U.S. group ends Saudi trip early after rabbi ordered to remove his kippah

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — A U.S. Congress-mandated group cut short a fact-finding mission to Saudi Arabia after officials in the kingdom ordered a Jewish rabbi to remove his kippah in public, highlighting the religious tensions still present in the Middle East.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sought to distance the order over his skullcap from what he described as progress made in the kingdom under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on quietly allowing different faiths to worship privately.

He also said Saudi Arabia may release four Uyghur Muslims held prisoner in the kingdom for asylum in the U.S. over possible persecution they could face if they return to China.

However, displaying any religious symbols other than Islamic ones remains criminalized, the kingdom two years ago carried out its largest mass execution ever that included minority Shiites, and authorities continue a harsh crackdown on any perceived dissent against Prince Mohammed.

“The situation in Saudi Arabia is very complex,” said the Rev. Frederick Davie of New York City, the commission’s vice chair. “And not everybody’s on board, and this may be an example of that.”

Officials in Saudi Arabia, as well as at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, did not respond to questions from the AP over the kippah incident. A message from the embassy released online called it “unfortunate” and “a misunderstanding of internal protocols,” without elaborating.

The commission, accompanied by members of the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, had been attending meetings for about two days when they made a visit on March 5 to Diriyah, a mud-walled village that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Saudi capital.

About a third of the way through the village, a Saudi official handed a phone to Cooper, on which an official told him to remove his kippah, a skullcap worn by some Jews also known in Yiddish as a yarmulke.