Йемендегі еврейлер тарихы мен мәдениеті

Jewish ethnic group

Yemenite Jews, also known as Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from יהודי תימן; اليهود اليمنيون), are Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of the country's Jewish population immigrated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. After several waves of persecution, the vast majority of Yemenite Jews now live in Israel, while smaller communities live in the United States and elsewhere. As of 2022, Levi Marhabi is the last Jew in Yemen. Yemenite Jews are considered Mizrahi or "Eastern" Jews, though they differ from other Mizrahis, who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to Sephardic law and customs. While the Shami sub group of Yemenite Jews did adopt a Sephardic influenced rite, this was mostly due to it being forced upon them, and did not reflect a demographic or general cultural shift among the vast majority of Yemenite Jews.

Records referring to Judaism in Yemen started to appear during the rule of the Himyarite Kingdom, which was established in Yemen in 110 BCE. Various inscriptions in the Ancient South Arabian script in the 2nd century CE refer to the construction of synagogues approved by Himyarite kings. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 CE, there was significant Jewish emigration from Roman Judea to Yemen, which was then famous in the Greco Roman world for its prosperous trade, particularly in spices. The Christian missionary Theophilos the Indian, who came to Yemen in the mid fourth century, complained that he had found great numbers of Jews. By 380 CE, Himyarite religious practices had undergone fundamental changes. The inscriptions were no longer addressed to Almaqah or Attar but to a single deity called Rahmanan. Debate among scholars continues as to whether the Himyarite monotheism was influenced by Judaism or Christianity. Jews became especially numerous and powerful in the southern part of Arabia, a rich and fertile land of incense and spices and a way station on the incense trade route and the trade routes to Africa, India, and East Asia. The Yemeni tribes did not oppose the Jewish presence in their country.

In 390 CE, the Himyarite king Abu Karib led a military campaign northwards and fought the Jews of Yathrib. When Abu Karib fell ill, two local Jewish scholars named Kaab and Assad took the opportunity to travel to his camp, where they treated him and persuaded him to lift the siege. The scholars also inspired in the king an interest in Judaism, and he converted in 390, persuading his army to do likewise. With this, the Himyarite kingdom, "the dominant power on the Arabian peninsula", was converted to Judaism. In Yemen, several inscriptions dating back to the 4th and 5th centuries CE have been found in Hebrew and Sabaean praising the ruling house in Jewish terms for "helping and empowering the People of Israel".

By 516, tribal unrest broke out, and several tribal elites fought for power. One of those elites was Joseph Dhu Nuwas or "Yûsuf 'As'ar Yaṯ'ar" as mentioned in ancient south Arabian inscriptions. The actual story of Joseph is murky. Greek and Ethiopian accounts, portray him as a Jewish zealot. Some scholars suggest that he was a converted Jew. Church of the East accounts claim that his mother was a Jew taken captive from Nisibis and bought by a king in Yemen, whose ancestors had formerly converted to Judaism. Syriac and Byzantine sources maintain that Yûsuf 'As'ar sought to convert other Yemeni Christians, but they refused to renounce Christianity. The actual picture, however, remains unclear. Inscriptions attributed to Yûsuf 'As'ar himself show the great pride he expressed after killing more than 22,000 Christians in Ẓafār and Najran. According to Jamme, Sabaean inscriptions reveal that the combined war booty (excluding deaths) from campaigns waged against the Abyssinians in Ẓafār, the fighters in 'Ašʻarān, Rakbān, Farasān, Muḥwān (Mocha), and the fighters and military units in Najran, amounted to 12,500 war trophies, 11,000 captives and 290,000 camels and bovines and sheep. There were also reports of massacres and destruction of places of worship by Christians, too. Francis Edward Peters wrote that while there is no doubt that this was a religious persecution, it is equally clear that a political struggle was going on as well. According to 'Irfan Shahid's Martyrs of Najran – New Documents, Dhu Nuwas sent an army of some 120,000 soldiers to lay siege to the city of Najran, which lasted for six months, with the city finally taken and burnt on the 15th day of the seventh month (i. e. the lunar month Tishri). The city had revolted against the king and they refused to deliver it up unto the king. About three hundred of the city's inhabitants surrendered to the king's forces, under the assurances of an oath that no harm would come to them, and these were later bound, while those remaining in the city were burnt alive within their church. The death toll in this account is said to have reached about two thousand. However, in the Sabaean inscriptions describing these events, it is reported that by the month Dhu Madra'an (between July and September) there were "1000 killed, 1500 prisoners [taken] and 10,000 head of cattle." There are two dates mentioned in the "letter of Simeon of Beit Aršam." One date indicates the letter was written in Tammuz in the year 830 of Alexander (518/519 CE), from the camp of GBALA (Jebala), king of the 'SNYA (Ghassanids or the Ġassān clan). In it, he tells of the events that transpired in Najran, while the other date puts the letter's composition in the year 835 of Alexander (523/524 CE). The second letter, however, is actually a Syriac copy of the original, copied in the year 1490 of the Seleucid Era (= 1178/79 CE). Today, it is largely agreed that the latter date is the accurate one, as it is confirmed by the Martyrium Arethae, as well as by epigraphic records, namely Sabaean inscriptions discovered in the Asir of Saudi Arabia (Bi'r Ḥimâ), photographed by J. Ryckmans in Ry 507, 8 ~ 9, and by A. Jamme in Ja 1028, which give the old Sabaean year 633 for these operations (said to correspond with 523 CE). Jacques Ryckmans, who deciphered these inscriptions, writes in his La Persécution des Chrétiens Himyarites, that Sarah'il Yaqbul Yaz'an was both the tribal chief and the lieutenant of Yûsuf 'As'ar (the king) at the time of the military campaign, and that he was sent out by the king to take the city of Najran, while the king watched for a possible Abyssinian/Ethiopian incursion along the coastal plains of Yemen near Mokhā (al Moḫâ) and the strait known as Bāb al Mandab. The Ethiopian church in Ẓafâr, which had been built by the king of Yemen some years earlier, and another church built by him in Aden (see: Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius, Epitome of Book III, chapter 4), had been seen by Constantius II during the embassage to the land of the Ḥimyarites (i. e. Yemen) in circa 340 CE. By the 6th century CE, this church was set on fire and razed to the ground, and its Abyssinian inhabitants killed. Later, foreigners (presumably Christians) living in Haḏramawt were also put to death before the king's army advanced to Najran in the far north and took it. Byzantine emperor Justin I sent a fleet to Yemen and Joseph Dhu Nuwas was killed in battle in 525 CE. The persecutions ceased, and the western coast of Yemen became a tributary state until Himyarite nobility (also Jews) managed to regain power.

