The families of Jared and Joshua Kushner pledged a total of $2 million to Chabad of the United Arab Emirates on Monday in memory of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, the 28-year-old Israeli-Moldovan Chabad emissary who was killed last week after being abducted in Dubai. 

The donations from Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, followed by Joshua Kushner and his wife, Karlie Kloss, come as the Jewish community in the United Arab Emirates — and in the Arab world in general — reels from the aftermath of the killing, which has been condemned by Israeli officials as a “heinous antisemitic terrorist act,” and by Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to Washington, as “an attack on our homeland, on our values and on our vision.”

Jared Kushner’s announcement was made within hours of Kogan’s funeral in Kfar Chabad, Israel, on Monday night. 

“Let us come together from all faiths to pick up where Rabbi Kogan left off and bring his work, and the work of those building the UAE into a thriving destination of tolerance, bridge building and mutual benefit, to new heights,” Jared Kushner wrote on X. 

One of the lead negotiators of the Abraham Accords normalization agreement between the Gulf country and Israel in 2020, Kushner cited the importance of the Accords and interfaith collaboration and called upon others to contribute to the Jewish communities in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in his post on X. Joshua Kushner and Kloss, matched the pledge, totalling a $2 million contribution to Chabad UAE. 

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, senior religious advisor to the Moses ben Maimon Synagogue at the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, told eJewishPhilanthropy that the Kushners’ decision to invest in the Emirati Jewish community is especially important in the wake of the attack. 

“Josh and Jared are just such special people. They have their priorities straight,” Sarna said. “Their philanthropy in this case really means a lot, it means more than the dollars.”

The Kushners’ donations were also hailed by international figures affiliated with the Chabad Lubavitch movement, as well as young entrepreneurs, such as Shopify’s Harley Finkelstein and Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire, and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

“I’m moved by the extraordinary generosity of [Jared and Josh Kushner],” Greenblatt wrote on X. “They responded to the kidnapping and murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan z”l by investing in Chabad of UAE. A reminder that light always beats darkness and that antisemitism will never win.”

Investor Daniel Loeb, who changed his profile picture on X to one of Kogan, also applauded the Kushners and encouraged people to join his Torah study-focused “Simchat Torah Challenge” in Kogan’s memory.

On Sunday, the same day Kogan’s body was found in the city of Al Ain, Emirati officials arrested three Uzbek nationals suspected of murdering him. 

“The worldwide Chabad community, and the international community at large are shocked, grieving and outraged,” said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the Chabad movement’s educational arm, said in a statement on Sunday.

According to Marc Sievers, the director of AJC Abu Dhabi’s Sidney Lerner Center for Arab-Jewish Understanding, though the Jewish community was aware of the threats against it — Emirati officials had already recommended that the community keep a “lower profile” after the onset of the Israel-Hamas war — the killing of Kogan, who among other things managed a local kosher market, still took the tight-knit Jewish population by surprise. 

“It was a big shock, because we knew him, because we mourn the loss of a very kind and decent man, because we had no reason to believe that an incident like that would take place here. Everyone’s very careful and watching all of the media reports and so forth,” told eJP.

Sievers said that Emirati officials have been vocal in their support of the Jewish community since Oct. 7 and have reiterated that support in the wake of last week’s attack. 

“It’s led the Emiratis to reach out and tell us that they care for us, that they want us to be here and they’re looking out for us… And they mean it. I see how quickly [Emirati authorities] acted,” he said.

Sarna also noted that the Emiratis’ quick response to Kogan’s killing indicates that the UAE wants to remain a safe place for Jewish life.

“At times in our history, we’ve had the very unfortunate reaction of governments turning a blind eye to the killing of Jewish people. That’s not the case here,” he told eJP. 

Upon visiting the UAE both in November of last year, and a week ago, Sarna described the atmosphere as at times calmer than New York with regard to Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. “You don’t see, in public, conflicts of opinion playing out. Of course, privately, you know, you learn people really do have different viewpoints,” said Sarna.

According to Sarna, the UAE has established itself as a “center of gravity” on the global Jewish map. Though the country has its own complexities, the Jewish community remains strong enough to persevere through the loss, he said.