UAE Jewish Community Honors Slain Rabbi with Ambitious Tefillin Project

by Tzali Reicher – chabad.org

Avi Batito still remembers the day he met Rabbi Zvi Kogan.

It was late 2020, soon after the Abraham Accords, an agreement under the first Trump administration that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, were signed on the White House lawn. That event allowed the nascent local Jewish community to step out of the shadows, while also opening the door to a rapid increase of Jewish business travelers and tourists to the Arab state. Batito, a real estate entrepreneur from Yavneh, Israel, had just arrived in Dubai—the Emirates’ most populous city—for business, with plans of settling there permanently. He was surprised when he quickly bumped into the young rabbi at his hotel, dressed casually and readily approachable.

“I was shocked to see a bearded Chassidic man standing there with a huge smile,” Batito recalls, brightening at the memory. “He said to me, ‘I heard there was a Jewish guy staying here.’ That was Zvi. He somehow found Jews wherever they were.”

The encounter was no accident. Kogan, with his magnetic personality, had an extensive Rolodex of friends across the Dubai and Abu Dhabi communities. Whenever the young rabbi learned of Jewish people arriving in town, he made it a point to connect and welcome them to the Jewish community.

Kogan had arrived in Dubai just a short time before Batito. Fresh from completing his service in the Israel Defence Forces in 2020, the young rabbi joined Rabbi Levi Duchman’s growing team at Chabad-Lubavitch of the United Arab Emirates. Kogan rapidly became an indispensable member of the organization, playing a pivotal role in establishing and expanding Jewish life in a community experiencing unprecedented growth. As Jewish travelers, including Israelis, began coming to the once-forbidden Gulf state, many even relocating there, Kogan’s energy and dedication helped transform a small, hidden community into a thriving center of Jewish life.

During that first meeting, Kogan helped Batito wrap tefillin, and from there, Batito joined the small but rapidly growing community. The pair quickly bonded, in part due to their similar ages, which led to Shabbat dinners, Chassidic gatherings and long conversations. The pair remained “extremely close,” even after Kogan got married in 2022 and moved to Abu Dhabi to serve the Jewish community there. With Kogan’s role managing the Rimon Kosher Supermarket in Dubai, seeing him making the hour-long commute frequently, but they still managed to get together often.

Batitio loves to travel, and Kogan told him there was one event he couldn’t miss: the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries, the annual event in New York that attracts over 5,000 rabbis and lay leaders for an inspiring and uplifting weekend every December. Intrigued, Batito agreed and made plans to attend the conference together with Kogan in late 2024.

Tragically, just a week before the event, Kogan was abducted and murdered by Islamic terrorists. Batito was already in New York, ready to meet his friend, when he heard the news.

“I was at a dinner with a large group of people when someone messaged me that something happened to Zvi,” says Batito. “I left immediately. It was just so shocking and surreal. How could Zvi be gone?

“We never thought something like this could happen in the UAE,” he continues. “People came to our country and targeted Zvi just because he was a proud and visible Jew? It was unthinkable.”

Weeks later, Batito was back home in Dubai and sitting amongst friends at a Chanukah party when they began talking about what they could do to honor Kogan’s memory.

“The most obvious answer was to donate a Torah scroll, which many people do to honor a loved one’s memory and to elevate their soul,” Batito explains.

He approached some of the other rabbis at Chabad of the UAE. They expressed appreciation for the idea but noted that the young community already had 12 Torahs to use across three synagogues in the Emirates, and another wasn’t immediately required.

Instead, Rabbi Mendy Blau, who directs the Chabad House for Hebrew Speakers in Dubai, suggested an alternative that would more directly reflect Kogan’s personal mission.

And so “Zvi’s Tefillin” was born.

A Living Legacy of Mitzvot

In the anxious weeks before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, began a campaign to encourage Jewish men and boys to put on tefillin. The call quickly took hold, and Chabad activists could soon be found at stations around the world encouraging Jewish passersby to wrap tefillin, even visiting homes and businesses to make it easier for people to do the mitzvah. The campaign became the first of the Rebbe’s 10 Mitzvah Campaigns, and in the decades since, more and more people are heeding the Rebbe’s call to help others don tefillin.

“Zvi was very passionate about the tefillin campaign,” Blau explains. “He always had a pair with him, ready to help someone perform this mitzvah. Even while working at Rimon, he saw an opportunity to help other Jewish people do a mitzvah. He had a back office in the store where many people who came in to shop ended up together with Zvi praying for a few minutes in tefillin. Dedicated tefillin stations throughout the UAE in honor of Zvi’s memory just made sense.”

The ambitious project is establishing 60 tefillin stations across the Emirates in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah, primarily in tourist areas and in the homes of community members. Organizers also plan to send several pairs beyond the UAE’s borders to include other stations in the Gulf that are home to small Jewish communities.

Each tefillin kit is equipped with an AirTag to track its location, allowing organizers to coordinate their distribution and ensure availability. The kits come in two varieties—gold-zippered cases for right-handed users and silver-zippered cases for lefties—making them accessible to all.

“The idea is simple but powerful: Any Jewish man visiting or living in these countries should have access to tefillin within minutes,” says Blau. “We’re using 21st-century technology to fulfill this timeless mitzvah.”

Each pair of tefillin is housed in a beautiful leather bag with a design taken from a photo of Kogan wrapping tefillin with Batitio in 2023. After Kogan’s murder, the image went viral for its depiction of Kogan’s joyful personality and capturing him in the middle of his life’s work: performing a mitzvah with another Jew.

This Sunday, the community officially launched the campaign with 60 men simultaneously putting on the tefillin, which are ready to be sent to their stations for any Jewish person to use. At the event, organizers also announced an additional 50 tefillin pairs in Kogan’s memory, made possible by community members.

For Batito, the project represents more than just a memorial.

“Zvi found me when I was alone in a hotel and had never encountered Chabad before, and brought me into this amazing community,” he says. “Now, through these tefillin stations, he’ll continue to reach people he never even met. Every time someone wraps tefillin, they’ll see his picture and dedicate this mitzvah in his honor and memory. That’s a legacy that I know would make him proud.”

In a region where Jewish life was nearly invisible just a few years ago, the sight of tefillin stations scattered throughout the Gulf stands as a testament to both how much has changed and the spirit of a community that refuses to be intimidated.

“The people who took Zvi from us wanted to scare us, to make us retreat,” reflects Rabbi Levi Duchman, who directs Chabad of the UAE. “Instead, we’re expanding our presence and doubling down on the very mitzvot he lived to help others fulfill. This is how we respond to evil and darkness.”