Raydah ( Arabic : ريدة ; sometimes transliterated Raidah or al-Raidah ) is a large market town located 49 kilometres (30 mi) north of Sana'a , and 11 miles (18 km) north of Amran , in northwestern Yemen .
98-628: In previous years, before most Yemeni Jews emigrated, the Suq al-yahud or Jewish market was held here. As of 2009, the Jewish community numbered 266 persons, and operated three synagogues and two schools. However, during the 2008-09 Gaza War , tensions with local Muslims increased and an Islamic extremist murdered a Jewish teacher and kosher butcher, Moshe Ya'ish al-Nahari , after demanding he convert to Islam. The last time an incident of this kind had occurred in Raydah
196-586: A BBC broadcast defended a claim that Yûsuf 'As'ar offered villagers the choice between conversion to Judaism or death and then massacred 20,000 Christians. The program's producers stated that, "The production team spoke to many historians over 18 months, among them Nigel Groom , who was our consultant, and Professor Abdul Rahman Al-Ansary [former professor of archaeology at the King Saud University in Riyadh ]." Inscriptions attributed to Yûsuf 'As'ar himself show
294-532: A mimation to differentiate him from the Canaanite feminine form of ʿAṯtar, 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕 ( ʿAštart ), in the Phoenician and Aramaic scripts as 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤌 and 𐡏𐡔𐡕𐡓𐡌 ( ʿAštarum ). This form of the god's name was distinctly North Arabian, showing that the worshippers who had left these inscriptions were originally from North Arabia, possibly from Taymāʿ or Dadān . ʿAštar
392-584: A 𐡏𐡁𐡃 𐡏𐡕𐡓𐡔𐡌𐡉𐡍 ( ʿBD ʿTRŠMYN . lit. ' servant of ʿAttar-Šamayin ' ); Barruq's own name, which means "thunder," was a reference to ʿAttar-Šamayin in his role as a god associated with thunder and lightning. In the Kingdom of Aksum situated in the Horn of Africa , ʿAttar was worshiped: as the god of the sun and moon and as the father of the other members of the Axumite pantheon: Maher and Beher ,
490-520: A "savage pogrom that the Jewish king of the Arabs launched against the Christians in the city of Najran. The king himself reported in excruciating detail to his Arab and Persian allies about the massacres he had inflicted on all Christians who refused to convert to Judaism." There were also reports of massacres and destruction of places of worship by Christians, too. Francis Edward Peters wrote that while there
588-458: 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
686-555: A South Arabian religious influence in Moab. The hypostases of ʿAṯtar who appear among the various Canaanite peoples might have been an indigenous Transjordanian variation of his or local adaptations of the North Arabian variant of the god. A possible Phoenician variant of ʿAštar might be attested as a theophoric element 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓 ( ʿAštar ) in a personal name from Byblos , 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤇𐤍 ( ʿŠTR-ḤN ). In
784-541: 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
882-501: A late-9th-century document, the first Zaydi imam al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya had imposed limitations and a special tax on land held by Jews and Christians of Najran . In the mid-11th century, Jews from several communities in the Yemen highlands, including Sanaʿa, appear to have been attracted to the Sulayhids ' capital of Dhu Jibla . The city was founded by Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Sulaihi in
980-577: 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
1078-613: A minor role in mythological texts. Among the Aramaeans , ʿAṯtar appears in a masculine form as the god 𐡏𐡕𐡓 ( ʿAttar ), in which capacity he was identified with the baetyl as 𒁹𒀀𒋻𒋡𒈬 ( ʿAttar-qāmu , lit. ' ʿAttar is the baetyl ' ). Within the ancient Aramaean religion, the deceased ancestors of the clans, called ʿamm , were worshipped as idealised figures who could become assimilated to ʿAttar, as evidenced by personal names such as 𒁹𒀀𒋻𒄩𒄠 𒁹𒀀𒋻𒄩𒈬 ( ʿAttar-ʿammu , lit. ' ʿAttar
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#17328514851121176-721: A peace with Abraha, where Abraha acknowledged the Axumite king's authority and paid tribute. Stuart Munro-Hay opines that by this expedition Axum overextended itself, and this final intervention across the Red Sea , "was Aksum's swan-song as a great power in the region." 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,
1274-637: 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
1372-451: 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
