Conference of European Rabbis in Baku canceled due to Israeli security experts’ warnings

Published: 2025-10-28 09:15

“Hundreds of rabbis will not arrive in the Azerbaijani capital next week due to intelligence warnings of a tangible threat from Iranian elements,” according to Walla, one of Israel’s leading news portals.

“Thousands of Israeli tourists visit Baku, and ensuring their safety is relatively easy — they stay in hundreds of hotels across the city, they do not have fixed schedules, and there are no set travel routes. But when hundreds of rabbis stay in the same hotel, their arrival dates are known and bus routes are planned in advance — the likelihood of a successful attack increases. In addition, the very existence of a rabbinical conference arouses enormous anger in Iran; for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, it is a tempting and symbolic target, especially in light of their failures in the war against Israel,” Walla quoted an Israeli security expert involved in examining the conference logistics as saying.

A security source told Israel National News – Arutz Sheva that “Azerbaijan’s local security services are among the most skilled in the world, and they regularly thwart attempted attacks or provocations against Jewish targets. However, an event of this scale — under direct and explicit threats from Iran and from extremists in other Muslim countries — is very difficult to secure.”

“It is almost impossible to prevent an attempted attack carried out by ‘tourists’ — for example, those recruited by Iranian intelligence. That is why the conference was postponed to a later date, so that it would not take place so close to the end of the war in Gaza,” the ultra-Orthodox news outlet Kikar quoted an Israeli security expert as saying.

By Azerbaijani-Israeli Alliance Global News