View source for Yemenite Jews

{{short description|Jewish ethnic group}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2015}}
{{Infobox ethnic group
| group            = Yemenite Jews
| languages        = [[Modern Hebrew]], [[Judeo-Yemeni Arabic]], [[Yemenite Hebrew]]
| image            = A YEMENITE FAMILY READING FROM THE PSALMS ON SHABBAT AFTER LUNCH.D827-012.jpg
| caption          = Yemenite family reading from the [[Psalms]]
| total            = 515,444
| pop1             = 435,000
| region1          = {{flagcountry|Israel}}
| pop2             = 80,000
| region2          = {{flagcountry|US}}
| pop3             = 396<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/yemenite-yemeni-jews-stamford-hill-hackney-charedi-satmar-chasidic-community-avi-karni-1.489632?reloadTime=1663977600011 |title=Yemenite Jews in Stamford Hill: A failed experiment}}</ref>
| region3          = {{flagcountry|UK}}
| pop4             = 42<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1890482/watch-after-15-years-yemeni-jewish-family-reunites-in-the-united-arab-emirates.html|title=Watch: After 15 Years: Yemeni Jewish Family Reunites In The United Arab Emirates|work=The Yeshiva World|date=August 10, 2020|access-date=March 30, 2021}}</ref><ref name="hamodia.com">{{cite web|url=https://hamodia.com/2020/08/16/report-yemens-remaining-jews-move-uae-following-israel-treaty/|title=Report: Yemen's Remaining Jews to Move to UAE Following Israel Treaty|work=Hamodia|date=August 16, 2020|access-date=August 17, 2020|first=Yoni|last=Weiss|archive-date=September 20, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920171355/https://hamodia.com/2020/08/16/report-yemens-remaining-jews-move-uae-following-israel-treaty/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/|title=Point of No Return|website=Point of No Return}}</ref>
| region4          = {{flagcountry|UAE}}
| pop5             = 5<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aish.com/history-of-the-jews-of-yemen/|title=History of the Jews of Yemen|date=May 10, 2022}}</ref>
| region5          = {{flagcountry|Bahrain}}
| pop6             = 1<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-12-17 |title=The last Jew of Yemen - report |url=https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/12/last-jew-of-yemen/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |website=[[The Spectator]] |issn=0792-822X |oclc=15700704}}</ref>
| region6          = {{flagcountry|Yemen}}
| native_name      = {{langx|he|{{Script/Hebrew|יהודי תימן}}}}<br/>{{lang|ar|اليهود اليمنيون}}
| religions        = [[Judaism]]
| related          = [[Mizrahi Jews]], [[Jewish ethnic divisions]], [[Demographics of Yemen|Yemenis]],  and [[Samaritans]]
| native_name_lang = 
}}
{{Jews and Judaism sidebar |expanded=population}}
[[File:Jews in many lands, Yemen Jews at Jerusalem.jpg|thumb|right|Temani Jews in Jerusalem]]

'''Yemenite Jews''', also known as '''Yemeni Jews''' or '''Temanim''' ({{Langx|he|יהודי תימן|Yehudei Teman}}; {{langx|ar|اليهود اليمنيون|al-yahūd al-yamaniyyūn}}), are a [[Jewish diaspora]] group who live or once lived in [[Yemen]] and their descendants who maintain their customs. After several waves of [[antisemitism|persecution]], the vast majority of Yemenite Jews [[aliyah|emigrated to Israel]] in [[Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)|Operation Magic Carpet]] between June 1949 and September 1950. Most [[Yemenite Jews in Israel|Yemenite Jews now live in Israel]], with smaller communities in the [[United States]] and elsewhere.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/world/middleeast/persecution-defines-life-for-yemens-few-jews.html |title= Persecution Defines Life for Yemen's Remaining Jews |author=Rod Nordland |newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 18, 2015}}</ref> As of 2024, reputedly only one Jew, [[Levi Marhabi]], remains in Yemen.<ref name=":0" /> However, ''[[Ynet]]'' cited local sources stating that the actual number is five.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sj7dfbxic|title='A great loss': Yemen bids farewell to one of its last remaining Jews|author=Lior Ben Ari|date=19 June 2024|newspaper=Ynetnews|access-date=19 July 2024}}</ref><ref name="israelnationalnews.com">{{Cite web|url=https://www.israelnationalnews.com/en/news/391615|title=Watch: One of Yemen's last Jews has passed away|date=16 June 2024|website=Israel National News|access-date=9 August 2024}}</ref>

Yemenite Jews observe a unique religious tradition that distinguishes them from [[Ashkenazi Jews]], [[Sephardic Jews]], and [[Jewish ethnic divisions|other Jewish groups]]. They have been described as "the most Jewish of all Jews" and "the ones who have preserved the Hebrew language the best".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rpDmjguolFoC&pg=PA71|title=History as Prelude: Muslims and Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean|last=Montville|first=Joseph V.|date=2011|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7391-6814-1|language=en}}</ref> Yemeni Jews are considered [[Mizrahi Jews|Mizrahi]] or "Eastern" Jews. However, they differ from other Mizrahis, who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to [[Sephardic law and customs]]. While the Shami Yemeni Jews did adopt a Sephardic-influenced rite, this was primarily due to it being forced upon them,{{efn|Rabbi Shalom ben Aharon Ha-Kohen Iraqi would go to a different Yemenite synagogue each Shabbat with printed Sephardic siddurim, requesting that the congregation pray in the Sefardic [[nusach (Jewish custom)|nusach]] and forcing it upon them if necessary ([[Yosef Kapach]], Passover Aggadta, p. 11). See also [[Baladi-rite Prayer]].}} and did not reflect a demographic or general cultural shift among the vast majority of Yemenite Jews.

==History==
===Ancient history===

[[Image:04ring.jpg|thumb|Ring-stone of Yishak bar Hanina with a [[Torah]] shrine, 330 BCE – 200 CE, found in Dhofar]]
Records referring to Judaism in Yemen started to appear in [[Himyar]], a [[polity]] established in what is now Yemen in 110 BCE. Various inscriptions in the [[Ancient South Arabian script]] in the [[2nd century]] refer to the construction of [[synagogue]]s approved by Himyarite kings.<ref>Christian Robin: Himyar et Israël. In: Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres (eds): Comptes-Rendus of séances de l'année 2004th 148/2, pages 831–901. Paris 2004</ref>

In the aftermath of the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] in 132, 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.<ref>Gilbert, Martin: ''In Ishmael's House'', p. 4</ref> The Christian missionary [[Theophilos the Indian]], who came to Yemen in the mid-fourth century, complained that he had found great numbers of Jews.<ref>{{cite book|author=Eric Maroney|title=The Other Zions: The Lost Histories of Jewish Nations|date=2010|page=[https://archive.org/details/otherzionslosthi0000maro/page/93 93]|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-1-4422-0045-6|url=https://archive.org/details/otherzionslosthi0000maro/page/93}}</ref> By 380, Himyarite religious practices had undergone fundamental changes. The inscriptions were no longer addressed to [[Almaqah]] or [[Attar (god)|Attar]] but to a single deity called [[Rahmanan]]. Debate among scholars continues as to whether Judaism or Christianity influenced Himyarite monotheism.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Angelika Neuwirth |author2=Nicolai Sinai |author3=Michael Marx |title=The Qurʾān in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu|date=2009|page=36|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-474-3032-2}}</ref>

Jews became especially numerous and influential in [[South 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. Yemeni tribes did not oppose the Jewish presence in their country.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Jewish+Kingdom+of+Himyar+(Yemen)%3A+Its+Rise+and+Fall.-a063842699|title=The Jewish Kingdom of Himyar its rise and fall last retrieved dec 11 2012|publisher=Thefreelibrary.com|access-date=October 28, 2014}}</ref>

