History of the Jews in Yemen

History of the Jews in Yemen



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History of the Jews in Yemen

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History of the Jews in Yemen 

History of the Jews in Egypt 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The origins of the Jews of Yemen remain obscure. One local Yemenite Jewish tradition dates the earliest settlement of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula to the time of King Solomon. Another legend places Jewish craftsmen in the region as requested by Bilqis, the Queen of Saba (Sheba). A more likely explanation is the spice trade: Yemen was a key point on the ancient trade route that brought spices and perfumes from India to Yemen and from there to Greater Syria through the Hijaz from the third century BC to the third century CE. Jewish merchants played an important part in this trade.

The immigration of the majority of Jews into Yemen appears to have taken place about the beginning of the second century. According to some sources, the Jews of Yemen enjoyed prosperity until the sixth century. The Himyarite King, Abu-Karib Asad Toban converted to Judaism at the end of the 5th century, while laying siege to Medina.

In 518 the kingdom was taken over by Zar'a Yusuf. He too converted to Judaism, and prosecuted wars to drive the Aksumite Ethiopians from Arabia. Zar'a Yusuf is chiefly known in history by his cognomen Dhu Nuwas, in reference to his "curly hair." Jewish rule lasted until 525 CE (some date it later, to 530), when Christians from the Aksumite Kingdom of Ethiopia defeated and killed Dhu Nuwas, and took power in Yemen.

Islam came to Yemen around 630, during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime. As Ahl al-Kitab, protected Peoples of the Scriptures, the Jews were assured freedom of religion only in exchange for the jizya, payment of a poll tax imposed on all non-Muslims. Active Muslim persecution of the Jews did not gain full force until the Shiite Zaydi clan seized power from the more tolerant Sunni Muslims early in the 10th century.

The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own eighth 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 child whose parents had died when he or she 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 Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby.

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, shoe making, and tailoring were occupations that were exclusively taken by Jews. The division of labour 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 average Jewish population of Yemen for the first five centuries is said to have been about 3,000. The Jews were scattered throughout the country, but carried on an extensive commerce and thus succeeded in getting possession of many Jewish books. When Saladin became sultan in the last quarter of the twelfth century and the Shiite Muslims revolted against him, the trials of the Yemenite Jews began. There were few scholars among them at that time, and a putative prophet arose; he preached a syncretic religion that combined Judaism and Islam, and claimed that the Bible foretold his coming.

One of Yemen's most respected Jewish scholars, Jacob ben Nathanael al-Fayyumi, wrote for counsel to renowned Sephardic Jewish theologian, philosopher, and physician from Spain resident in Egypt, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. Maimonides replied in an epistle entitled Iggeret Teman (The Yemen Epistle). This letter made a tremendous impression on Yemenite Jewry. It also served as a source of strength, consolation and support for the faith in the continuing persecution. Maimonides himself interceded with Saladin in Egypt, and shortly thereafter the persecution came to an end.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the condition of the Jews of Yemen was miserable. They were under the jurisdiction of the local Muslim Imam, and they were forbidden to wear new or good clothes, nor might they ride a donkey or a mule. They were compelled to make long journeys on foot when occasion required it. They were prohibited from engaging in monetary transactions, and were all craftsmen, being employed chiefly as carpenters, masons, and smiths.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they are said to have numbered 30,000, and to have lived principally in Aden (200), Sana (10,000), Sada (1,000), Dhamar (1,000), and the desert of Beda (2,000). The chief occupations of the Yemenite Jews were as artisans, including gold-, silver- and blacksmiths in the San'a area, and coffee merchants in the south central highland areas.

Towards the end of the nineteenth 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.

There were two major centres of population for Jews in southern Arabia besides the Jews of Northern Yemen, one in Aden and the other in Hadramaut. The Jews of Aden lived in and around the city, and flourished during the British protectorate. The Jews of Hadramaut lived a much more isolated life, and the community was not known to the outside world until the early 1900s. In the early 20th century they had numbered about 50,000; they currently number only a few hundred individuals and reside largely in Sa'dah and Rada'a.

Emigration from Yemen to Palestine began in 1881 and continued almost without interruption until 1914. It was during this time that about 10% of the Yemenite Jews left.

In 1947, after the partition vote of the British Mandate of Palestine, rioters engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. Aden's Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. Early in 1948, the unfounded accusation of the ritual murder of two girls led to looting.

This increasingly perilous situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish community between June 1949 and September 1950. During this period, over 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.

