Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s top Middle East negotiator, led Jewish prayer services at a synagogue in Bahrain this week, during the conference there that rolled out the economic portion of the Trump administration’s peace plan.
Greenblatt mustered an Orthodox minyan — a quorum of ten adult Jewish males — for morning services Wednesday at the synagogue, which dates to the 19th century. Participants were among the businessmen, officials, journalists and think-tank employees attending the conference.
Houda Nonoo, the former Bahraini ambassador to the United States and a member of the country’s Jewish community of 35 or so people, said minyans were rare in the synagogue, tending to take place more at cemeteries and in people’s homes.
“It was an amazing experience to see everybody here together,” she told i24, an Israel-based news channel. She could not remember the last time the synagogue had shacharit, or the morning prayer service.
Greenblatt posted a picture of the service on Twitter.
“A special opportunity to daven (pray) this morning with a minyan (quorum) in a synagogue in Bahrain,” he said. “Great way to start today. I was asked what I prayed for — two things: my family, who I miss deeply and of course for peace. This is an example of the future we can all build together.”
The conference wrapped up on its second day without news of whether Jared Kushner, the peace team’s boss and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, had extracted the $50-70 billion in pledges he is seeking to seed the infrastructural changes he says the Palestinian economy needs as a predicate for peace.
Peace will only come the way the rebbe said it would. But I do spot a Chabad Tallis in first pic