====Dynastic conversion to Judaism====
{{main|Abu Karib#Conversion|Himyarite Kingdom#Jewish monarchy}}
In 390, the Himyarite king [[Abu Karib]] led a military campaign northwards and fought the Jews of [[Yathrib]] in the [[Hijaz]]. When Abu Karib fell ill, two local Jewish scholars, Kaab and Assad, took the opportunity to travel to his camp, where they treated him and persuaded him to lift the siege.<ref name="google2">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-2A-AAAAYAAJ&dq=jewish+%22abu+Kariba%22&pg=PA53 |title=The Celebrities of the Jews: A glance at the historical circumstances of the Jewish people from the destruction of Jerusalem to the present day. Part I. 70-1290|first=Moses Avigdor|last=Chaikin|author-link=Moses Avigdor Chaikin|publisher=Pawson & Brailsford|year= 1899 |access-date=July 9, 2010}}</ref> The scholars also inspired the king with an interest in Judaism, and he converted in 390, persuading his army to do likewise.<ref name=History1>{{cite book|title=History of the Jews, Volume 3|pages = [https://archive.org/details/historyjews01blocgoog/page/n78 62]–64|url = https://archive.org/details/historyjews01blocgoog|quote=Abu Kariba Asad.|last1=Graetz|first1=Heinrich|author-link = Heinrich Graetz|last2=Löwy|first2=Bella |last3 = Bloch|first3=Philipp |publisher=[[Jewish Publication Society of America]]|year=1902}}</ref><ref name=Exodus>{{cite book|title=Understanding the Exodus and Other Mysteries of Jewish History|page = [https://archive.org/details/understandingexo00sega/page/212 212]|publisher = Etz Haim Press| url = https://archive.org/details/understandingexo00sega|url-access=registration|quote=The Jewish Kingdoms of Arabia 7th century.|author = S.B. Segall|year=2003|isbn=978-0-9740461-0-5}}</ref><ref name=Oriental>{{cite book|title=The Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature| volume= 14|year=1827|page = 544|publisher =London | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4ioYAAAAYAAJ&dq=of+arabia+%22jewish+kingdoms%22&pg=RA1-PA544}}</ref><ref name=Dubnov>{{cite book|title=History of the Jews: From the Roman Empire to the Early Medieval Period|author = Simon Dubnov|page = 309|publisher = Cornwall Books |isbn=978-0-8453-6659-2| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=MZ2MwNzB69IC&dq=%22Abu+Kariba%22&pg=PA309|year=1968|orig-date=Prior to 1941}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://edt.missouri.edu/Summer2008/Thesis/HienzJ-081208-T11650/research.pdf|author=Justin Paul Heinz|title=The Origins of Muslim Prayer: Sixth and Seventh Century Religious Influences on the Salat Ritual|date=August 2008|access-date=July 9, 2010}}{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }}</ref> With this, the Himyar, "the dominant power on the [[Arabian peninsula]]", was converted to Judaism.<ref>''[[The Story of the Jews (book)|The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words]]'' by [[Simon Schama]], Part Two, Chapter 6 "Among the Believers", page 233:<blockquote> By the late fourth century CE, just as life for Jews in Christendom was beginning to turn starkly harsher, Judaism made its spectacular conquest in Arabia, when the kingdom of Himyar (corresponding, territorially, to present-day Yemen, and the dominant power on the Arabian peninsula for 250 years) converted to Judaism. For a long time, it was assumed that the Himyar conversion was confined to a small circle close to the king – Tiban As'ad Abu Karib, the last of the Tubban line –, and perhaps included the warrior aristocracy. There is still a lively debate regarding the extent of Himyar Judaism; but the evidence of both inscriptions and, more significantly, excavations at the mountain of the capital of Zafar, which have uncovered what seems likely to be an ancient [[mikveh]], suggests to many recent scholars (though not all) that the dramatic conversion was more profound, widespread and enduring. It may have been that the Himyarites were devotees of the 'sun and moon' as well as practicing eighth day circumcision, but at the time, the cult of the sun, as we have seen from synagogue mosaics of the period, was not controversial in Jewish practice.</blockquote></ref> In Yemen, several inscriptions dating back to the 4th and 5th centuries have been found in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[Sabaean language|Sabaean]] praising the ruling house in Jewish terms for "helping and empowering the [[Jews|People of Israel]]".<ref>{{cite book|author1=Y. M. Abdallah |title=The Inscription CIH 543: A New Reading Based on the Newly-Found Original in C. Robin & M. Bafaqih (Eds.) Sayhadica: Recherches Sur Les Inscriptions De l'Arabie Préislamiques Offertes Par Ses Collègues Au Professeur A.F.L. Beeston|year= 1987|publisher= Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner S.A.|location= Paris|pages= 4–5}}</ref>

====Abu Nuwas and intercommunal unrest====
By 516, tribal unrest broke out, and several tribal elites fought for power. One of those elites was [[Dhu Nuwas|Joseph dhu Nuwas]] or Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar as mentioned in Ancient South Arabian inscriptions.<ref name="auto">A. Jamme, W.F., ''Sabaean and Ḥasaean Inscriptions from Saudi Arabia'', Instituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente: Università di Roma, Rome 1966, p. 40</ref> The actual story of Joseph is murky. Greek and Ethiopian accounts portray him as a Jewish zealot.<ref name="Eric Maroney 2010 94">{{cite book|author=Eric Maroney|title=The Other Zions: The Lost Histories of Jewish Nations|date=2010|page=[https://archive.org/details/otherzionslosthi0000maro/page/94 94]|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-1-4422-0045-6|url=https://archive.org/details/otherzionslosthi0000maro/page/94}}</ref> Some scholars suggest that he was a [[convert to Judaism]].<ref name="Jolly1997">{{cite book|author=Karen Louise Jolly|title=Tradition & Diversity: Christianity in a World Context to 1500|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HFWX2OUNTW4C&pg=PA171|year=1997|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-468-1|page=171}}</ref> [[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.<ref>''The Nestorian Chronicle from Saard'' (Séert), edited by Addai Scher (in ''Patrologia Orientalis'' vol. IV, V and VII). The original Nestorian account was compiled shortly after 1036 CE from extracts of old Syriac historical works no longer extant. The original account read as follows: "…In later times there reigned over this country a Jewish king, whose name was Masrūq. His mother was a Jewess, of the inhabitants of Nisibis, who had been made a captive. Then one of the kings of Yaman had bought her and she had given birth to Masrūq and instructed him in Judaism. He reigned after his father and killed a number of the Christians. Bar Sāhde has told his history in his Chronicle." See also Moshe Gill, ''In the Kingdom of Ishmael during the Geonic Period'' (במלכות ישמעאל בתקופת הגאונים), vols. 1–4, Tel-Aviv 1997, p. 19 (Hebrew)</ref> [[Syriac language|Syriac]] and Byzantine sources maintain that Yūsuf Asʾar sought to convert other Yemenis but they refused to renounce Christianity. The actual picture, however, remains unclear.<ref name="Eric Maroney 2010 94"/>

In 2009, a [[BBC]] broadcast defended a claim that Yūsuf Asʾar offered villagers the choice between conversion to Judaism or death and then massacred 20,000 Christians. The program's producers stated, "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]]]."<ref name="thejc">{{cite web|url=http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/historians-back-bbc-over-jewish-massacre-claim|title=Historians back BBC over Jewish massacre claim &#124; The Jewish Chronicle|publisher=thejc.com|access-date=July 12, 2014}}</ref> Inscriptions attributed to Yūsuf Asʾar himself show the great pride he expressed after killing more than 22,000 Christians in [[Zafar, Yemen|Ẓafār]] and [[Najran]].<ref>Jacques Ryckmans, ''La persécution des chrétiens himyarites au sixième siècle'', Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Inst. in het Nabije Oosten, 1956 pp 1–24</ref> According to Jamme, [[South Arabian alphabet|Sabaean inscriptions]] reveal that the combined war booty (excluding deaths) from campaigns waged against the [[Habesha people|Abyssinians]] in Ẓafār, the fighters in 'Ašʻarān, Rakbān, Farasān, Muḥwān ([[Mocha, Yemen|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.<ref name="auto"/>

Historian [[Glen Bowersock]] described this as 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."<ref>{{cite book|last=Bowesock|first=Glen|title=The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-973932-5|page=4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X4BoAgAAQBAJ&q=Nuwas+Najr%C4%81n&pg=PA4}}</ref> There were also reports of massacres and destruction of places of worship by Christians, too.<ref name="Montgomery2002">{{cite book|author=Robert L. Montgomery|title=The Lopsided Spread of Christianity: Toward an Understanding of the Diffusion of Religions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RkeOLTrPDI0C&pg=PA31|year=2002|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-275-97361-2|page=31}}</ref> [[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.<ref>{{cite book|author=Francis Edward Peters|title=Muhammad and the Origins of Islam|url=https://archive.org/details/muhammadorigins00pete|url-access=registration|date=1994|page=[https://archive.org/details/muhammadorigins00pete/page/54 54]|publisher=State University of New York Press|isbn=978-0-691-02054-9}}</ref>

