that the United States and the Trump administration will show continued support to strengthen the accords.
The Jewish community in the Emirates is “emboldened,” says Neishlos, and safeguarded by the values of the country, which upholds that antisemitism is not an opinion but a crime. He uses that same word to express his mission.
“I’m emboldened 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 Abraham Accords will grow, and safeguard every single place that a Jew calls home.
“In the years to come, I believe we will see Arab-Jewish solidarity further strengthening and the values of the Abraham Accords at the forefront of our region’s public discourse. Together, Jews and Arabs will stand up to antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, demonstrating to the world what true kinship, coexistence, and multiculturalism look like.”
This article was written in cooperation with Eitan Neishlos.