There are numerous accounts and traditions concerning the arrival of Jews in various regions in Southern Arabia. One tradition suggests that King Solomon sent Jewish merchant marines to Yemen to prospect for gold and silver with which to adorn his Temple in Jerusalem. In 1881, the French vice consulate in Yemen wrote to the leaders of the Alliance (the Alliance Israelite Universelle) in France, that he read in a book by the Arab historian Abu Alfada that the Jews of Yemen settled in the area in 1451 BCE. Another legend says that Yemeni tribes converted to Judaism after the Queen of Sheba's visit to King Solomon. The Sanaite Jews have a tradition that their ancestors settled in Yemen 42 years before the destruction of the First Temple. It is said that under the prophet Jeremiah some 75,000 Jews, including priests and Levites, traveled to Yemen. Another legend states that when Ezra commanded the Jews to return to Jerusalem they disobeyed, whereupon he pronounced a ban upon them. According to this legend, as a punishment for this hasty action, Ezra was denied burial in Israel. As a result of this local tradition, which cannot be validated historically, it is said that no Jew of Yemen gives the name of Ezra to a child, although all other Biblical appellatives are used. The Yemenite Jews claim that Ezra cursed them to be a poor people for not heeding his call. This seems to have come true in the eyes of some Yemenites, as Yemen is extremely poor. However, some Yemenite sages in Israel today emphatically reject this story as myth, if not outright blasphemy. Because of Yemenite Jewry's cultural affiliation with Babylon, historian Yehuda Ratzaby opines that the Jews of Yemen migrated to Yemen from places in Babylonia. According to local legends, the kingdom's aristocracy converted to Judaism in the 6th century CE.

As People of the Book, Jews were assured freedom of religion in exchange for payment of the jizya or poll tax, which was imposed on non Muslim monotheists. Feudal overlords imposed this annual tax upon Jews, which, under Islamic law, was to ensure their status as protected persons of the state. This tax (tribute) was assessed against every male thirteen years and older and its remittance varied between the wealthy and the poor. In the early 20th century, this amounted to one Maria Theresa thaler (riyal) for a poor man, two thalers in specie for the middle classes, and four or more thalers for the rich. Upon payment, Jews were also exempt from paying the zakat which must be paid by Muslims once their residual wealth reaches a certain threshold. Active persecution of Jews did not gain full force until a Zaydi clan seized power from the more tolerant Sunni Muslims, early in the 10th century. The legal status of Jews in Yemen started to deteriorate around the time the Tahirids took Sana'a from Zaidis, mainly because of new discrimination established by the Muslim rulers. Such laws were not included in Zaidi legal writings till comparatively late with Kitab al Azhar of al Mahdi Ahmad bin Yahya in the first half of the 15th century. This also led to deterioration of the economic and social situation of Jews. The city was founded by Abdullah bin Muhammad al Sulaihi in the mid 11th century, and according to Tarikh al Yamman of the famed Yemenite author Umara al Yamani (1121–74), was named after a Jewish pottery merchant. During the 12th century, Aden was first ruled by the Fatimid Caliphate and then the Ayyubids. The city formed a great emporium on the sea route to India. Documents of the Cairo Geniza about Aden reflect a thriving Jewish community led by the prominent Bundar family. Abu Ali Hasan ibn Bundar served as the head of the Jewish communities in Yemen as well as a representative of the merchants in Aden. His son Madmun was the central figure in Yemenite Jewry during the flourishing of trade with India. The Bundar family produced some celebrated negidim who exerted authority over the Jews of Yemen as well as Jewish merchants in India and Ceylon. The community developed communal and spiritual connections in addition to business and family ties with other Jewish communities in the Islamic world. They also developed ties with and funded Jewish centers in Iraq, Palestine, and Egypt. Due to the trade, Jews also emigrated to Aden for mercantile and personal reasons. Yemenite Jews experienced violent persecution at times. In the late 1160s, the Yemenite ruler 'Abd al Nabī ibn Mahdi gave Jews a choice of conversion to Islam or martyrdom. While a popular local Yemenite Jewish preacher called on Jews to choose martyrdom, Maimonides sent what is known as the Epistle to Yemen requesting that they remain faithful to their religion, but if at all possible, not to cast affronts before their antagonists. The persecution ended in 1173 with the defeat of ibn Mahdi and conquest of Yemen by Turan Shah, the brother of Saladin, and they were allowed to return to their faith. According to two Genizah documents, the Ayyubid ruler of Yemen al Malik al Mu'izz al Ismail (reigned 1197–1202) attempted to force the Jews of Aden to convert. The second document details the relief of the Jewish community after his murder and those who had been forced to convert reverted to Judaism. The rule of Shafi'i Rasulids which lasted from 1229 to 1474 brought stability to the region. During this period, Jews enjoyed social and economic prosperity. This changed with the rise of the Tahiri dynasty that ruled until the conquest of Yemen by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. A note written in a Jewish manuscript mentions the destruction of the old synagogue in Sana'a in 1457 under the rule of the dynasty's founder Ahmad 'Amir. An important note of the treatment of Jews by Tahirids is found in the colophon of a Jewish manuscript from Yemen in 1505, when the last Tahirid Sultan took Sana'a from the Zaydis. The document describes one kingdom as exploitive and the other as repressive. The Jewish communities experienced a messianic episode with the rise of another Messiah claimant in Bayhan District, mentioned by Hayim bin Yahya Habhush in History of the Jews in Yemen written in 1893 and Ba'faqia al Shihri's Chronicle written in the 16th century. The messiah was acknowledged as a political figure and gathered many people around him into what seemed to be an organized military force. The Tahirid Sultan Amir ibn 'Abd al Wahhab attacked the messiah, killing many Jews and crushing the movement. He saw it as a violation of the protection agreement and liquidated the Jewish settlement in Hadhramaut as collective punishment. Presumably some of them were killed, many converted to Islam or migrated to Aden and the adjacent mainland of Yemen. It seems, however, that the liquidation was not immediate. Jews of the place are recorded by 1527, but not by the 1660s. After the 15th century, Jewish communities only existed in the Hadhramaut's western periphery. The oppression at the hands of pious Muslim rulers and endangerment of the community because of the plots of a few Jewish messianists are common themes in the history of Yemenite Jews.