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 of [[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."<ref>Jacques Ryckmans, ''La persécution des chrétiens himyarites au sixième siècle'', Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut in het Nabije Oosten: Istanbul 1956, p. 14 (French)</ref>
[[File:Sabaean Inscription with Hebrew Insignia.jpg|thumb|Sabaean Inscription with Hebrew writing: "The writing of Judah, of blessed memory, Amen shalom amen"]]

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|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 Ḥimā), 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 Kingdom|Himyarite king]] Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar, known as [[Dhu Nuwas]], a [[Conversion to Judaism|Jewish convert]] who 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 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|swan-song]] as a great power in the region."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Munro-Hay |title=Aksum |page=88}}</ref>

====Tradition====
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 [[Solomon's Temple|Temple]] in [[Jerusalem]].<ref>Jewish Communities in Exotic Places," by Ken Blady, Jason Aronson Inc., 2000, pages 7</ref> 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'l-Fida|Abu-Alfada]] that the Jews of Yemen settled in the area in 1451&nbsp;BCE.<ref>Economic and Modern Education in Yemen (Education in Yemen in the Background of Political, Economic and Social Processes and Events, by Dr. Yosef Zuriely, Imud and Hadafasah, Jerusalem, 2005, page 2</ref>

Another legend says that Yemeni tribes converted to [[Judaism]] after the [[Queen of Sheba]]'s visit to King Solomon.<ref>Ken Blady (2000), Jewish Communities in Exotic Places, Jason Aronson Inc., p. 32</ref> The [[Sana'a|Sanaite]] Jews have a tradition that their ancestors settled in Yemen 42 years before the destruction of the [[Solomon's Temple|First Temple]].<ref>[[Jacob Saphir]], ''Iben Safir'' (vol. 1 – ch. 43), Lyck 1866, p. 99a (Hebrew). Bear in mind here that the Jewish year for the destruction of the First Temple is traditionally given in Jewish computation as 3338 [[Anno Mundi|AM]] or 421/2&nbsp;BCE. This differs from the modern scientific year, which is usually expressed using the [[Proleptic Julian calendar]] as 587&nbsp;BCE.</ref> It is said that under the prophet [[Jeremiah (prophet)|Jeremiah]] some 75,000 Jews, including priests and [[Levite]]s, traveled to Yemen.<ref>Shalom Seri and Naftali Ben-David, ''A Journey to Yemen and Its Jews'', Eeleh BeTamar publishing, 1991, page 43</ref>

Another legend states that when [[Ezra]] commanded the Jews to return to [[Jerusalem]] they disobeyed, whereupon he pronounced a [[Herem (censure)|ban]] upon them. According to this legend, as a punishment for this hasty action, Ezra was denied burial in [[History of ancient Israel and Judah|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.<ref>"The Jews of Yemen", in ''Yemen: 3000 Years of Art and Civilization in Arabia Felix'', edited by Werner Daum, page 272: 1987</ref>

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.<ref>Yehudah Ratzaby, "Documents on the Jews of Yemen", ''[[Sefunot]]'', p. [https://web.archive.org/web/20141022152755/http://www.ybz.org.il/_Uploads/dbsArticles/sefunotII_OCR.pdf#page=297 289], [[Ben-Zvi Institute]] (Hebrew). This view is based on a commentary composed by Rabbi Yihya Qorah of Sana'a (d. 1881), where he explains the import of the words "There came ...the Babylonian doe," in the poem ''Levavī yeḥeshqah 'oferah''. "He means to say that there came all those who are my companions, being those who dwell in Yemen, and I, too, have been merited to come along with them [...] Now, both, he and we are called Babylonians, based on the fact that we were there from the beginning, and it was from there that our forefathers came to dwell in this country, just as it is known by those who investigate the matter."</ref> According to local legends, the kingdom's aristocracy converted to Judaism in the 6th century CE.<ref name="Wagner 2009">{{cite book |last=Wagner |first=Mark S. |title=Like Joseph in beauty: Yemeni vernacular poetry and Arab-Jewish symbiosis |url=https://archive.org/details/likejosephbeauty00wagn |url-access=registration |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-16840-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/likejosephbeauty00wagn/page/n19 3]–282 |language=en|year=2009 }}</ref>

===Middle Ages===

====Jewish–Muslim relations in Yemen====
{{See also|Islamic–Jewish relations}}
[[File:Jews_of_Maswar_(Yemen),_1902.jpg|thumb|right|Jews of Maswar, Yemen, in 1902]]

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.<ref>Page 15 in: {{cite journal |last=Goitein| first=S.D. |author-link=Shelomo Dov Goitein |title=Portrait of a Yemenite Weavers' Village|journal=Jewish Social Studies|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=3–26|date=1955|jstor=4465298|language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Citation |last=Meissner |first=Renate |title=Judaeo-Yemenite Studies – Proceedings of the Second International Congress |page=110 |year=1999 |editor1=Ephraim Isaac |contribution=The Maria Theresa Taler: Traces of an Austrian Empress in Yemen |place=Princeton |publisher=Princeton University (Institute of Semitic Studies) |issn=0894-9824 |author-link=Renate Meißner |editor2=Yosef Tobi |editor1-link=Ephraim Isaac}}</ref> 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 [[Zaydism|Zaydi]] clan seized power from the more tolerant [[Sunni Islam|Sunni Muslims]], early in the 10th century.<ref>''Jewish Communities in Exotic Places'', by Ken Blady, [[Jason Aronson]] Inc., 2000, page 9</ref> The legal status of Jews in Yemen started to deteriorate around the time the [[Tahirids (Yemen)|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.<ref name=Princeton/>

Jewish intellectuals wrote in both Hebrew and Arabic and engaged in the same literary endeavours as the Muslim majority. According to 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 [[Jibla, Yemen|Dhu Jibla]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wvZl0JnEyVsC&pg=PA16|title=Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port|author=Roxani Eleni Margariti|publisher=UNC Press Books|page=16|isbn=978-1-4696-0671-2|date=2012-09-01}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WMj5aFA3bjQC&pg=PA390|title=India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza|author=Shelomo Dov Goitein, Mordechai Friedman|publisher=Brill Publishers|page=390|isbn=978-90-04-15472-8|year=2008}}</ref>

During the 12th century, [[Aden]] was first ruled by the [[Fatimid Caliphate]] and then the [[Ayyubids]]. The city formed a great [[Emporium (antiquity)|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 ''[[nagid|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 (region)|Palestine]], and [[Egypt]]. Due to the trade, Jews also emigrated to Aden for mercantile and personal reasons.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WMj5aFA3bjQC&pg=PA37|title=India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza|author=Shelomo Dov Goitein, Mordechai Friedman|publisher=Brill Publishers|pages=37–38, 40|isbn=978-90-04-15472-8 |year=2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d58QQocrWVkC&pg=PA19 |title=The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: History, Culture, and Ethnic Relations|author=Reuben Ahroni|publisher=Brill Publishers|pages=19–20|isbn=978-90-04-10110-4|year=1994}}</ref>

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]].<ref>The Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership, ed.:Abraham S. Halkin, David Hartman, Jewish Publication Society, 1985. p.91</ref><ref name=Festschrift/> Mahdi also imposed his beliefs upon the Muslims besides the Jews. This led to a revival of Jewish messianism, but also led to mass-conversion.<ref name=Festschrift>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dk6hAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181|title=Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen|publisher=Brill Publishers|year=2014|page=181|isbn=978-90-04-26784-8}}</ref> 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.<ref name="en.wikisource.org">[[Wikisource:Epistle to Yemen]]</ref> 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.<ref name=Festschrift/><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ehlbFPJPPgQC&pg=PA489|title=Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works|author=Herbert Davidson|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=489|isbn=978-0-19-534361-8|date=2004-12-09}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d58QQocrWVkC&pg=PA21|title=The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: History, Culture, and Ethnic Relations|author=Reuben Ahroni| publisher=Brill Publishers|page=21|isbn=978-90-04-10110-4|year=1994}}</ref>

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 [[Tahirids (Yemen)|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 (publishing)|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.<ref name=Princeton>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wbg1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA248|title=A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day|first1= Abdelwahab |last1=Meddeb|first2=Benjamin |last2=Stora|publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=248–250 |isbn=978-1-4008-4913-0 |date=2013-11-27}}</ref>

