Chabad Lubavitch of Jordan
Chabad-Lubavitch and Jordan: no resident emissary or Chabad house found; contact limited to transit, emergency help in Amman for stranded Lubavitch students in 2026, and airport incidents involving religious items
| Chabad-Lubavitch in Jordan
| |
|---|---|
| Type | No resident Chabad presence found |
| Founded | None found |
| Headquarters | None |
| Area served | Jordan |
| Key people | None resident. Help in 2026 was organised from Israel and the US (Colel Chabad; Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun) |
| Remarks | Evidence is thin; directories could not be checked conclusively |
Chabad-Lubavitch in Jordan has no resident emissary, Chabad house or local Jewish community body, according to the sources reviewed for this page. Chabad's directories list no centre in Jordan.[1][2] The best-documented Chabad link with the kingdom is from March 2026. More than 60 Lubavitch yeshiva students and seminary girls leaving Israel during the war were held in an Amman hotel for five days. Help came from Colel Chabad in Israel and from Chabad-linked contacts in the US government.[3] Jordan is not covered by the Gulf-based Association of Gulf Jewish Communities, and no rabbi for Jordan is listed by the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States.[4][5]
Emissaries and local bodies
No Chabad emissary, centre or registered entity in Jordan was found. The Chabad headquarters directory on Lubavitch.com lists only Cyprus and Israel under "Middle East".[1] The Chabad.org directory page for Jordan showed no listings when fetched.[2] A parent commenting on COLlive in March 2026 wrote that there is no Jewish community in Jordan, "nor a Bet Chabad for business travelers".[3] (Reader comment; not reliable on its own.)
- Editor's note: Evidence is thin. The Chabad.org page is drawn by script and returned the same empty result for the UAE, where Chabad clearly operates, so a browser check is still needed. No visiting Chabad rabbi assigned to Jordan, and no Chabad holiday or kosher service in the country, was found.
Holiday, kosher and transit services
Stranded students, March 2026. According to COLlive (Rabbi Moshe Krasnanski, 8 March 2026):
- Students of Yeshivas Tzeirei Hashluchim in Tzfat and 35 Bais Rivkah seminary girls left Israel on an evacuation arranged by Grey Bull Rescue, led by Bryan Stern and Olivia Stern. They were held in an Amman hotel for five days.
- The seminary girls kashered the hotel kitchen. COLlive's standfirst claimed that they "created the first Kosher kitchen in Jordan".
- "Rabbi Sholom Duchman of Colel Chabad in Israel mobilized on Friday morning to arrange food for them", but "the Jordanian border authorities confiscated the food and threw it out".
- Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, "a dear friend of President Donald Trump", was contacted and "immediately mobilized the American government". COLlive thanked Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US Ambassador to Jordan, James Holtsnider.
- The group flew on Royal Jordanian to Washington Dulles after Shabbat. Chabad emissaries in Athens, Milan and Tampa had prepared to receive them.[3]
(Chabad-side; the account is the author's own and was not independently confirmed.)
Relations with the state and the royal court
No meeting between a Chabad emissary and King Abdullah II or the Jordanian government was found.
- Airport incident, 2023. In February 2023, Jordanian security at Queen Alia International Airport cut the straps off the tefillin of Rabbi Moshe Haliwa, an Israeli rabbi who heads "a Sephardic community in Dubai", before he was allowed to fly on. Israel's Consul-General in Dubai, Liron Zaslansky, told him she knew of "other incidents of harassment by Jordanian border guards at land crossings with Israel".[6] The Times of Israel does not describe Haliwa as Chabad. The incident is included for context on how religious Jews are treated in transit.
- Food confiscated, 2026. The confiscation of food sent by Colel Chabad in 2026 is described above.[3]
- Editor's note: The Israeli–Jordanian relationship and the 1994 peace treaty are not covered here, as no source found links them to Chabad. See Zionist connections in Jordan.
Funding and donors
None found.
Controversies
Reader comments on COLlive argued over whether the students should have left Israel at all, citing "the rebbe's shita of not leaving eretz Israel". They also argued over credit for the rescue, with one claiming "Chabad is the one who rescued you" and not Grey Bull.[3] (Internal Chabad debate; anonymous comments.)
Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States
The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi for Jordan, and Jordan is not on its communities list.[5][7] No ARIS member is reported as covering Jordan from elsewhere.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| Feb 2023 | Tefillin straps of Rabbi Moshe Haliwa (not Chabad) cut at Amman airport |
| Mar 2026 | More than 60 Lubavitch students held in Amman for five days; Colel Chabad food confiscated at the border; US government help via Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun |
See also
- Chabad-Lubavitch in West Asia
- Zionist connections in Jordan
- Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States
- Chabad in Iran
- Chabad Lubavitch of Bahrain
- Chabad in Saudi Arabia
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, "Middle East – Centers", Lubavitch.com, accessed 19 October 2026. Chabad-side directory.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chabad.org, "Chabad Centers in Jordan", fetched 19 October 2026 (no listings shown; page drawn by script). Chabad-side directory.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Rabbi Moshe Krasnanski, "Stranded in Jordan for Days, Bochurim and Seminary Girls Back in US", COLlive, 8 March 2026 (including reader comments). Chabad-side.
- ↑ Association of Gulf Jewish Communities, "Jews in 6 Gulf nations form first association to enhance regional Jewish life", 15 February 2021. Self-published (non-Chabad). Members: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, "ARIS Rabbis", accessed 19 October 2026. Self-published; mainly Chabad-led.
- ↑ Stuart Winer, "Rabbi's tefillin desecrated during inspection by Jordanian airport officials", The Times of Israel, 22 February 2023. Press.
- ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, "Communities", accessed 19 October 2026. Self-published.