Maimonides (1138–1204), the 12th century philosopher, scholar and codifier of halakha, was adulated by the Jews of Yemen for his interventions on their behalf during times of religious persecution, heresy, and heavy taxation. When the writings of Maimonides reached the heads of the community, they continued to address their questions unto him and sent emissaries to purchase several copies of his books, just as he acknowledged. In all the subjects of the Torah, Yemenite Jews customarily base their rule of practice (halakhah) on Maimonides' teachings, and will instruct following his view, whether in lenient or strict rulings, even where most other halakhic authorities disagree. In common Jewish practice, the Jews of Yemen dissented with Maimonides' rulings in more than 50 places, ten of which places are named explicitly by Yosef Qafih.

The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own 18th century legal interpretations and enforced at the end of that century. It obligated the Zaydi state to take under its protection and to educate in Islamic ways any dhimmi (i. e. non Muslim) child whose parents had died when he was a minor. The Orphan's Decree was ignored during the Ottoman rule (1872–1918), but was renewed during the period of Imam Yahya (1918–1948). Under the Zaydi rule, the Jews were considered to be impure and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by youth, a Jew was not allowed to fight them. In such situations, he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby. Ottoman rule ended in 1630, when the Zaydis took over Yemen. Jews were once again persecuted. In 1679, under the rule of Al Mahdi Ahmad, Jews were expelled en masse from all parts of Yemen to the distant province of Mawza, in what was known as the Mawza Exile, when many Jews died of starvation and disease as a consequence. As many as two thirds of the exiled Jews did not survive. Their houses and property were seized, and many synagogues were destroyed or converted into mosques. The Jewish community recovered partly because of Imam Muhammad al Mahdi, also called "Sahib al Mawahib", who protected them and allowed them to return to their previous status. He rejected the pleas for Jewish deportation by the clerics and maintained ties with the Jewish 'Iraqi family which was charged with the mint house. From the end of the 17th century, the Jews ran the mint house of the imams. In 1725, Imam Al Mutawakkil ordered closure of synagogues because of the Jews selling wine to Muslims. However, their closure was rejected by a religious legal ruling that these synagogues were permitted by his predecessors. The Jews of Yemen had expertise in a wide range of trades normally avoided by Zaydi Muslims. Trades such as silver smithing, blacksmiths, repairing weapons and tools, weaving, pottery, masonry, carpentry, shoemaking, and tailoring were occupations that were exclusively taken by Jews. The division of labor created a sort of covenant, based on mutual economic and social dependency, between the Zaydi Muslim population and the Jews of Yemen. The Muslims produced and supplied food, and the Jews supplied all manufactured products and services that the Yemeni farmers needed. The Jewish community headed by Shalom 'Iraqi recovered from this affair and the position of 'Iraqi strengthened under Imam Al Mansur. The community flourished under him because of the part it played in trade with India through Mocha. The German researcher Carsten Niebuhr who visited Yemen in 1763, reports that two years before he arrived, Shalom 'Iraqi had been imprisoned and fined while twelve out of fourteen synagogues in a village near Sana'a were shut down. 'Iraqi was released two weeks before his arrival. Jewish sources attribute this to a regime change. The Imam Al Mahdi Abbas was extremely religious and his ideological affinity with the clerics created an atmosphere of extreme repression. He however resisted their pressure on him to expel the Jews. The synagogues were reopened by Ali al Mansur after payment of a heavy fee. In the early 18th century, many Jews in Yemen were employed in some of the most degrading and menial tasks, on behalf of the Arab population, such as cleaning the cess pools and latrines.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Yemenite Jews lived principally in Sana'a (7,000 plus), with the largest Jewish population and twenty eight synagogues, followed by Rada'a, with the second largest Jewish population and nine synagogues, Sa'dah (1,000), Dhamar (1,000), Aden (200), the desert of Beda (2,000), Manakhah (3,000), among others. Almost all resided in the interior of the plateau. Carl Rathjens who visited Yemen in the years 1927 and 1931 puts the total number of Jewish communities in Yemen at 371 settlements. Other significant Jewish communities in Yemen were based in the south central highlands in the cities of: Taiz (the birthplace of one of the most famous Yemenite Jewish spiritual leaders, Mori Salem Al Shabazzi Mashta), Ba'dan, and other cities and towns in the Shar'ab region. Many other Jewish communities in Yemen were long since abandoned by their Jewish inhabitants. Yemenite Jews were chiefly artisans, including gold , silver and blacksmiths in the San'a area, and coffee merchants in the south central highland areas. In 1912, Zionist emissary Shmuel Yavne'eli came into contact with Habbani Jews, describing them in the following way:The Jews in these parts are held in high esteem by everyone in Yemen and Aden. They are said to be courageous, always with their weapons and wild long hair, and the names of their towns are mentioned by the Jews of Yemen with great admiration.