The Jewish communities experienced a messianic episode with the rise of another [[list of Jewish messiah claimants|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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Eraqi Klorman |first=Bat-Zion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CW-C4yivlqwC&pg=PA27 |title=The Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of a Messianic Community |publisher=Brill Publishers |year=1993 |isbn=978-90-04-09684-4 |page=27}}</ref><ref name=Princeton/><ref>{{cite book |last=Lenowitz |first=Harris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PLyb3zV8OmgC&pg=PA230 |title=The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights |date=2001-09-27 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-534894-1 |page=27}}</ref>

====Maimonides====
{{Main|Epistle to Yemen}}

[[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]],<ref>{{Citation |contribution=Attitude of the Muslim Authority in Yemen to the Jewish Messianic Movement |title=Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage|last=Tobi|first=Yosef Yuval|editor1=Rachel Yedid|editor2=Danny Bar-Maoz|publisher=E'ele BeTamar|place=Rehovot|page=71 |year=2018 |oclc=1041776317 |quote= "ʻAbd al-Nabī ibn Mahdī decreed compulsory apostasy for the Jews [of Yemen] by forcing the Jewish inhabitants of all the places he had subdued to desert the Jewish religion."}}</ref> heresy,<ref>{{Citation |contribution=Attitude of the Muslim Authority in Yemen to the Jewish Messianic Movement |title=Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage|last=Tobi|first=Yosef Yuval|editor1=Rachel Yedid|editor2=Danny Bar-Maoz|publisher=E'ele BeTamar|place=Rehovot|pages=70–73 |year=2018 |oclc=1041776317 }}</ref> and heavy taxation.<ref>{{Citation |contribution=Yemenite Jewry's Connections with Major Jewish Centers |title=Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage|last=Qafih|first=Yosef|author-link=Yosef Qafih |editor1=Rachel Yedid|editor2=Danny Bar-Maoz|publisher=E'ele BeTamar|place=Rehovot|pages=31–32 |year=2018 |oclc=1041776317 }}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Gedaliah Silverstein |title=Ozar Nechmad |publisher=J. Knöpflmacher's Buchhandlung |location=Vienna|volume=2 |year=1857|page=4|language=he|oclc=1037594097}}, s.v. in his letter to the Congregation of Lunel; cited by {{Citation |contribution=Yemenite Jewry's Connections with Major Jewish Centers |title=Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage|last=Qafih|first=Yosef|author-link=Yosef Qafih |editor1=Rachel Yedid|editor2=Danny Bar-Maoz|publisher=E'ele BeTamar|place=Rehovot|pages=29–30 |year=2018 |oclc=1041776317 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="YQafih1989"/> 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.<ref name="YQafih1989">{{cite book |last=Qafiḥ|first=Yosef |author-link=Yosef Qafih |title=Ketavim (Collected Papers) |publisher=Eʻeleh betamar, et al. |location=Jerusalem|volume=2 |year=1989|page=677 |language=he|oclc=61623627}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{Citation |contribution=Yemenite Jewry's Connections with Major Jewish Centers |title=Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage|last=Qafih|first=Yosef|author-link=Yosef Qafih |editor1=Rachel Yedid|editor2=Danny Bar-Maoz|publisher=E'ele BeTamar|place=Rehovot|page=38 |year=2018 |oclc=1041776317 }}, citing Introduction to {{cite book |last=Alfasi|first=Y. |author-link=Isaac Alfasi |title=R. Yitzhak al-Fasi's Commentary on Tractate Hullin (Chapter Kol ha-Basar)|editor=[[Yosef Qafih]] |date=1960 |publisher=ha-Agudah le-Hatzalat Ginzei Teiman|language=he |oclc=745065428 |title-link=Hullin }}</ref>

===Early modern period===
The [[Zaydi]] enforced a statute known as the [[Orphans' Decree|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 Empire|Ottoman]] rule (1872–1918), but was renewed during the period of [[Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din|Imam Yahya]] (1918–1948).<ref>''The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times'', by Reeva Spector Simon, Michael Menachem Laskier, Sara Reguer editors, Columbia University Press, 2003, page 392</ref>

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.<ref>Jewish Communities in Exotic Places," by Ken Blady, [[Jason Aronson]] Inc., 2000, page 10</ref>
[[File:Yemenite father and son.jpg|thumb|Yemenite silver- and goldsmith and boy in [[Sana'a]] (1937)]]

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 District|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.<ref>Yosef Tobi. "Mawzaʿ, Expulsion of." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2014.</ref> Their houses and property were seized, and many synagogues were destroyed or converted into mosques.<ref>B. Z. Eraqi Klorman, The Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of a Messianic Community, BRILL, 1993, p.46.</ref>

The Jewish community recovered partly because of Imam [[Al-Mahdi Muhammad|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 al-Qasim|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.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wbg1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA254|title=A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day|first1= Abdelwahab |last1=Meddeb|first2=Benjamin |last2=Stora|publisher=Princeton University Press|page=254|isbn=978-1-4008-4913-0|date=2013-11-27}}</ref>

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.<ref>Yosef Qafiḥ (ed.), "''Qorot Yisra'el be-Teman'' by Rabbi Ḥayim Ḥibshush," ''Ketavim'' (''Collected Papers''), Vol. 2, Jerusalem 1989, pp. 714–715 (Hebrew)</ref>

The Jewish community headed by Shalom 'Iraqi recovered from this affair and the position of 'Iraqi strengthened under Imam [[Al-Mansur al-Husayn II|Al-Mansur]]. The community flourished under him because of the part it played in trade with India through [[Mocha, Yemen|Mocha]]. The German researcher [[Carsten Niebuhr]] who [[Al-Mahdi Abbas#Niebuhr's visit|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 [[Al-Mansur Ali I|Ali al-Mansur]] after payment of a heavy fee.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wbg1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA255|title=A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day|first1= Abdelwahab |last1=Meddeb|first2=Benjamin |last2=Stora|publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=254–255|isbn=978-1-4008-4913-0|date=2013-11-27}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |title=The voyages and manifesto of William Fergusson, a surgeon of the East India Company 1731–1739 |first=William |last=Fergusson |editor=Derek L. Elliott|publisher=Routledge for the Hakluyt Society |location=Abingdon, Oxon |year=2021 |language=en |page=83 |oclc=1224044668 |isbn=978-0-367-71391-1}}</ref><ref>Cf. {{cite book |last=Qafih |first=Y. |author-link=Yosef Qafih|title=Halichot Teman (Jewish Life in Sanà) |publisher=[[Ben-Zvi Institute]] |date=1982 |location=Jerusalem |page=238 |language=he |isbn=965-17-0137-4 |oclc=863513860 |quote=[Translation] Offal collectors (Arabic: mighatif). The name given for those who clean the privy. The Arab rulers put this degrading work upon the Jews, for a reproach and for humiliation. There were several families who took upon themselves willingly to do this work, in exchange for a fixed salary out of the community's coffer box. In addition to this, they would dry out 'their merchandise' and sell it to public bath houses as fuel for stoking the fire.}}</ref>

===Late modern period===
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,<ref>Yosef Tobi, ''The Jewish Community of Radāʻ Yemen, Eighteenth Century'', Oriens Judaicus: Series iii, vol. 1, Jerusalem 1992, p. 17 ({{ISSN|0792-6464}}).</ref> [[Sa'dah]] (1,000), [[Dhamar, Yemen|Dhamar]] (1,000), [[Aden]] (200), the desert of [[Al Bayda Governorate|Beda]] (2,000), [[Manakhah]] (3,000), among others.<ref>''Jewish Encyclopedia'', London 1906, s.v. Yemen</ref> 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.<ref>Carl Rathjens and Hermann von Wissmann, ''Landeskundliche Ergebnisse'' (pub. in: ''Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde'', vol. 40), Hamburg 1934, pp. 133 – 136. There, Rathjens writes on p. 133: "The following list of Jewish communities in Yemen was left to us in Sana'a from ''Chochom Bashi'', the head of the entire Yemenite Jews. He read to us the names of the places from its tax rolls, which were in excellent order, because he is accountable to the Imam for the proper delivery of the taxes of the Jews of Sana'a, as throughout the [entire] country." ('''Original German:''' "Das nachfolgende Verzeichnis der Judengemeinden in Jemen wurde uns vom Chacham Bâschi, dem Oberhaupt der gesamten jemenitischen Juden, in Sana aufgegeben. Er las uns die Namen der Orte aus seinen Steuerlisten vor, die in vorzüglicher Ordnung waren, da er gegenüber dem Imâm für die richtige Ablieferung der Steuern der Juden Sana wie im ganzen Lande verantwortlich ist").</ref> 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#Aramaic title of honor|''Mori'']] [[Shalom Shabazi|Salem Al-Shabazzi Mashta]]), Ba'dan, and other cities and towns in the [[Shara'b As Salam District|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.{{Citation needed|date=February 2017}}

