Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi participated in a morning prayer service in Saudi Arabia. The service, which included a minyan of at least 10 men, took place in Karhi’s hotel, and included three Jews who were in Riyadh but are not part of Karhi’s delegation.
Pictures released by Karhi’s office showed participants wearing traditional prayer shawls and holding an etrog alongside palm, myrtle and willow branches, part of a special rite for the Sukkot holiday.
They also read from a small Torah scroll, provided by a “local Jew,” according to Karhi’s spokesman.
The scroll was wrapped in a felt cover, with stitching in English, Hebrew and Arabic reading “The Jewish Congregation, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
It also included a dedication in Hebrew to “King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and all their ministers and advisers.”
Karhi lead an Israeli delegation to the Universal Postal Union’s 2023 Extraordinary Congress in Saudi Arabia.
The minister, who was accompanied by Knesset Economy Committee chairman David Bitan, made the trip less than a week after his Likud colleague Haim Katz became the first Israeli minister to visit the country.