In 1922, the government of Yemen, under Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed Din, re introduced an ancient Islamic law entitled the "orphans decree". The law dictated that if Jewish boys or girls under the age of 12 were orphaned, they were to be forcibly converted to Islam, their connections to their families and communities were to be severed, and they had to be handed over to Muslim foster families. The rule was based on the law that the prophet Muhammad is "the father of the orphans", and on the fact that the Jews in Yemen were considered "under protection", and the ruler was obligated to care for them. The Jews tried to prevent the conversion of orphans in two main ways, which were by marrying them so the authorities would consider them as adults, or by smuggling them out of the country. A prominent example is Abdul Rahman al Iryani, the former president of the Yemen Arab Republic, who was alleged to be of Jewish descent by Dorit Mizrahi, a writer in the Israeli ultra Orthodox weekly Mishpaha, who claimed he was her maternal uncle. According to her recollection of events, he was born Zekharia Hadad in 1910 to a Yemenite Jewish family in Ibb. He lost his parents in a major disease epidemic at the age of 8 and together with his 5 year old sister, he was forcibly converted to Islam and they were put under the care of separate foster families. He was raised in the powerful al Iryani family and adopted an Islamic name. Al Iryani would later serve as minister of religious endowments under northern Yemen's first national government and he became the only civilian to have led northern Yemen.

The three major population centers for Jews in southern Arabia were Aden, Habban, and the Hadhramaut. The Jews of Aden lived in and around the city, and flourished during the British Aden Protectorate. The vast majority of Yemenite immigrants counted by the authorities of Mandate Palestine in 1939 had settled in the country prior to that date. Throughout the periods of Ottoman Palestine and Mandatory Palestine, Jews from Yemen had settled primarily in agricultural settlements in the country, namely: Petach Tikvah (Machaneh Yehuda), Rishon Lezion (Shivat Zion), Kinneret, Degania Others chose to live in the urban areas of Jerusalem (Silwan, and Nachalat Zvi), and later, Netanya (Shekhunat Zvi).

Emigration from Yemen to the area now known as Israel began in 1881, and continued almost without interruption until 1914. It was during this time that about 10% of the Yemenite Jews left. Due to the changes in the Ottoman Empire, citizens could move more freely, and in 1869, travel was improved with the opening of the Suez Canal, which reduced the travel time from Yemen to Palestine. Certain Yemenite Jews interpreted these changes and the new developments in the "Holy Land" as heavenly signs that the time of redemption was near. By settling in the Holy Land, they would play a part in what they believed could precipitate the anticipated messianic era. From 1881 to 1882, some 30 Jewish families left Sana'a and several nearby settlements, and made the long trek by foot and by sea to Jerusalem, where most had settled in Silwan. This wave was followed by other Jews from central Yemen, who continued to move into Palestine until 1914. The majority of these groups would later move into Jerusalem proper and Jaffa. Rabbi Avraham Al Naddaf, who migrated to Jerusalem in 1891, described in his autobiography the hardships the Yemenite Jewish community faced in their new country, where there were no hostelries to accommodate wayfarers and new immigrants. On the other hand, he writes that the Sephardi kollelim (seminaries) had taken under their auspices the Yemenite Jews from the moment they set foot in Jerusalem. Later, however, the Yemenites would come to feel discriminated against by the Sephardic community, who compelled them to no longer make use of their own soft, pliable matzah, but to buy from them only the hard cracker like matzah made weeks in advance prior to Passover. He also mentions that the Yemenite community would pay the prescribed tax to the public coffers; yet, they were not being allotted an equal share or subsidy as had been given to the Sephardic Jews. By 1910, the Yemenites had broken away from the Sephardic seminaries. Before World War I, there was another wave that began in 1906 and continued until 1914. Hundreds of Yemenite Jews made their way to the Holy Land, and chose to settle in the agricultural settlements. It was after these movements that the World Zionist Organization sent Shmuel Yavne'eli to Yemen to encourage Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Yavne'eli reached Yemen at the beginning of 1911, and returned in April 1912. Due to Yavne'eli's efforts, about 1,000 Jews left central and southern Yemen, with several hundred more arriving before 1914. The purpose of this immigration was considered by the Zionist Office as allowing the importation of cheap labour. This wave of Yemenite Jewry underwent extreme suffering, physically and mentally, and those who arrived between 1912 and 1918 had a very high incidence of premature mortality, ranging from between 30% and 40% generally and, in some townships, reaching as high as 50%.

Claims were made that, between 1949 and 1951, up to 1,033 children of Yemenite immigrant families may have disappeared from the immigrant camps. It was said that the parents were told that their children were ill and required hospitalization. Upon later visiting the hospital, it is claimed that the parents were told that their children had died though no bodies were presented and graves which have later proven to be empty in many cases were shown to the parents. Those who believed the theory contended that the Israeli government as well as other organizations in Israel kidnapped the children and gave them for adoption to other, non Yemenite, families. In 2016, 400,000 documents were released in regard to the Yemenite Jewish Children affair.