In Yemen itself, there exists today a small Jewish community in the town of Bayt Harash.  A small Jewish enclave also exists in the town of Raydah, which lies approximately 45 mile north of Sana'a.

Early period (115 BCE until 300 CE)

The "Homerite Kingdom" is described in the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula in the 1st century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

The origins of the Jews of Yemen remain obscure. One local Yemenite Jewish tradition dates the earliest settlement of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula to the time of King Solomon. 

Another legend places Jewish craftsmen in the region as requested by Bilqis, the Queen of Saba (Sheba). 

A more likely explanation is the spice trade: Yemen was a key point on the ancient trade route that brought spices and perfumes from India to Yemen and from there to Greater Syria through the Hijaz from the third century BC to the third century CE. Jewish merchants played an important part in this trade.

The immigration of the majority of Jews into Yemen appears to have taken place about the beginning of the second century. According to some sources, the Jews of Yemen enjoyed prosperity until the sixth century.

The Himyarite King, Abu-Karib Asad Toban converted to Judaism at the end of the 5th century, while laying siege to Medina.

In 518 the kingdom was taken over by Zar'a Yusuf. He too converted to Judaism, and prosecuted wars to drive the Aksumite Ethiopians from Arabia. Zar'a Yusuf is chiefly known in history by his cognomen Dhu Nuwas, in reference to his "curly hair." Jewish rule lasted until 525 CE (some date it later, to 530), when Christians from the Aksumite Kingdom of Ethiopia defeated and killed Dhu Nuwas, and took power in Yemen.

Islam came to Yemen around 630, during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime. As Ahl al-Kitab, protected Peoples of the Scriptures, the Jews were assured freedom of religion only in exchange for the jizya, payment of a poll tax imposed on all non-Muslims. Active Muslim persecution of the Jews did not gain full force until the Shiite Zaydi clan seized power from the more tolerant Sunni Muslims early in the 10th century.

The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own eighth 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 child whose parents had died when he or she 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 Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby.

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, shoe making, and tailoring were occupations that were exclusively taken by Jews. The division of labour 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 average Jewish population of Yemen for the first five centuries is said to have been about 3,000. The Jews were scattered throughout the country, but carried on an extensive commerce and thus succeeded in getting possession of many Jewish books. When Saladin became sultan in the last quarter of the twelfth century and the Shiite Muslims revolted against him, the trials of the Yemenite Jews began. There were few scholars among them at that time, and a putative prophet arose; he preached a syncretic religion that combined Judaism and Islam, and claimed that the Bible foretold his coming.

One of Yemen's most respected Jewish scholars, Jacob ben Nathanael al-Fayyumi, wrote for counsel to renowned Sephardic Jewish theologian, philosopher, and physician from Spain resident in Egypt, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. Maimonides replied in an epistle entitled Iggeret Teman (The Yemen Epistle). This letter made a tremendous impression on Yemenite Jewry. It also served as a source of strength, consolation and support for the faith in the continuing persecution. Maimonides himself interceded with Saladin in Egypt, and shortly thereafter the persecution came to an end.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the condition of the Jews of Yemen was miserable. They were under the jurisdiction of the local Muslim Imam, and they were forbidden to wear new or good clothes, nor might they ride a donkey or a mule. They were compelled to make long journeys on foot when occasion required it. They were prohibited from engaging in monetary transactions, and were all craftsmen, being employed chiefly as carpenters, masons, and smiths.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they are said to have numbered 30,000, and to have lived principally in Aden (200), Sana (10,000), Sada (1,000), Dhamar (1,000), and the desert of Beda (2,000). The chief occupations of the Yemenite Jews were as artisans, including gold-, silver- and blacksmiths in the San'a area, and coffee merchants in the south central highland areas.

Towards the end of the nineteenth 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.

There were two major centres of population for Jews in southern Arabia besides the Jews of Northern Yemen, one in Aden and the other in Hadramaut. The Jews of Aden lived in and around the city, and flourished during the British protectorate. The Jews of Hadramaut lived a much more isolated life, and the community was not known to the outside world until the early 1900s. In the early 20th century they had numbered about 50,000; they currently number only a few hundred individuals and reside largely in Sa'dah and Rada'a.

Emigration from Yemen to Palestine began in 1881 and continued almost without interruption until 1914. It was during this time that about 10% of the Yemenite Jews left.

In 1947, after the partition vote of the British Mandate of Palestine, rioters engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. Aden's Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. Early in 1948, the unfounded accusation of the ritual murder of two girls led to looting.