1470-505: 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
1568-678: Is Baʿal-ʿAṯtar. The masculine form 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓 ( ʿAštar ) existed among the Canaanite peoples as an astral deity, which is attested by his mention along with the Moon-God Šaggar in the 9th or 7th century BC Dayr ʿAllā inscription , the subject of which is largely the Sun-goddess Šamāš , thus forming a triad of the Sun, Moon, and Venus similarly to the one attested in South Arabia , and suggesting
1666-452: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Yemeni Jews Yemenite Jews , also known as Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from Hebrew : יהודי תימן , romanized : Yehudei Teman ; Arabic : 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
1764-495: Is also present in his Northwest Semitic feminine variant, who is called 𐎓𐎘𐎚𐎗𐎚𐎟𐎕𐎆𐎄𐎚 ( ʿAṯtart ṣawwādatu , lit. ' ʿAṯtart the huntress ' ) in one passage of an Ugaritic text. The Sabaic hallowed phrase 𐩺𐩥𐩣 𐩮𐩵 𐩮𐩺𐩵 𐩲𐩻𐩩𐩧 ( ywm ṣd ṣyd ʿṯtr , lit. ' the day when he performed the hunt for ʿAṯtar ' ) itself had a parallel in a reference to 𒄿𒈾 𒌋𒐋 𒌓𒈪 𒍝𒁺 𒊭 𒀭𒀸𒁯 ( ina 16 umi ṣadu ša ᴰ Aštart , lit. ' on
1862-587: Is assimilated to ʿAttar. One 8th century BC Aramaic inscription found in a tomb in a region of the Zagros Mountains close to a Mannaean royal tomb mentions ʿAttar as 𐡀𐡕𐡓𐡌𐡑𐡍 ( ʿAttar-Muṣurūn ), that is a variant of ʿAttar whose epithet was the Old Arabic plural form of مصر ( muṣru ), lit. ' march ' , with ʿAttar-Muṣurūn thus being ʿAttar of the Marches. The name "the Marches" itself
1960-675: 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
2058-544: 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. In 2009
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#17328514851122156-526: Is my support ' ), which was the name of two rulers of the kingdom of Bēt-Gūš . The name of this god always appears in the masculine form even in women's names, such as ʿAttar-ramat and ʿAttar-ṭabat, thus attesting that the Aramaean ʿAttar was a distinctly masculine deity. One of the hypostases of the Aramaean ʿAttar was 𐡏𐡕𐡓𐡔𐡌𐡉𐡍 ( ʿAttar-Šamayin ), that is the ʿAttar of the Heavens: in this role, ʿAttar
2254-440: 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
2352-568: Is recorded in Sabaic as 𐩠𐩥𐩨𐩪 ( Huwbis ) or 𐩠𐩨𐩪 ( Hūbis ), which was derived from the South Semitic root 𐩺-𐩨-𐩪 ( y-b-s ), itself a declension of the Semitic root y-b-š , meaning "to be dry." The position of Hūbis/Huwbis as the consort of ʿAttar-Šamayin is attested by the depiction of a goddess in front of a standing worshipper on an 8th-century Aramaean cylinder seal , with
2450-468: 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
2548-474: Is the ancestor ' ), and 𒁹𒀀𒀜𒋻 and 𒁹𒀀𒈨𒀀𒋻 ( ʿAmmī-ʿAttar , lit. ' My ancestor is ʿAttar ' ). The use of the name of the god ʿAttar as a theophoric element is attested in the name 𐡁𐡓𐡏𐡕𐡓 ( Bar-ʿAttar , lit. ' Son of ʿAttar ' ), which is attested on an 8th-century BC stamp seal and was also the name of the earliest known ruler of Laqē , as well as 𐡏𐡕𐡓𐡎𐡌𐡊 ( ʿAttar-sumki , lit. ' ʿAttar
2646-568: Is ʿAṯtar of the East, who was invoked especially in curses as an avenger god against enemies. ʿAṯtar was worshipped as a masculine deity among the ancient Arabs , who during the Iron Age were located principally in the Syrian Desert and North Arabia. Similarly to the link between ʿAttar and the ancestral cult of the ʿamm among the Aramaeans, there also existed a connection between ʿAttar and
2744-471: 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
2842-615: The 1948 Palestine War and it was planned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee . The plan was for the Jews from all over Yemen to make their way to the Aden area. Specifically, the Jews were to arrive in Hashed Camp and live there until they could be airlifted to Israel. Hashed was an old British military camp in the desert, about a mile away from the city of Sheikh Othman . The operation took longer than
2940-520: The Hebrew language the best". 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
3038-535: 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
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3136-474: The 16th day is the hunt of ʿAṯtart ' ) in a text from Emar . One of the hypostases of the South Arabian ʿAṯtar was 𐩫𐩧𐩥𐩣 ( Kirrūm ), whose name, which was a qittūl -pattern Semitic word formation meaning "rainfall," was related to Geʽez ክራምት ( kəramt ), Amharic ክረምት ( krämt ), Tigrē ካራም ( karam ), and Eastern Gurage ከርም ( kärm ), all meaning "rainy season." Kirrūm