A third wave of emigration from Yemen began in the late 20th century, with the intercession of Human Rights activist and professor, Hayim Tawil, founder of the International Coalition for the Revival of the Jews of Yemen (ICROJOY) in 1988. Tawil was instrumental in bringing out from Yemen the first Jew to emigrate in 23 years, and who set foot in Israel in September 1990. He was followed by other families in 1992, with the greatest bulk of Jewish families arriving in Israel between 1993 and 1994. These new Yemenite Jewish immigrants settled mainly in Rehovot (Oshiyot), Ashkelon and Beer Sheva. Other families arrived in 1995 and 1996. From August 1992 to July 17, 1993, Jews numbering some 246 persons moved to Israel from Yemen, via Germany, and some via the United States. A small Jewish community existed in the town of Bayt Harash (2 km away from Raydah). They had a rabbi, a functioning synagogue, and a mikveh. They also had a boys yeshiva and a girls seminary, funded by a Satmar affiliated Hasidic organization in Monsey, New York, U. S. A small Jewish enclave also existed in the town of Raydah, which lies north of Sana'a. The town hosted a yeshiva, also funded by a Satmar affiliated organization. In spite of hostile conditions in recent years for Jews still living in Yemen, Yemeni security forces have gone to great lengths to try to convince the Jews to stay in their towns. These attempts, however, failed, and the authorities were forced to provide financial aid for the Jews so they would be able to rent accommodations in safer areas. Despite an official ban on emigration, many Yemenite Jews emigrated to Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom in the 2000s, fleeing anti Semitic persecution and seeking better Jewish marriage prospects. Many of them had initially gone there to study but had never returned. There was essentially no Jewish population in Sanaʽa until the Shia insurgency broke out in northern Yemen in 2004. In 2006 it was reported that a Jewish woman in Yemen who had spurned a Muslim suitor had not only been kidnapped and forced to marry him, but had been forced to convert to Islam as well. The Houthis directly threatened the Jewish community in 2007, prompting the government of President Saleh to offer them refuge in Sanaʽa. as of 2010, around 700 Jews were living in the capital under government protection. In December 2008, Moshe Ya'ish al Nahari, a 30 year old Hebrew teacher and kosher butcher from Raydah, was shot and killed by Abed el Aziz el Abadi, a former MiG 29 pilot in the Yemeni Air Force. Abadi confronted Nahari in the Raydah market, and shouted out, "Jew, accept the message of Islam", and opened fire with an AK 47. Nahari was shot five times and died. During interrogation, Abadi proudly confessed his crime, and stated that "these Jews must convert to Islam". Abadi had murdered his wife two years before but had avoided prison by paying her family compensation. The court found Abadi mentally unstable, and ordered him to pay only a fine, but an appeals court sentenced him to death. Following al Nahari's murder, the Jewish community expressed its feelings of insecurity, claiming to have received hate mail and threats by phone from Islamic extremists. Dozens of Jews reported receiving death threats and said that they had been subjected to violent harassment. Nahari's killing and continual anti Semitic harassment prompted approximately 20 other Jewish residents of Raydah to emigrate to Israel. In 2009, five of Nahari's children moved to Israel, and in 2012, his wife and four other children followed, having initially stayed in Yemen so she could serve as a witness in Abadi's trial. In February 2009, 10 Yemeni Jews migrated to Israel, and in July 2009, three families, or 16 people in total, followed suit. On October 31, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that in June 2009, an estimated 350 Jews were left in Yemen, and by October 2009, 60 had emigrated to the United States, and 100 were considering following suit. The BBC estimated that the community numbered 370 and was dwindling. In 2010, it was reported that 200 Yemeni Jews would be allowed to immigrate to the United Kingdom. In August 2012, Aharon Zindani, a Jewish community leader from Sana'a, was stabbed to death in a market in an anti Semitic attack. Subsequently, his wife and five children emigrated to Israel, and took his body with them for burial in Israel, with assistance from the Jewish Agency and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In January 2013, it was reported that a group of 60 Yemenite Jews had migrated to Israel in a secret operation, arriving in Israel via a flight from Qatar. This was reported to be part of a larger operation which was being carried out in order to bring the approximately 400 Jews left in Yemen to Israel in the coming months.

On October 11, 2015, Likud MK Ayoob Kara stated that members of the Yemenite Jewish community had contacted him to say that the Houthi led Yemen government had given them an ultimatum to convert or leave the country. A spokesman for the party of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh denied the reports as incorrect. On March 21, 2016, a group of 19 Yemenite Jews were flown to Israel in a secret operation, leaving the population at about 50. On 7 June 2016, Jews who had been arrested in Yemen after having helped to smuggle out a Torah scroll were released. In May 2017 the Yemeni based charity Mona Relief (Yemen Organization for Humanitarian Relief and Development) gave aid to 86 members of the Jewish community in Sana'a. In a July 2018 interview with a Yemenite rabbi, he claimed that they were definitely treated very well before the recent war in Yemen which has affected all communities in Yemen. He has also said that Yemenite Jews should have never traveled away from Yemen and that he believes thousands of Yemenite Jews will return to Yemen after the war ends. In 2019, the Mona Relief website reported (February 25): "Mona Relief's team in the capital Sana'a delivered today monthly food aid packages to Jewish minority families in Yemen. Mona Relief has been delivering food aid baskets to Jewish community in the capital Sana'a since 2016. Our project today was funded by Mona Relief's online fundraising campaign in indiegogo "

As of March 2020, the Jewish cemetery in Aden was destroyed. On April 28, 2020, Yemenite Minister Moammer al Iryani remarked the fate of the last 50 Jews in Yemen is unknown. A 2020 World Population Review with a Census of Jewish population by country has no listing of any Jews in Yemen. On July 13, 2020, it was reported that the Houthi Militia were capturing the last Jews of Yemen of the Kharif District. In their last mention of the Jews in Yemen in July 2020 the Mona Relief reported on their Website that as of July 19, 2020, of the Jewish Population in Yemen there were only a "handful" of Jews in Sana'a. According to Yemeni publications published in July 2020, the last two Jewish families were waiting for deportation from the areas controlled by the Houthis, which would make Yemen, for the first time in its modern history, devoid of Jews, with the exception of the families of the brothers Suleiman Musa Salem and Sulaiman Yahya Habib in Sana'a and the family of Salem Musa Mara'bi who moved to the complex owned by the Ministry of Defense near the U. S. embassy in 2007 after the Houthis assaulted them and looted their homes. The publications said that a Jewish woman lives with her brother in the Rayda district and a man and his wife live in the Arhab district of the Sana'a governorate. A source said, "It is now clear that the Houthis want to deport the rest of the Jews, and prevent them from selling their properties at their real prices, and we are surprised that the international community and local and international human rights organizations have remained silent towards the process of forced deportation and forcing the Jews to leave their country and prevent them from disposing of their property. In August 2020 of an estimated 100 or so remaining Yemen Jews, 42 have migrated to UAE and the rest would also leave. On November 10, 2020, the U. S. State Department called for the immediate and unconditional release of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, one of the last remaining Yemenite Jews in Yemen. A press statement said Marhabi has been wrongfully detained by the Houthi militia for four years, despite a court ordering his release in September 2019. In December 2020 an Israeli Rabbi visited the Yemenite Jews who escaped to the UAE. On 28 March 2021, 13 Jews were forced by the Houthis to leave Yemen; less than 10 Jews still resided in Yemen. The Jerusalem Post reported that the remaining Jewish population in Yemen consists of four elderly Jews, ending the continuous presence of a community that dated back to antiquity. In December 2021 the Jews of Yemen received Hanukkah kits. In March 2022 the United Nations reported there is just one Jew in Yemen (Levi Salem Marhabi).