This increasingly perilous situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish community between June 1949 and September 1950. During this period, over 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.

In Yemen itself, there exists today a small Jewish community in the town of Bayt Harash.  A small Jewish enclave also exists in the town of Raydah, which lies approximately 45 mile north of Sana'a.

Yemen – Jewish Kings

Most of Yemen is parched desert. But its congenial west coast and mountains were ideal for growing frankincense and myrrh that were as valuable as gold in the world of two thousand years ago. Yemen was a good place for Jews to live. Old time geographers called the area Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia), and happy it may have been were it not for the violent tribal squabbles. Each tribe warred for the other’s land and rule went to the ruthless.

During the early centuries of the Common Era, the Himyarite tribe became dominant in Yemen after defeating the Sabea, Raidan, Hadramut, and Yammat tribes. The Himyarites ruled over most of modern day Yemen and spread over most of the Arabian Peninsula at the zenith of their power. This empire would little concern us except that it was ruled by Jewish kings for many years, and, according to some historians, its population was comprised of converted Jews.

No one knows when Jews first arrived in Yemen. Legends date the first arrivals in a bewildering variety of times. An old Arab legend relates that Jews first arrived in the Arabian peninsula in the days of Moshe Rabbeinu after he sent them to attack Amalekites living in the city of Medina. Like King Shaul in later centuries, the emissaries failed to kill every Amalekite, and as punishment, they were barred entry to Eretz Yisroel and settled in Arabia. It goes without saying that this legend is mentioned in no Torah source and smacks of fiction from Arabian Nights.

A local Jewish tradition dates the settlement of Jews to the time of King Shlomo who sent Jewish ships to Yemen in search of gold and silver for the Bais Hamikdosh, while other legends claim that Queen Sheba imported the first Jews. Jews of Sana’a in north Yemen had a legend that forty-two years before the Churban, 75,000 Jews, including Kohanim and Levi’im moved to Yemen. Years later, it was said, Ezra visited the vicinity, bringing the joyous news that the Bais Hamikdosh was being rebuilt and urging them to trek back to Yerushalayim. But they refused to heed his call. This, according to legend, is why the name Ezra is never used among Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews of Habban in the south of the country claimed to be descendants of Jews who moved there before the second Churban. Historians suspect they may be descendants of a brigade of soldiers Herod sent to help Roman legions in the area. The brigade never made it back to Eretz Yisroel and perhaps settled in the area.

Historians presume that most Yemenite Jews emigrated there after the second Churban. The local pagans were accepting of the new arrivals. The Jews dwelled convivially in their midst, but kept themselves separate by the laws and customs of the Torah and their contact with the sages of Eretz Yisroel and Bavel.

The presence of Jews in the area eventually led to the creation of a Jewish Yemenite kingdom. How did this happen?

Hospitality Above All
In those days Arabia was constantly threatened by the Christian Byzantium Empire and the Zoroastrian Persia. Another enemy was Christian Ethiopia lying just over the narrow Persian Gulf. Keeping them out of Arabia was high on the Himyar’s shopping list. Nervous of Christian encroachment on his northern territories, the Himyar king, Tub’a Abu Kariba As’ad set out with an army and reached Yathrib, nowadays the Muslims’ city of Medina. Things seemed peaceful there, so leaving one of his sons behind in Yathrib the king forged on. Some days later, the Yathrib citizens killed the king’s son. Furious, the king turned back, cut down the town’s palm trees that supplied a good part of their livelihood, and began a ruthless siege. The Yathrib pagans fought back, helped by their loyal Jewish neighbors. Legend makes much of the people of Yathrib’s hospitality, claiming that the town fought Kariba As’ad by day and served their royal besieger banquets at night. This went a long way towards quieting the king’s hostility.
Then the king fell ill. Two Jewish residents of the town, Kaab and Assad, went out and healed him, urging him to leave the town alone and warning that he might incur Divine wrath if he failed to leave.

“After six days,” Arab writers tell us, “the king and his army left Yathrib and set off to their birthplace in Yemen, the two Jewish sages accompanying him on his way. When the king returned to Yemen, he called upon all the citizens of the land to accept the Jewish religion. At first they refused, but in the end they agreed on condition that he took part in the ordeal of fire that was customary in Yemen.” Although the story’s continuum sounds like something from the Arabian Nights, it vividly indicates the veneration some early Muslim historians had for the Torah.