3234-716: The 5th century BC, under the Achaemenid Empire , a shrine dedicated to ʿAštar existed in the Sharon Plain in Canaan, at a location corresponding to the present-day Israeli town of Elyakhin , where he was worshipped by Phoenicians, Aramaeans, and Arabs. Arabian units of the Achaemenid army stationed in Canaan during the 5th century BC who participated in the cult of ʿAštar have left inscriptions recording his name, suffixed with
3332-591: 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 AD, 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
3430-599: 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). Procopius, John of Ephesus , and other contemporary historians recount Kaleb's invasion of Yemen around 520, against the Himyarite king Yūsuf As'ar Yath'ar, known as Dhu Nuwas , a Jewish convert who
3528-727: The Assyrians to their northeastern border regions. The Qedarite Arabs worshipped ʿAṯtar in his form of ʿAttar-Šamayin , whose name is attested in Ancient North Arabian as 𐪒𐪉𐪇𐪊𐪃 ( ʿAttar-Šamē ). Assyrian records mention this god, referred to in Akkadian as 𒀭𒀀𒋻𒊓𒈠𒀀𒀀𒅔 ( ᴰ Atar-Samayin , reflecting the Aramaic form ʿAttar-Šamayin rather than the Ancient North Arabian ʿAttar-Šamē ), as one of
3626-716: 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
3724-413: 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
3822-560: 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 . Mahdi also imposed his beliefs upon
3920-513: The Israeli government launched a covert operation to airlift 19 Jews from Raydah to Israel, effectively marking the end of the town's Jewish community. Only one family elected to remain in Raydah. Raydah is home to a small hospital, funded by Save the Children . However, funding cuts and the ongoing civil war have reduced the hospital's ability to treat patients. This article about a location in Yemen
4018-552: 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
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4116-500: 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,
4214-457: The Jews of Yemen with great admiration. During this period messianic expectations were very intense among the Jews of Yemen (and among many Arabs as well). The three pseudo-messiahs of this period, and their years of activity, are: According to the Jewish traveler Jacob Saphir , the majority of Yemenite Jews during his visit of 1862 entertained a belief in the messianic proclamations of Shukr Kuhayl I . Earlier Yemenite messiah claimants included
4312-576: 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
4410-495: 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. Jewish intellectuals wrote in both Hebrew and Arabic and engaged in the same literary endeavours as the Muslim majority. According to
4508-511: The Muslims besides the Jews. This led to a revival of Jewish messianism, but also led to mass-conversion. 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
4606-699: The Qedarite deities whose idols were captured as war booty by the Neo-Assyrian king Sîn-ahhī-erība and was returned to the Qedarites by his son and successor Aššur-aḫa-iddina . The worship of ʿAṯtar in his form of ʿAṯtar-Kirrūm was also practised by the Qedarites, as attested by an inscription of the Neo-Assyrian king Aššur-aḫa-iddina mentioning this deity in Akkadian as 𒀭𒀀𒋻𒆪𒊒𒈠𒀀 ( ᴰ Atar-Kumrumā ), with
4704-401: 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
4802-420: 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
4900-653: 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
4998-404: 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
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#17328514851125096-443: 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
5194-408: 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
5292-417: The ancient South Arabian pantheon, in which he replaced the old Semitic high god ʾIl as the supreme deity. The name of ʿAṯtar was suffixed with a mimation in the South Arabian kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt , thus giving the Ḥaḑramitic form 𐩲𐩯𐩩𐩧𐩣 ( ʿŚTRM ). Within South Arabian polytheism , ʿAṯtar held a supreme position within the cosmology of the ancient South Arabians as the god presiding over
5390-451: The anonymous 12th-century messiah who was the subject of Maimonides's famous Iggeret Teman , or Epistle to Yemen , the messiah of Bayhan (c. 1495), and Suleiman Jamal (c. 1667), in what Lenowitz regards as a unified messiah history spanning 600 years. 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
5488-464: 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