628 BCE or 463 BCE According to tradition, Jews first settled in Yemen 42 years before the destruction of the First Temple. 68 CE The Jewish Diaspora at the time of the Second Temple's destruction, according to Josephus, was in Parthia (Persia), Babylonia (Iraq), and Arabia, as well as some Jews beyond the Euphrates and in Adiabene. In Josephus' own words, he had informed "the remotest Arabians" about the destruction. These Jews are believed to have been the progenitors of the Jews of Yemen. c. 250 CE Jewish elder from Yemen (Himyar) brought for burial in Beit She'arim, burial site of Rabbi Yehudah Ha Nassi. 390 CE The Himyarite king Abu Karib converts to Judaism. 524 Jewish king, Yûsuf 'As'ar Yath'ar, known also in the Islamic tradition as Dhū Nuwās, lays siege to the city Najran and takes it. 1165 Benjamin of Tudela, in his Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, mentions two Jewish brothers, one who lives in Tilmas (i. e. Sa'dah of Yemen), who traced their lineage to king David 1174 Maimonides writes his Iggeret Teman (Epistle to Yemen) to the Jews of Yemen 1216 Jews of Yemen send thirteen questions to Rabbi Abraham ben Maimonides, relating to halacha 1346 Rabbi Yehoshua Hanagid carries on a correspondence with Rabbi David b. Amram al Adeni, the leader of the Jewish community in Yemen, in which more than 100 Questions & Responsa are exchanged between them. 1457 Old Synagogue in Ṣanʻā' destroyed because of warring between Imam Al Mutawakkil al Mutahhar and Az Zafir ʻAmir I bin Ṭāhir 1489 Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinora encounters Jews from Yemen while in Jerusalem. 1567 Zechariah (Yaḥya) al Ḍāhirī visited Rabbi Joseph Karo's yeshiva in Safed 1666 Decree of the Headgear (Ar. al 'amā'im ) in which Jews were forbidden by an edict to wear turbans (pl. amā'im) on their heads from that time forward 1679–80 the Exile of Mawzaʻ 1724 Great famine in Yemen, causing many of the poor and impoverished Jews to convert to Islam 1761 Destruction of twelve synagogues in Ṣanʻā' by Imam Al Mahdi Abbas 1763 Carsten Niebuhr visits Yemen, describing his visit with the Jews of Yemen in book, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern (Description of Travel to Arabia and Other Neighboring Countries) 1805 Rabbi Yiḥya Saleh (Maharitz), eminent Yemenite scholar, jurist and exponent of Jewish law, dies. 1859 Yaakov Saphir visits Yemen, describing his visit with the Jews of Yemen in book, Even Sapir. 1882 First modern mass emigration of Jews from Yemen, who sailed the Red Sea, crossed Egypt and sailed the Mediterranean to a port in Jaffa, and then by foot to Jerusalem. This immigration was popularly given the mnemonics, aʻaleh betamar (literally, 'I shall go up on the date palm tree,' a verse taken from Song of Songs). The Hebrew word "betamar" = בתמר has the numerical value of 642, which they expounded to mean, 'I shall go up (i. e. make the pilgrimage) in the year [5]642 anno mundi (here, abbreviated without the millennium), or what was then 1882 CE. 1902 Rabbi Yihya Yitzhak Halevi appointed judge and president of court at Ṣanʻā' 1907 The Ottoman government of Palestine recognizes the Yemenites as an independent community (just as Ashkenazim and Sepharadim are independent communities); Second wave of emigration from Yemen (from the regions of Saʿadah and Ḥaydan ash Sham) 1909 German Jewish photographer, Hermann Burchardt, killed in Yemen. 1910 Yomtob Sémach, an envoy from the Alliance Israélite Universelle, scouts out the possibility of opening a school in Yemen. 1911 Zionist envoy Shmuel Warshawsky (later named Shmuel Yavne'eli) sent to Yemen, and persuades some 2,000 Yemenite Jews to make the aliya to Eretz Israel. 1911 Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi in Ottoman Palestine, addresses twenty six questions to the heads of the Jewish community in Yemen 1912 Third wave of emigration from Yemen (an emigration that continued until the outbreak of WWI in 1914) 1927 A manuscript containing Nathan ben Abraham's 11th century Mishnah commentary was discovered in the genizah of the Jewish community of Sana'a, Yemen. 1949 Imam Ahmad announces that any Jew who is interested in leaving Yemen is permitted to do so. 1949–50 Operation On Eagles' Wings (also called Operation Magic Carpet) brings to Israel some 48,000 Yemenite Jews

The three main groups of Yemenite Jews are the Baladi, Shami, and the Maimonideans or "Rambamists". In addition, the "Rechabites" are a tribe in Sana'a claiming to be descendants of Jehonadab that was found in 1839 by Reverend Joseph Wolff, who later went to Bukhara to attempt to save Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly. The differences between these groups largely concern the respective influence of the original Yemenite tradition, which was largely based on the works of Maimonides, and on the Kabbalistic tradition embodied in the Zohar and in the school of Isaac Luria, which was increasingly influential from the 17th century on. The Baladi Jews (from Arabic balad, country) generally follow the legal rulings of the Rambam (Maimonides) as codified in his work the Mishneh Torah. Their liturgy was developed by a rabbi known as the Maharitz (Moreinu Ha Rav Yiḥya Tzalaḥ), in an attempt to break the deadlock between the pre existing followers of Maimonides and the new followers of the mystic, Isaac Luria. It substantially follows the older Yemenite tradition, with only a few concessions to the usages of the Ari. A Baladi Jew may or may not accept the Kabbalah theologically: if he does, he regards himself as following Luria's own advice that every Jew should follow his ancestral tradition. The Shami Jews (from Arabic ash Sham, the north, referring to Greater Syria including Israel) represent those who accepted the Sephardic/Mizrahi rite and lines of rabbinic authority, after being exposed to new inexpensive, typeset siddurs (prayer books) brought from Israel and the Sephardic diaspora by envoys and merchants in the late 17th century and 18th century. The "local rabbinic leadership resisted the new versions  Nevertheless, the new prayer books were widely accepted." The "Rambamists" are followers of, or to some extent influenced by, the Dor Daim movement, and are strict followers of Talmudic law as compiled by Maimonides, aka "Rambam". They are regarded as a subdivision of the Baladi Jews, and claim to preserve the Baladi tradition in its pure form. They generally reject the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah altogether. Many of them object to terms like "Rambamist". In their eyes, they are simply following the most ancient preservation of Torah, which (according to their research) was recorded in the Mishneh Torah.