In 1912, Zionist emissary Shmuel Yavne'eli came into contact with [[Habbani Jews]], describing them in the following way:<blockquote>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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Whyte |first=Chris |date=1988 |title=A Narrative Textbook of Psychoanalysis. By Peter L. Giovacchini, Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc. 1987. 382 pp. |journal=British Journal of Psychiatry |volume=152 |issue=5 |page=729 |doi=10.1192/s0007125000220771 |issn=0007-1250}}</ref></blockquote>

====19th-century Yemenite messianic movements====
[[File:Two Torah scrolls.jpg|thumb|Yemenite Torah scrolls]]

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:
* [[Shukr Kuhayl I]] (1861–65)
* [[Shukr Kuhayl II]] (1868–75)
* Joseph Abdallah (1888–93)
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 the anonymous 12th-century messiah who was the subject of Maimonides's famous [[Epistle to Yemen|Iggeret Teman]], or ''Epistle to Yemen'',<ref name="en.wikisource.org"/> the messiah of [[Bayhan]] (c. 1495), and Suleiman Jamal (c. 1667), in what Lenowitz<ref>''The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights'', by Harris Lenowitz, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, page 229</ref> regards as a unified messiah history spanning 600 years.

====Orphan's decree (Yemen, 1922)====
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.<ref name="Zekharia">{{cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/our-man-in-sanaa-ex-yemen-president-was-once-trainee-rabbi-1.255745 |title=Our man in Sanaa: Ex-Yemen president was once trainee rabbi |publisher=Haaretz.com |access-date=2015-03-09|newspaper=Haaretz |date=2008-10-20 }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OluNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA119|title=Jewish-Muslim Relations and Migration from Yemen to Palestine in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries|publisher=Brill Publishers|author=Ari Ariel|page=119|isbn=978-90-04-26537-0|date=2013-12-05}}</ref>

====Emigration to Israel====
{{anchor|ExodusLink}}
{{main|Yemenite Jews in Israel}}

[[File:Jewish_Yemen_map.svg|thumb|Map of Jewish communities in Yemen prior to immigration to the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]] and Israel<ref>Gilbert, Martin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=pkkrhfwCxnoC&pg=PA373&lpg=PA373&dq=%22zuran%22+yemen+jews&source=bl&ots=mY7HI8WXbQ&sig=ACfU3U1WutmmIYUL41dIyrrWI30PEL5v_g&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22zuran%22%20yemen%20jews&f=false In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands]'', McClelland & Stewart, 2011</ref>]]
[[File:Kfar Hashiloach 1891 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|[[Old Yemenite Synagogue (Silwan)#Jewish community in Silwan (1884-1938)|Yemenite-Jewish village south of Silwan]], housing project built by a charity in 1891]]

=====Places of origin and 1881–1939 new communities=====
The three major population centers for Jews in [[southern Arabia]] were [[History of the Jews in Aden|Aden]], [[Habbani Jews|Habban]], and the [[History of the Jews in Hadramaut|Hadhramaut]]. The [[History of the Jews in Aden|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),<ref name="Ish Yemini2011">Yitzhak Halevi, Aviran (ed.), ''Ish Yemini'', vol. 2, Bnei Barak 2011, p. 565 (Hebrew)</ref> [[Rishon Lezion]] (Shivat Zion),<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Rehovot]] (Sha'arayim and Marmorek),<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> Wadi Chanin (later called [[Ness Ziona]]),<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Be'er Ya'akov]],<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Hadera]] (Nachliel),<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Zichron Yaakov]],<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Yavne'el]],<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Gedera]],<ref name="Ish Yemini2011"/> [[Ben Shemen]],<ref>''A Yemenite Portrait – Jewish Orientalism in Local Photography, 1881–1948'', Eretz Israel Museum, Tel-Aviv 2012, p. 75e</ref> [[Kinneret, Israel|Kinneret]],<ref name="A Yemenite Portrait 2012">''A Yemenite Portrait'' (2012), pp. 75e–76e</ref> [[Degania Alef|Degania]]<ref name="A Yemenite Portrait 2012"/> and [[Menahemia|Milhamia]].<ref name="ReferenceA">''A Yemenite Portrait'' (2012), p. 20e</ref> Others chose to live in the urban areas of [[Jerusalem]] ([[Silwan]], and Nachalat Zvi),<ref name="ReferenceA"/> [[Jaffa]],<ref name="ReferenceA"/> [[Tel Aviv]] ([[Kerem Hateimanim]]),<ref>''A Yemenite Portrait'' (2012), p. 82e</ref> and later, [[Netanya]] (Shekhunat Zvi).<ref>''A Yemenite Portrait'' (2012), pp. 83e–84e</ref>

=====First wave of emigration: 1881 to 1918=====
Emigration from Yemen to [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] 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.

{{Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries}}
[[File:Yemenite Elder Blowing Shofat, February 1, 1949.jpg|thumb|a Yemenite Jew [[Shofar blowing|blowing a shofar]] in Israel, 1947]]
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]].<ref>''Yehudei Teiman Be-Tel Aviv'' (''The Jews of Yemen in Tel-Aviv''), Yaakov Ramon, Jerusalem 1935, p. 5 (Hebrew); [https://www.hebrewbooks.org/36726 The Jews of Yemen in Tel-Aviv], p. 5 in PDF</ref> 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 Jews|Sephardi]] ''[[kollel]]im'' (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.<ref>Shelomo al-Naddaf (ed. Uzziel Alnadaf), ''Zekhor Le'Avraham'', Jerusalem 1992, pp. 33; 49–50; 56–57 (Hebrew)</ref>

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.<ref>''The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times'', by Reeva Spector Simon, Michael Menachem Laskier, Sara Reguer editors, Columbia University Press, 2003, page 406</ref> 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%.<ref>{{cite journal|title=What 'The Father' had in mind? Arthur Ruppin (1876–1943), cultural identity, weltanschauung and action|journal=History of European Ideas|volume=33|issue=3|pages=330–349|doi=10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2007.02.002|year=2007|last=Bloom|first=Etan|s2cid=144162606}}</ref>

=====Second wave of emigration: 1920 to 1950=====
{{Further|Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)}}
[[File:Op Magic Carpet (Yemenites).jpg|thumb|[[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries]]: Yemenite Jews en route from Aden to Israel on "wings of eagles".]]
[[File:Zoltan Kluger. Rosh Ha-Ayin 1950.jpg|thumb|Yemenite Jews at a [[Tu Bishvat]] celebration, Ma'abarat [[Rosh HaAyin]], 1950]]
During the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]], the total number of persons registered as immigrants from Yemen, between the years April 1939 – December 1945, was put at 4,554.<ref>''Supplement to Survey of Palestine – Notes compiled for the information of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine – June 1947'', Gov. Printer Jerusalem, p. 21</ref> By 1947, there were an estimated 35,000 Yemenite Jews living in Mandate Palestine.<ref>Based on the Yemenite Jews Association, whom they claimed to represent. See: p. 151 in ''Supplement to Survey of Palestine (Notes compiled for the information of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine – June 1947)'', Government Printer, Jerusalem</ref> After the [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|UN partition vote on Palestine]], Arab rioters, assisted by the local police force, engaged in a [[1947 Aden riots|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 rumour of the ritual murder of two girls led to looting.<ref>Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), (pp. 397–98.)</ref>

Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the messianism which had long been prevalent within the Yemenite community reemerged. [[David Ben-Gurion]] leading the new state caused many to believe that this was the "[[Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)|Kingdom of David]]", while many of the mostly poor Yemenite Jews viewed Israel as an escape from their poverty. Moreover, the Israeli government used significant messianic messaging and language in its attempts to convince Yemenite Jewry to move to Israel.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Segev |first=Tom |title=1949 The First Israelis |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers]] |year=1986 |pages=181–183 |language=en}}</ref>

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 (Yemen)|Operation Magic Carpet]]. During this period, over 50,000 Jews migrated to [[Israel]]. The operation began in June 1949 and ended in September 1950.<ref name="Redemption 1950, pages 229–245">Tudor Parfitt, ''The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900–1950'', (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pages 229–245</ref> Part of the operation happened during 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]].<ref>Tudor Parfitt The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900–1950, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pages 203–227</ref> The operation took longer than 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.<ref name="Redemption 1950, pages 229–245" /> This was due to the camps extreme overcrowding and poor hygiene, housing, and medical care. The camps was built to house only 500 people but at points housed at least 12,000. These 12,000 lacked toilets, shelter, swift access to medical care, or a [[cemetery]] to bury the many dead.<ref name=":2" /> By September 1950, almost 50,000 Jews had been successfully airlifted to the newly formed state of Israel.<ref name="adl">{{cite web|url=http://www.adl.org/israel/record/immigration_since_30.asp|title=Immigration since the 1930s – Israel Record|publisher=adl.org|access-date=July 12, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110412074031/http://www.adl.org/israel/record/immigration_since_30.asp|archive-date=April 12, 2011}}</ref>

A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue into 1962, when a [[North Yemen Civil War|civil war]] put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus.