5586-569: The country's Jewish population emigrated 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 2024, only five Jews remained in Yemen, with one of them being Levi Marhabi . Yemenite Jews observe a unique religious tradition that distinguishes them from Ashkenazi Jews , Sephardic Jews , and other Jewish groups . They have been described as "the most Jewish of all Jews" and "the ones who have preserved
5684-400: The cult of the ancestors among Arabs which is attested from as early as the 7th century BC in the form of a personal name recorded in Akkadian as 𒀭𒀀𒋫𒊏𒋛𒈠 ( ᴰ Atar-asima ), from an original Ancient North Arabian form ʿAttar-ʾaśyimāʾ , in which the divine patron of a clan or tribe, the 𐪆𐪚𐪃 ( śaym , of which ʾaśyimāʾ is the ʾafʿilāʾu -type broken plural),
5782-530: 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
5880-403: 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
5978-403: The dissimilation of the epithet kirrūm into kumrumā reflecting the influence of Akkadian 𒆪𒌝𒀸 ( kumrum ) and Aramaic 𐡊𐡅𐡌𐡓𐡅 ( kumru ), meaning "priest." At Palmyra , where lived a large Arab population, the Arab ʿAṯtar was assimilated with the Arameo- Canaanite great god, Baʿal , in the form of Bōlʿaṯtār , later 𐡡𐡥𐡫𐡰𐡯𐡶𐡴 ( Bōlʿastōr ), that
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#17328514851126076-455: 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
6174-421: The former of which they shared with the Himyarite Kingdom . He was associated with the god Zeus . Among the ancient South Arabians , 𐩲𐩻𐩩𐩧 ( ʿAṯtar ) was a masculine deity who had retained the prominence of his role as the deity of the planet Venus as the Morning Star, and was a god presiding over thunderstorms and who provided natural irrigation as rain. ʿAṯtar thus held a very important place within
6272-497: 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. Historian Glen Bowersock described this as
6370-484: 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
6468-401: The image of a vulva , the symbol of Hūbis/Huwbis, being present behind the goddess and over a recumbent gazelle - the sacred animal of ʿAttar - over which was also inscribed the name of the god himself. The earliest record of ʿAttar-Šamayin is from an Aramaic inscription on the 8th-century BC cylinder seal belonging to an individual named Barruq , who is described in the inscription as
6566-442: 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
6664-516: 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
6762-409: 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
6860-425: 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
6958-459: 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
7056-460: 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), Rehovot (Sha'arayim and Marmorek), Wadi Chanin (later called Ness Ziona ), Be'er Ya'akov , Hadera (Nachliel), Zichron Yaakov , Yavne'el , Gedera , Ben Shemen , Kinneret , Degania and Milhamia . Others chose to live in
7154-627: The planet Venus , the morning and evening star. ʿAṯtar is a prominent character in the Baal Cycle . The name appears in various Semitic languages as: The Ugaritic masculine variant of ʿAṯtar, 𐎓𐎘𐎚𐎗 ( ʿAṯtar ), appears in the Baʿal Cycle . The Northwest Semitic feminine form of ʿAṯtar, the Great Goddess 𐎓𐎘𐎚𐎗𐎚 ( ʿAṯtart ), is often mentioned in Ugaritic ritual texts, but played
7252-477: 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
7350-649: 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
7448-560: 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
7546-419: 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
7644-448: 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
7742-652: 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. Even so, some ancient customs remained with the Yemenite Jews, especially in those matters committed unto the masses and to the general public, which are still adhered to by them from an ancient period, and which they did not change even though Maimonides ruled otherwise. In common Jewish practice,
7840-571: The unfounded rumour 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 in Operation Magic Carpet . During this period, over 50,000 Jews migrated to Israel . The operation began in June 1949 and ended in September 1950. Part of the operation happened during
7938-432: The urban areas of Jerusalem ( Silwan , and Nachalat Zvi), Jaffa , Tel Aviv ( Kerem Hateimanim ), 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
8036-641: 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