Towards the end of the 19th century, new ideas began to reach Yemenite Jews from abroad. Hebrew newspapers began to arrive, and relations developed with Sephardic Jews, who came to Yemen from various Ottoman provinces to trade with the army and government officials. Two Jewish travelers, Joseph Halévy, a French trained Jewish Orientalist, and Eduard Glaser, an Austrian Jewish astronomer and Arabist, in particular had a strong influence on a group of young Yemenite Jews, the most outstanding of whom was Rabbi Yiḥyah Qafiḥ. As a result of his contact with Halévy and Glaser, Qafiḥ introduced modern content into the educational system. Qafiḥ opened a new school and, in addition to traditional subjects, introduced arithmetic, Hebrew and Arabic, with the grammar of both languages. The curriculum also included subjects such as natural science, history, geography, astronomy, sports and Turkish. The Dor Daim and Iqshim dispute about the Zohar literature broke out in 1912, inflamed Sana'a's Jewish community, and split it into two rival groups that maintained separate communal institutions until the late 1940s. Rabbi Qafiḥ and his friends were the leaders of a group of Maimonideans called Dor Daim (the "generation of knowledge"). Their goal was to bring Yemenite Jews back to the original Maimonidean method of understanding Judaism that existed in pre 17th century Yemen. Similar to certain Spanish and Portuguese Jews (Western Sephardi Jews), the Dor Daim rejected the Zohar, a book of esoteric mysticism. They felt that the Kabbalah which was based on the Zohar was irrational, alien, and inconsistent with the true reasonable nature of Judaism. In 1913, when it seemed that Rabbi Qafiḥ, then headmaster of the new Jewish school and working closely with the Ottoman authorities, enjoyed sufficient political support, the Dor Daim made its views public, and tried to convince the entire community to accept them. Many of the non Dor Deah elements of the community rejected the Dor Deah concepts. The opposition, the Iqshim, headed by Rabbi Yiḥya Yiṣḥaq, the Hakham Bashi, refused to deviate from the accepted customs and from the study of the Zohar. One of the Iqshim's targets in the fight against Rabbi Qafiḥ was his modern Turkish Jewish school.

Education of children was of paramount importance to Jewish fathers in Yemen, who, as a rule, sent their children from an early age to study the portions of the Torah, usually under the tutelage of a local teacher. Often, such teachings were conducted in the home of their teacher. It was not uncommon for the teacher to be occupied in his trade (coat maker, weaver, etc.) while instructing his students. All instruction consisted of the recital and memorization of sacred texts. The most astute of these students, when they came of age, pursued after a higher Jewish education and which almost always entailed studying Shechita (ritual slaughter), and receiving a license from a qualified instructor to slaughter domestic livestock.

Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by scholars, many of whom believe it to contain the most ancient phonetic and grammatical features. There are two main pronunciations of Yemenite Hebrew, considered by many scholars to be the most accurate modern day form of Biblical Hebrew, although there are technically a total of five that relate to the regions of Yemen. In the Yemenite dialect, all Hebrew letters have a distinct sound, except for sāmeḵ and śîn , which are both pronounced The Sanaani Hebrew pronunciation (used by the majority) has been indirectly critiqued by Saadia Gaon since it contains the Hebrew letters and guf, which he rules is incorrect. There are Yemenite scholars, such as Rabbi Ratzon Arusi, who say that such a perspective is a misunderstanding of Saadia Gaon's words. Rabbi Mazuz postulates this hypothesis through the Djerban (Tunisia) Jewish dialect's use of gimmel and quf, switching to and guf when talking with Gentiles in the Arabic dialect of Jerba. While Jewish boys learned Hebrew from the age of 3, it was used primarily as a liturgical and scholarly language. In daily life, Yemenite Jews spoke in regional Judeo Arabic.

The oldest Yemenite manuscripts are those of the Hebrew Bible, which the Yemenite Jews call "Taj" ("crown"). The oldest texts dating from the 9th century, and each of them has a short Masoretic introduction, while many contain Arabic commentaries. Yemenite Jews were acquainted with the works of Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Kimhi, Nahmanides, Yehudah ha Levy and Isaac Arama, besides producing a number of exegetes from among themselves. In the 14th century, Nathanael ben Isaiah wrote an Arabic commentary on the Bible; in the second half of the 15th century, Saadia ben David al Adeni was the author of a commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Abraham ben Solomon wrote on the Prophets. Among the midrash collections from Yemen mention should be made of the Midrash ha Gadol of David bar Amram al Adeni. Between 1413 and 1430 the physician Yaḥya Zechariah b. Solomon wrote a compilation entitled "Midrash ha Ḥefeẓ," which included the Pentateuch, Lamentations, Book of Esther, and other sections of the Hebrew Bible. Between 1484 and 1493 David al Lawani composed his "Midrash al Wajiz al Mughni." The earliest complete Judeo Arabic copy of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, copied in Yemen in 1380, was found in the India Office Library and added to the collection of the British Library in 1992. Among the Yemenite poets who wrote Hebrew and Arabic hymns modeled after the Spanish school, mention may be made of Zechariah (Yaḥya) al Dhahiri and the members of the Shabazi family. Al Dhahiri's work, which makes use of the poetic genre known as maqāmah, a style inspired by Ḥariri, was written in 1573 under the title Sefer ha Musar. Herein, the author describes in 45 chapters his travels throughout India, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, the Land of Israel and Egypt, including a description of Rabbi Yosef Karo's seat of learning in Safed. The philosophical writers include: Saadia b. Jabeẓ and Saadia b. Mas'ud, both at the beginning of the 14th century; Ibn al Ḥawas, the author of a treatise in the form of a dialogue written in rhymed prose, and termed by its author the "Flower of Yemen"; Ḥasan al Dhamari; and Joseph ha Levi b. Jefes, who wrote the philosophical treatises "Ner Yisrael" (1420) and "Kitab al Masaḥah."