According to an official statement by [[Alaska Airlines]]:
{{blockquote|When Alaska Airlines sent them on "Operation Magic Carpet" 50 years ago, Warren and Marian Metzger didn't realize that they were embarking on the adventure of a lifetime. Warren Metzger, a DC-4 captain, and Marian Metzger, a flight attendant, were part of what turned out to be one of the greatest feats in Alaska Airlines' 67-year history: airlifting thousands of Yemenite Jews to the newly created nation of Israel. The logistics of it all made the task daunting. Fuel was hard to come by. Flight and maintenance crews had to be positioned through the Middle East. And the desert sand wreaked havoc on engines.

It took a whole lot of resourcefulness throughout the better part of 1949 to do it. But in the end, despite being shot at and even bombed upon, the mission was accomplished&nbsp;– and without a single loss of life. "One of the things that really got to me was when we were unloading a plane at Tel Aviv," said Marian, who assisted Israeli nurses on a number of flights. "A little old lady came up to me and took the hem of my jacket and kissed it. She was giving me a blessing for getting them home. We were the wings of eagles."

For both Marian and Warren, the assignment came on the heels of flying the airline's other great adventure of the late 1940s: the [[Berlin Airlift]]. "I had no idea what I was getting into, absolutely none," remembered Warren, who retired in 1979 as Alaska's chief pilot and vice president of flight operations. "It was pretty much seat-of-the-pants flying in those days. Navigation was by dead reckoning and eyesight. Planes were getting shot at. The airport in Tel Aviv was getting bombed all the time. We had to put extra fuel tanks in the planes so we had the range to avoid landing in Arab territory."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alaskaair.com/content/about-us/history/magic-carpet.aspx|title=Operation Magic Carpet – Alaska Airlines |publisher=Alaskaair.com |access-date=2015-03-09}}</ref>}}

In the wake of the [[1948 Arab Israeli War]] when vast territories were added to the State of Israel, the [[Jewish Agency]] under the good offices of [[Levi Eshkol]], then head of the Settlement Department in that Agency, decided to settle many of the new immigrants arriving in Israel in newly founded agricultural communities.<ref name="LeviEshkol2002">''Levi Eshkol, the Third Prime-Minister: A Selection of Documents Covering his Life'' [Heb. '''(לוי אשכול – ראש הממשלה השלישי : מבחר תעודות מפרקי חייו (1895–1969'''], ed. Y. Rosental, A. Lampron & H. Tzoref, Israel State Archives (publisher): Jerusalem 2002, chapter 6 – ''In the Jewish Agency, During the Years of Mass Immigration'' (Hebrew)</ref> The idea was given further impetus when Yosef Weitz of the [[Jewish National Fund]] proposed settling many of the country's new immigrants upon agricultural farms built in the recently acquired territories: in the mountainous regions, in Galilee and in the [[Jerusalem Corridor]], places heretofore sparsely settled.<ref name="LeviEshkol2002"/> It was decided that these new immigrants, many of whom were Yemenites, would make their livelihood by preparing the land for cultivation and planting trees. The first stage of this plan was to call such places "work villages," later to be converted into "cooperative farms" (''moshavim'').<ref name="LeviEshkol2002"/> In this manner were established [[Eshtaol]], [[Yish'i]], [[Agur, Israel|Ajjur]], [[Dayraban Gimel]], [[Allar Aleph]], [[Allar-Bet]], [[Kesalon]], among other places, although the majority of these frontier places were later abandoned by the new immigrants from Yemen for more urban places in central Israel. This prompted Levi Eshkol to write in a letter to [[David Ben-Gurion|Prime-Minister Ben-Gurion]] (dated 10 April 1950): "The Yemenite vision doesn't allow him to see what he can do in a place of boulders and rocks. He cannot imagine such a development as [[Neve Ilan]] which sits upon dry rock. Instead, he imagines that he is being deprived..."<ref name="LeviEshkol2002"/> Many Yemenite Jews became irreligious through the re-education program of the Jewish Agency.<ref name="EisenbergCaplan2012">{{cite book|author1=Laura Zittrain Eisenberg|author2=Neil Caplan|title=Review Essays in Israel Studies: Books on Israel, Volume V|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=btojaBm-oy4C&pg=PA168|date=February 1, 2012|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-9331-1|page=168|quote=Many Yemenite Jews have also sacrificed their cultural heritage on this Zionist-Israeli altar. The Yemenites' religious traditions and their very distinct customs were initially perceived as an obstacle to their integration into the evolving Israeli society. They were led to believe that by adopting the ideologies and identity of the Zionist enterprise (which bore the imprint of the secular, Labor-dominated leadership), they would facilitate their entry into the mainstream. […] Many Yemenite Jews assimilated themselves gradually into the newly formed secular Zionist culture, while others resisted the pressures for such "Israeli" acculturation.}}</ref><ref name="Maza1989">{{cite book|author=Bernard Maza|title=With Fury Poured Out: The Power of the Powerless During the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGP40jWqtpEC&pg=PA193|date=January 1, 1989|publisher=SP Books|isbn=978-0-944007-13-6|page=193|quote=The Jewish Agency welcomed the great Aliya of the Yemenite Jews with open arms. They set up transit camps for them to care for all their needs with warmth and concern. But there in the transit camps, the joy of the immigrant settling foot on the Promised Land was mixed with pain and confusion. The Jewish Agency considered it a duty to absorb the immigrants into Israel and to integrate them into the economic and social life of their new land. It, therefore, included education in its programme. As a strongly secular Zionist organisation, it believed that religion was a hindrance to proper integration. The educational program they set up for the adults and children of the Yemenite families was, for the most part, not religious. Very often the supervisors and madrichim carried out their mission of education with a zealousness that caused great pain to the immigrants. Word of the treatment of the Yemenite Jews filtered out of the camps: non-religious madrichim, denial of religious education, discrimination in providing facilities for religious practice, religious visitors and teachers being denied entry to the camps, assignment of families to non-religious settlements, and cutting off of the traditional peos, or earlocks, of the Yemenite Jews. Cries of shock and protest poured in from every corner of the Jewish world.}}</ref>

===Contemporary history===
[[File:View of Gedera from Tel Qatra.jpg|thumb|The town of [[Gedera]] has a large, possibly 50% Yemenite Jewish population.]]

