Now that Israeli tourists will be free to travel to the UAE, the Times of Israel notes some sites of particular Jewish interest, including the sole trace of the Jews who lived there centuries ago:
The existence of an ancient Jewish community in the area upon which the United Arab Emirates now stands is poorly documented. Benjamin of Tudela, [a 12th-century Spanish Jewish traveler and writer], said he found a Jewish community in Kis in the modern-day emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, the northernmost of the emirates. Beyond his words, little trace of that community remains.
But records of Jewish communities in the area have not entirely vanished. In Ras al-Khaimah’s National Museum stands the tombstone of one David son of Moses, unearthed in the 1970s by local residents.
The tombstone features clearly legible Hebrew writing, with some Judeo-Arabic mixed in. According to the historian Timothy Power, the mysterious David may have migrated from Persia to nearby cosmopolitan Hormuz at the height of its commercial splendor, between the 14th and 16th centuries.
More about: Benjamin of Tudela, Jewish history, United Arab Emirates