A Tunic and habit , the latter made with a central hat , were the traditional items of clothing worn by a married Jewish man in Yemen. Leading rabbinic scholar and sage, Rabbi Yosef Qafih, described the manner in which they would wrap their habits, saying that the habit was sometimes worn while wrapped around a man's head, or simply partly draped over his head. German ethnographer Erich Brauer (1895–1942) described the differences between Jewish and Gentile garb, making note of the fact that the differences existed only in their outer garments, but not in their undergarments. He also offered the following description:
Instead of trousers, the Yemenite Jews (as well as Yemen's Arabs) carry a piece of cloth worn around the hip (loincloth), called maizar. The expression fūṭa, quoted by Sapir (Jacob Saphir), is used [for the same piece of clothing] by the Jews in Aden and partly also by Arabs from Yemen. The maizar consists of one piece of dark blue cotton that is wound a few times around the waist and which is held up by a belt made of cloth material or leather. The maizar is allowed to reach down to the knees only. Today, the Yemenites will, therefore, wear [underwear made like unto] short length trousers, called sirwāl, [instead of the traditional loincloth beneath their tunics]. A blue shirt that has a split that extends down to the waistline and that is closed at neck level is worn over the maizar. If the shirt is multicolored and striped, it is called tahṭāni, meaning, 'the lower.' If it is monochrome, it is called antari. Finally, the outer layer of clothing, worn over the maizar and antari, is a dark blue cotton tunic (Arabic: gufṭān or kufṭān). The tunic is a coat like garment that extends down to the knees which is fully open in the front and is closed with a single button in the neck. Over the tunic, the Jewish people were not allowed to wear a girdle. As noted, some of the men's dress codes were forced upon them by laws of the State. For example, formerly in Yemen, Jews were not allowed to wear clothing of any color besides blue. Earlier, in Jacob Saphir's time (1859), they'd wear outer garments that were "utterly black." When German Danish explorer, Carsten Niebuhr, visited Yemen in 1763, the only person he saw wearing the blue colored tunic was the Jewish courtier, the Minister and Prince, Sālim b. Aharon Irāqi Ha Kohen, who served under two kings for a period of no less than twenty eight years. The traditional Yemenite tallīt is a full length tallīt made from fine wool or goat's hair of a single black or brown color, called šämläh, but it was not unique unto Jews alone. Muslims would also wear similar items of covering, to protect them from the heat or rain. Jewish garments, however, bore the ritual fringes prescribed for such garments. The wearing of such garments was not unique to prayer time alone, but was worn the entire day. Later, decorative black and white striped shawls were imported into the country from Europe, and which were highly valued by the Jews of Yemen who wore them on special occasions and on the Sabbath day. The small tallīt (ṭallīt kaṭan) was introduced into Yemen via Aden from European centers, and principally worn by rabbis and educated persons. In some cases, surnames are derived from a certain physical characteristic of one's distant ancestor. Some families bear original Spanish surnames, such as Medina and Giyyat. Some names went through additional changes upon emigration to Israel. For example, some who formerly bore the surname of Radha (Judeo Arabic: רצ'א) have changed their surname to Ratzon (Hebrew: רצון), the Hebrew being the direct translation of the word's meaning in Arabic, while yet others have simply changed their names to a more Hebraicized sound, such as the surnames of Al Nadaf (lit. a stuffer of cushions; carder of cotton), which was later changed to Nadav ("generous"), and 'Urqabi (so named from a locality in Yemen) which was later changed to Argov; or Sheḥib (Judeo Arabic: שחב), meaning "one whose voice is hoarse," which was changed to Shevach (Hebrew: שבח), meaning "praise," by a reversal of the last two letters.

Some Jewish families have preserved traditions which are related to their tribal affiliations, based on partial genealogical records which have been passed down from generation to generation. In Yemen, for example, some Jews trace their lineage to Judah, others trace their lineage to Benjamin, and others trace their lineage to Levi and Reuben. Of particular interest is one distinguished Jewish family of Yemen which traced its lineage to Bani, one of the sons of Peretz, the son of Judah.

Israeli Yemenite Jews were initially discouraged from practicing their culture by the dominant Ashkenazi majority, and the practice of using henna before weddings declined. Beginning around the late 1970s, discussions were held in honor of the ethnic heritage of Yemenite Jews and by 2018, a revival of some Yemenite customs occurred. The cathartic moment was an exhibition of a Yemeni bride which was shown at the Israel Museum in 1965.

Yemeni Jews are predominant among Israeli performers of Mizrahi music. Yemenite Jews commonly carry West Eurasian mitochondrial DNA haplogroups that are found in other Jewish and Levantine groups but not in non Jewish Yemenis, suggesting ancient Israelite descent. What makes them stand out among Jewish populations is the presence of sub Saharan African L haplogroups, which are common among non Jewish Yemenis but not in other Jewish groups. Nonetheless, compared to non Jewish Yemenis, Yemenite Jews have a lower frequency and diversity of L haplotypes. whereas a 2011 study by Amy L. Non and others concluded that there is ”little evidence for large scale conversion of local Yemeni”. By autosomal DNA, Yemenite Jews are relatively distinct from other Jewish groups. Instead, they are closer to the non Jewish population of the Arabian Peninsula. According to Simon Schama, the Israeli geneticist Batsheva Bonne Tamir established that the ancestry of Yemeni Jews goes back to south Western Arabian and Bedouin conversions. In medicine, the mutation SAMD9 (sterile alpha motif domain containing 9), which encodes a protein involved in the regulation of extraosseous calcification, has been found to underlie normophosphatemic familial tumoral calcinosis in families of Jewish Yemenite origin.