====Missing children (Israel, 1949–51)====
{{main|Yemenite Children Affair}}

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.<ref name="Haaretz"/>

In 2001 a seven-year public inquiry commission concluded that the accusations that Yemenite children were kidnapped by the government are not true. The commission unequivocally rejected claims of a plot to take children away from Yemenite immigrants. The report determined that documentation existed showing that 972 of the 1,033 missing children were deceased. Five additional missing babies were found to be alive. The commission was unable to discover what happened in another 56 cases. With regard to these unresolved 56 cases, the commission deemed it "possible" that the children were handed over for adoption following decisions made by individual local social workers, but not as part of an official policy.<ref name="Haaretz">[http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Eye+on+Israel/Current+Issues/Society+and+Politics/Yemenite+children.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080904234930/http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish%2BEducation/Compelling%2BContent/Eye%2Bon%2BIsrael/Current%2BIssues/Society%2Band%2BPolitics/Yemenite%2Bchildren.htm|date=September 4, 2008}}</ref> In 2016, 400,000 documents were released in regard to the Yemenite Jewish Children affair.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-opens-database-with-200000-declassified-documents-on-painful-yemenite-children-affair/|title=Israel opens database with 400,000 declassified documents on Yemenite Children Affair|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|website=The Times of Israel}}</ref>In 2016 after having re-examined evidence given to a commission of inquiry in the late 1990s, Cabinet Minister [[Tzachi Hanegbi]] told Israeli TV: "They took the children and gave them away. I don't know where." The minister admitted that at least "hundreds" of children were taken without their parent's consent, marking the first time such a public claim had been made by a government official.<ref name="Hundreds"/><ref name="Shocking"/><ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/world/middleeast/israel-yemenite-children-affair.html | title=The Disappeared Children of Israel | newspaper=The New York Times | date=20 February 2019 | last1=Fezehai | first1=Malin | access-date=20 February 2019 | archive-date=25 August 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190825025740/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/world/middleeast/israel-yemenite-children-affair.html | url-status=live }}</ref>In December 2021, ''Haaretz'' exposed a draft report on the affair whose publication was being suppressed by the Ministry of Health.<ref name=MofH>{{cite news | first = Tamar | last = Kaplansky | title = Israeli Health Ministry Report Admits Role in Disappearance of Yemenite Children in 1950s | newspaper = Haaretz | date = 8 December 2021 | url = https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-health-ministry-report-admits-israel-s-part-in-disappearance-of-yemenite-children-1.10450266 | access-date = 9 December 2021 | archive-date = 12 January 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240112041910/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-12-08/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/health-ministry-report-admits-israels-part-in-disappearance-of-yemenite-children/0000017f-e72f-dea7-adff-f7ffc79f0000 | url-status = live }}</ref> Written by the outgoing deputy director general and two others, it <blockquote>"reveals the involvement of doctors, nurses and caregivers in taking the children and acting as middlemen in their adoptions, sometimes in exchange for money. The report chronicles racist perceptions at the time of 'backward immigrants' from Middle Eastern and North African countries, using the pretext of it being in the 'best interests of the children' to justify their being taken away from their biological parents."<ref name=MofH/></blockquote>This was thought to be the first official reference to the involvement of a ministry in the affair.<ref name=MofH/>

====Final wave of emigration: 1990 to 2016====
[[File:Yosef Saleh the silversmith.jpg|thumb|upright|Yemenite Jewish elder, a silversmith, wearing traditional headgear ([[Sudra (headdress)|sudra]])]]

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.<ref>[http://www.hayim-tawil.com/bio.html Hayim Tawil. Professor of Ancient Semitic Languages and Human Rights Activist], publisher of book, ''Operation Esther: Opening the Door for the Last Jews of Yemen'' (1988)</ref> 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.<ref>''The Middle East and North Africa 2003'' (49th Edition), Europa Publications: London, p. 1206</ref><ref>Gideon Markowiz, [http://primo.nli.org.il/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=NLI&docId=NNL_ARCHIVE_AL004035948 The National Library of Israel], via Jewish Agency</ref>

A small Jewish community existed in the town of [[Bayt Harash]] (2&nbsp;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 (Hasidic dynasty)|Satmar]]-affiliated [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic]] organization in [[Monsey, New York|Monsey]], [[New York (state)|New York]], U.S. A small Jewish enclave also existed in the town of [[Raydah]], which lies {{convert|49|km|mi|order=flip}} 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.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3355506,00.html|title=Yemenite Jews under threat – Israel News, Ynetnews|work=Ynet News|date=1995-06-20|access-date=2015-03-09|last=Nahmias |first=Roee }}</ref>

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 in Yemen|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 [[Bride kidnapping|marry]] him, but had been forced to convert to Islam as well.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/...spx/132911|title=Jewish Exodus From Yemen Israel National News August 14, 2009}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/persecuted-yemeni-jews-to-be-given-sanctuary-in-britain-1944075.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/persecuted-yemeni-jews-to-be-given-sanctuary-in-britain-1944075.html |archive-date=May 7, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Persecuted Yemeni Jews to be given sanctuary in Britain|work=The Independent|date=October 23, 2011}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3637452,00.html|title=Jew shot to death in Yemen by 'disturbed extremist' – Israel News, Ynetnews|work=Ynet News|date=1995-06-20|access-date=2015-03-09}}</ref> The court found Abadi mentally unstable, and ordered him to pay only a fine, but an appeals court sentenced him to death.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090622/FOREIGN/706219845/1002|title=Muslim who killed Jew is sentenced to death|work=The National News|access-date=October 28, 2014}}</ref> Yet, he escaped from prison with ten inmates in 2011.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-4057403,00.html | title=Report: Yemeni Jew's killer escapes jail | date=April 16, 2011 }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/24/1007414/report-more-yemeni-jews-leaving-for-israel|title=More Yemeni Jews leaving for Israel|work=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|access-date=October 28, 2014|date=2009-08-24}}</ref> 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.<ref name="ynetnews">{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4267604,00.html|title=Wife, children of gunned down Yemenite teacher make aliyah|work=Ynet News|date=August 12, 2012|access-date=July 12, 2014|last=Efraim|first=Omri}}</ref>

In February 2009, 10 Yemeni Jews migrated to Israel, and in July 2009, three families, or 16 people in total, followed suit.<ref name="ynetnews2">{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3734852,00.html|title=16 Yemenite immigrants arrive in Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews|work=Ynet News|access-date=July 12, 2014|date=2009-06-21}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7901082.stm|work=BBC News|title=Yemeni Jews airlifted to Israel|date=February 20, 2009}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Jordan">{{cite web|last=Jordan|first=Miriam|title=Secret Mission Rescues Yemen's Jews|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125693376195819343|access-date=18 April 2016|work=The Wall Street Journal|date=31 October 2009}}</ref> The BBC estimated that the community numbered 370 and was dwindling.<ref name="bbcyemen">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8418990.stm|title=Yemen's last remaining Jews: A community in decline|author=Owen Bennett-Jones|work=BBC|date=December 18, 2009|access-date=December 18, 2009}}</ref> In 2010, it was reported that 200 Yemeni Jews would be allowed to immigrate to the [[United Kingdom]].<ref name="ynetnews3">{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3880272,00.html|title=200 Yemeni Jews to immigrate to UK – Israel Jewish Scene, Ynetnews|work=Ynet News|date=April 26, 2010|access-date=July 12, 2014|last=Ababa|first=Danny Adino}}</ref>

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 for Israel|Jewish Agency]] and the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel)|Israeli Foreign Ministry]].<ref name="israelnationalnews">{{cite web|url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157069#.UOzt8m_s6zo|title=Body of Jew Murdered in Yemen brought to Israel – Middle East – News – Arutz Sheva|work=Israel National News|date=June 20, 2012 |access-date=July 12, 2014}}</ref><ref name="ynetnews4">{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4245213,00.html|title=Body of Jewish leader murdered in Yemen brought to Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews|work=Ynet news|date=June 20, 2012|access-date=July 12, 2014}}</ref><ref name="jpost">{{cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=274660|title=Murdered Yemeni Jew to be laid to rest in Israel &#124; JPost &#124; Israel News|work=The Jerusalem Post|access-date=July 12, 2014}}</ref>

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.<ref name="israelnationalnews2">{{cite web|url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164406#.UQH8gCfs6zo|title=Qatar Helping Yemenite Jews Reach Israel?|work=Israel National News|date=January 21, 2013 |access-date=July 12, 2014}}</ref><br/>

====Yemeni civil war to present====
On October 11, 2015, [[Likud]] [[Knesset|MK]] [[Ayoob Kara]] stated that members of the Yemenite Jewish community had contacted him to say that the [[Houthi movement|Houthi-led]] [[Houthi takeover in Yemen|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.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/12/israeli-politician-says-yemens-last-jews-need-help-to-get-out/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205160336/https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/12/israeli-politician-says-yemens-last-jews-need-help-to-get-out/|archive-date=February 5, 2016|title=Israeli politician says Yemen's last Jews need help to get out|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=October 12, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Houthis-to-Jews-convert-or-leave-Yemen-422604#article=6023OTlFNzUwOUFFNUNENjRENDAyOEU3Nzk2NTgwQkUwQzM|title=Yemenite government to Jews:Convert or leave Yemen|work=The Jerusalem Post|date=October 11, 2015}}</ref>