“So his people (i.e., the Himyarites) went forth with their idols and with other sacred objects they were accustomed to utilize in their religion, while the two rabbis went forth with their sacred writings hanging round their necks until they halted in front of the fire by the place where it blazed forth,” the story continues. “The fire leapt out toward them, and when it neared them they withdrew from it in great fear. But those people present urged them onward and instructed them to stand firm.

“So they stood their ground until the fire covered them and consumed the idols and the sacred objects they had brought along, together with the men of Himyar who were bearing them. The two rabbis then went forth with their sacred writings round their necks, with their foreheads dripping with sweat but the fire did not harm them at all. At this, the Himyarites agreed to accept Tubba’s [Kariba As’ad’s] religion. From this time onward and because of this episode, was the origin of Judaism in Yemen.”

The king also permitted the two sages to destroy his country’s most popular idolatrous temple. Exactly what proportion of the population became Jewish is subject to speculation. Some historians maintain that it was mostly the ruling class that switched over to Judaism.

The Empire Sinks
Abu Kariba was succeeded by a corrupt leader unrelated to the king’s family who let the empire run to ruin. News of the Jewish kingdom had reached Christian countries and aroused fear and worry. Too much Jewish power in Yemen might interrupt the trade routes between Byzantium and India and in any case, they were not the greatest lovers of Jews. Ethiopian Christians encroached into Yemen, taking over major towns and turning shuls into churches. The Himyarite kingdom sank to a low point.

The next Jewish king to lead the dynasty was Abu Kariba’s son or grandson, Yussuf ‘As Ar Yath’ar Dhu-Nuwas (517-525 CE), the last Jewish ruler in Yemen. Dhu-Nuwas, according to some Arab historians, means Lord Sidelocks, signifying that the king grew prominent peyos. Others translate it as “Curly Head.”

Some sources claim that Dhu-Nuwas was a non-Jewish relative of Kariba As’ad and needed to be persuaded to convert. Arab legend relates that one pagan belief at the time was the service of fire, and particularly a certain fire claimed to be inextinguishable. Jews came to Dhu-Nuwas and said: “Our lord, the king! There is no reason you should worship the fire for it is worthless.” The king agreed to convert on condition the Jews extinguish the fire. The Jews began reading from a Torah scroll and did not cease until the fi re shrank into nothing.

Dhu-Nuwas was a fierce warrior who loved nothing better than a good war. He began picking fights with Christian Byzantium, which drew in Ethiopia as well. Part of his campaign involved an attack against Najran, a hotbed of Christian agitation against the king, where Jews had been killed. Reports of the fall of Najran and the slaughter of some of its Christians shocked the Christian world and stirred up lust for revenge.

In 525 CE, the Christian allies struck and invaded from the Red Sea, capturing Dhu-Nuwas’s capital, its treasures, and his wife. According to legend, this last Jewish monarch of Yemen was last seen racing his steed from a jutting rock into the Red Sea. Although Jews and their allies eventually drove the Christians from the interior, the monarchy had come to its end. Later, Himyar lost its independence and became a vassal state of Ethiopia. The Muslims seized the area in the 7th century, and within two centuries the Jews had plunged from being members of the ruling class, to becoming dhimmis (second class citizens) of the Muslim world.

Traces of the Past
Today, little remains of Yemen’s Jewish monarchy except a few inscriptions in Yemen bearing traditional Jewish names of Hashem. One inscription speaks of a building erected by a man named Yehudah and continues: “With help and charity of his G-d, the creator of his soul, the G-d of the living and the dead, the G-d of heaven and earth, who created everything; and with the support of His people, Israel, and by the authority of the King of Sheba, and by the authority of his tribal lord.”

There is also an Israeli connection to the old Jewish empire. During 1936-1937, archeologists digging in the ancient Beit Shearim cemetery near Chaifa found a four-roomed site with small burial niches. Pictures and inscriptions on the walls made it clear that this place was set aside for the burial of Himyar nobles. A Greek inscription over one of the burial niches described those interred there as “people of Himyar” and pottery and shards at the location date back to the second-half of the third century CE. Historians theorize that these Himyarites did not die during a tour of Eretz Yisroel, but were sent from Yemen to be buried there.

The most modern memorial to the Himyar Empire is found in downtown Yerushalayim. Branching off Yaffo Street, a street named Dhu Nuwas honors the memory of Yemen’s Jewish kings who burst into the arena of history 1,500 years ago and sank back into the sands of Yemen without a trace. 

(Credit: Joseph Adler. The Jewish Kingdom of Himyar (Yemen): Its Rise and Fall. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2000.)