8134-602: The whole world, always appeared first in lists, and had various manifestations with their own epithets. The rulers of the ancient South Arabian states would offer ritual banquets in honour of ʿAṯtar, with the banquet being paid for from the tithe offered to the god by the populace. The patron deity of the Qatabānians, however, was the Moon-god, variously called 𐩲𐩣 ( ʿAmm , in Qatabān ) or ( Sayīn , in Ḥaḍramawt ), who
8232-555: The years April 1939 – December 1945, was put at 4,554. By 1947, there were an estimated 35,000 Yemenite Jews living in Mandate Palestine. After the UN partition vote on Palestine , Arab rioters, assisted by the local police force, engaged in a 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,
8330-465: 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
8428-573: Was attested among the Canaanite people of the Moabites during the 9th century BC, when he was identified with the patron god of Moab, 𐤊𐤌𐤔 ( Kamōš ), in the form of 𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤊𐤌𐤔 ( ʿAštar-Kamōš ). According to the inscription of the Moabite king Mōšaʿ on the victory stele commemorating his triumph in a war against the Israelites, he had sacrificed the whole population of
8526-520: 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
8624-582: 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%. During the British Mandate of Palestine , the total number of persons registered as immigrants from Yemen, between
8722-581: 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
8820-461: Was in 1986, when two Jews were killed. Following Nahari's murder, the Jewish community expressed how vulnerable they felt, and complained that they had been harassed and threatened by extremists. They requested assistance from the government. In June 2009, 16 Jewish families who resided in the town left for Israel. Nahari's wife and nine children also moved to Israel. In 2016, amid the Yemeni civil war ,
8918-411: Was originally planned. Over the course of the operation, hundreds of migrants died in Hashed Camp, as well as on the plane rides to Israel. By September 1950, almost 50,000 Jews had been successfully airlifted to the newly formed state of Israel. Attar (god) ʿAṯtar is a deity whose role, name, and even gender varied across ancient Semitic religion . In both genders, ʿAṯtar is identified with
9016-677: Was persecuting the Christian community of Najran . After much fighting, Kaleb's soldiers eventually routed Yusuf's forces. They killed the king, allowing Kaleb to appoint Sumyafa Ashwa , a native Christian (named Esimiphaios by Procopius), as his viceroy of Himyar. Aksumite control of Arabia Felix continued until c. 525 when Sumyafa Ashwa was deposed by the Abyssinian General Abraha , who made himself king. Procopius states that Kaleb made several unsuccessful attempts to recover his overseas territory; however, his successor later negotiated
9114-486: Was seen as being closer to the people compared to the more distant figure of ʿAṯtar, and the people of these states consequently called themselves the children of their respective Moon-god. The South Arabian ʿAṯtar was a hunter god, and the ancient South Arabians performed ritual hunts in his honour as fertility rites with the goal of making the rain fall. The chosen prey during these hunts were probably gazelles, which were sacred to ʿAṯtar. This hunter aspect of ʿAṯtar
9212-554: Was the designation assigned by the Mesopotamians to the northern Ḥijāz and the Negev . The name of the deity is followed by the title 𐡍𐡂𐡔 ( ngš ), corresponding to Ancient North Arabian 𐪌𐪔𐪆 ( ngś ) and Ethiosemitic ንጉሥ ( nəguś ), and meaning "the ruler." ʿAttar-Muṣurūn was thus the main deity of North Arabia, and the tomb in which his name was found inscribed likely belonged to an Arab who had been deported by
9310-531: Was the incarnation of the sky's procreative power in the form of the moisture provided by rain, which made fertile his consort, the goddess of the Earth which has been dried up by the summer heat. Due to ʿAttar's role as a provider of rain, his epithet "of the Heavens" refers to his manifestation as lightning and thunder in the skies. The name of the goddess who was the consort of ʿAttar is itself not attested in Aramaic, but
9408-573: 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
9506-485: Was thus a form of ʿAṯtar who provided fertility in the form of the rain he dispensed. The Babylonians identified Kirrūm, under the name 𒀭𒆥𒀸𒈠 ( ᴰ Kinruma ), with their own goddess 𒀭𒀹𒁯 ( ᴰ Ištar ), who was herself the goddess of the planet Venus as well as the Mesopotamian feminine form of ʿAṯtar. Another hypostasis of the South Arabian ʿAṯtar was 𐩲𐩻𐩩𐩧𐩦𐩧𐩤𐩬 ( ʿAṯtar-Šariqān ), that
9604-429: 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
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