Torah scroll dedicated in UAE, documented in new film
The film is a joint production of the UAE’s Jewish community (Jewish Council of the Emirates (JCE) and the Religion Media Company.
By MICHAL MICHELLE DIVONUpdated: DECEMBER 19, 2020 22:08ABU DHABI’S Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan attends the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, last year.(photo credit: BANDAR ALGALOUD/COURTESY OF SAUDI ROYAL COURT/REUTERS)
A documentary about a Torah scroll that was dedicated in 2019 to the memory of United Arab Emirates founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and presented to his son, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi will debut early next year.The film Amen-Amen-Amen is a joint production of the UAE’s Jewish community (Jewish Council of the Emirates (JCE) and the Religion Media Company.From a workshop in Jerusalem, where the scroll was written, to a workshop in Brooklyn, New York, where the Torah’s case was finished, to a November 2019 dedication ceremony at an Abu Dhabi palace, exclusive footage takes the viewer inside an intimate story that is indicative of the global transformation shaping the Middle East and Gulf region.“The gesture of dedicating a Torah scroll to an Arab ruler is unimaginable,” says Eli Epstein, a businessman and interfaith activist who first came up with the idea.David, the Jewish craftsman in Jerusalem who fled Baghdad with his parents, says he hopes this Torah scroll will bring Jews and Muslims closer together. “My son told me that we are making a Torah scroll for Dubai. I told him – prepare the most beautiful book, the most professional, the most correct. I feel that a Torah scroll, reaching a Muslim country – it gives me such a good feeling.”