On March 21, 2016, a group of 19 Yemenite Jews were flown to Israel in a secret operation, leaving the population at about 50.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/report-some-of-the-last-jews-of-yemen-brought-to-israel-in-secret-mission-448639|title=Some of the last Jews of Yemen brought to Israel in secret mission|date=March 21, 2016|work=The Jerusalem Post|access-date=30 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mission-to-airlift-jews-out-of-yemen-heralds-the-end-of-one-of-oldest-jewish-communities/ar-BBqLwuU|title=Mission to airlift Jews out of Yemen heralds the end of one of oldest Jewish communities|first=Kim|last=Sengupta|date=22 March 2016|work=The Independent|access-date=23 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322083906/http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mission-to-airlift-jews-out-of-yemen-heralds-the-end-of-one-of-oldest-jewish-communities/ar-BBqLwuU|archive-date=22 March 2016|df=dmy-all}}</ref> On 7 June 2016, Jews who had been arrested in Yemen after having helped to smuggle out a Torah scroll were released.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/214577#:~:text=Members%20of%20the%20Jewish%20community%20of%20Yemen%20who,of%20Yemenite%20Jews%20have%20all%20been%20released%20|title=Jews arrested in Yemen released|work=Israel National News|date=June 7, 2016}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.monareliefye.org/single-post/2017/05/31/Monareliefyeorg-delivering-for-the-3rd-time-food-aid-baskets-to-Jewish-community%E2%80%99s-members-in-Sana%E2%80%99a|title=Monareliefye.org delivering for the 3rd time food aid baskets to Jewish community's members in Sana'a|website=monarelief|language=en|access-date=2018-10-14}}</ref>

[[File:Woven baskets and nargillah.jpg|thumb|upright|Woven palm-frond and rush baskets, made in Yemen]]

In a July 2018 interview with a Yemenite rabbi, he claimed that they were definitely treated very well before the recent [[Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen|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.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com//Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Exclusive-interview-with-Rabbi-of-Yemens-Sanaa-Jews|title=Exclusive interview with Rabbi of Yemen's Sana'a Jews|work=The Jerusalem Post|access-date=2018-07-31}}</ref>

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..."<ref>{{cite web|title=Jewish community in Sana'a receives food aid from Mona Relief|url=https://www.monareliefye.org/single-post/2019/02/25/Jewish-community-in-Sanaa-receives-food-aid-from-Mona-Relief|website=monarelief|date=February 25, 2019|language=en}}</ref>

As of March 2020, the Jewish cemetery in Aden was destroyed.<ref>{{cite web|title=Killing Jewish Dead...By Dr Cohan|url=https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/yemen-desecration-cemeteries/|work=Begin-Sadat Peace Center|date=March 5, 2020|access-date=6 July 2020}}</ref> On April 28, 2020, Yemenite Minister Moammer al-Iryani remarked the ''fate of the last 50 Jews'' in Yemen is ''unknown''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Yemen minister says fate of country's last 50 Jews unknown|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/yemeni-minister-says-fate-of-countrys-remaining-jews-unknown/|work=The Times of Israel|date=April 16, 2017|access-date=23 June 2020}}</ref>

A 2020 World Population Review with a Census of Jewish population by country has ''no'' listing of ''any'' Jews in Yemen.<ref>{{cite web|title=Jewish Population by country|url=https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/jewish-population-by-country/|work=World Population Review|access-date=23 June 2020|archive-date=May 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200528191622/https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/jewish-population-by-country/}}</ref>

On July 13, 2020, it was reported that the Houthi Militia were capturing the last Jews of Yemen of the [[Kharif District]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://baltimorejewishlife.com/news/news-detail.php?SECTION_ID=3&ARTICLE_ID=133047|title=Report: Houthis Arrest Yemen's Last Remaining Jews In A Bid To Ethnically Cleanse The Country|work=Baltimore Jewish Life|date=July 13, 2020}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.monareliefye.org/single-post/2017/05/31/Monareliefyeorg-delivering-for-the-3rd-time-food-aid-baskets-to-Jewish-community%E2%80%99s-members-in-Sana%E2%80%99a|title=Monareliefye.org delivering food aid baskets to Jewish community's members in Sana'a|website=monarelief|language=en|access-date=2020-07-25}}</ref>

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.<ref>"Will Yemen become, for the first time in history, free of Jews ... Al-Houthi pushes the last of the Jewish families to leave," Yemen News, (July 27, 2020); "Deportation of the last Jewish families from militia-controlled areas," Aden Times, (July 27, 2020).</ref>

In August 2020 of an estimated 100 or so remaining Yemen Jews, 42 have migrated to UAE and the rest would also leave.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://hamodia.com/2020/08/16/report-yemens-remaining-jews-move-uae-following-israel-treaty/|title=Report: Yemen's Remaining Jews to Move to UAE Following Israel Treaty|date=August 16, 2020|access-date=August 17, 2020|archive-date=September 20, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920171355/https://hamodia.com/2020/08/16/report-yemens-remaining-jews-move-uae-following-israel-treaty/}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.aish.com/jw/s/The-Last-Jews-of-Yemen.html|title=The Last Jews of Yemen|newspaper=Aishcom|first= Mitchell|last=Stein|date=September 5, 2020|access-date=July 2, 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web |date=10 November 2020 |title=Wrongful Detention by the Houthis of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi |url=https://2017-2021.state.gov/wrongful-detention-by-the-houthis-of-levi-salem-musa-marhabi/ |access-date=2024-01-30 |website=United States Department of State |language=en-US}}</ref> In December 2020 an Israeli Rabbi visited the Yemenite Jews who escaped to the UAE.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://vosizneias.com/2020/12/23/chief-rav-yitzchak-yosef-meets-yemenite-jews-who-escaped-to-uae/|title=Vosizneias Chief Rav Yitzchak Josef meets Yemenite Jews who escaped to UAE|date=December 23, 2020}}</ref>

On 28 March 2021, 13 Jews were forced by the Houthis to leave Yemen; less than 10 Jews still resided in Yemen.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/almost-all-remaining-jews-in-yemen-deported-saudi-media-663486|title=Almost all remaining Jews in Yemen deported – Saudi media|work=The Jerusalem Post|first=Tzvi|last=Joffre|date=March 29, 2021|access-date=July 2, 2021}}</ref><ref name=some/> According to one report there are six Jews left in Yemen: one woman; her brother; 3 others, and Levi Salem Marhabi (who has been imprisoned for helping smuggle a Torah scroll out of Yemen).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-13-yemeni-jews-leave-pro-iran-region-for-cairo-nations-community-down-to-6/|title=As 13 Yemeni Jews leave pro-Iran region for Cairo, community of 50,000 down to 6|work=The Times of Israel|first=Aaron|last=Boxerman|date=March 30, 2021|access-date=July 1, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/07/08/senior-rabbi-in-united-arab-emirates-denounces-continuing-imprisonment-of-yemeni-jew-as-crime-against-humanity/|title=Senior Rabbi in United Arab Emirates Denounces Continuing Imprisonment of Yemeni Jew as 'Crime Against Humanity'|work=The Algemeiner|date=8 July 2021|access-date=30 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/2022/02/un-acknowledges-that-yemen-jews-have-been-driven-out.html|title=UN acknowledges that Yemen Jews have been driven out • Point of No Return|date=February 9, 2022|website=Point of No Return}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2886166/houthis-expel-last-yemeni-jews|title=Houthis Expel the Last of Yemeni Jews|work=Asharq Al-Awsat|date=March 28, 2021|first=Mohammed|last=Nasser|access-date=March 30, 2021}}</ref><ref name=some>{{cite web|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/some-of-yemens-last-remaining-jews-said-expelled-by-iran-backed-houthis/|title=Some of Yemen's last remaining Jews said expelled by Iran-backed Houthis|work=The Times of Israel|date=March 30, 2021|access-date=April 6, 2021}}</ref> ''[[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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2886166/houthis-expel-last-yemeni-jews|title=Houthis Expel the Last of Yemeni Jews|website=Asharq AL-awsat}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/03/houthis-deport-some-yemens-last-remaining-jews|title=Houthis deport some of Yemen's last remaining Jews|work=Al-Monitor|first=Rina|last=Bassist|date=March 29, 2021|access-date=July 2, 2021}}</ref> In December 2021 the Jews of Yemen received Hanukkah kits.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jns.org/hundreds-of-hanukkah-kits-sent-to-jews-living-in-arab-countries/|title=Hundreds of Hanukkah kits sent to Jews living in Arab countries|date=December 2, 2021|website=Israel365 News &#124; Latest News. Biblical Perspective.}}</ref> In March 2022 the United Nations reported there is just one Jew in Yemen (Levi Salem Marhabi),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://jewishinsider.com/2022/03/only-one-jew-remains-in-yemen-u-n-says/|title=Only one Jew remains in Yemen, U.N. says|first=Gabby|last=Deutch|date=March 14, 2022|website=Jewish Insider}}</ref> however ''[[Ynet]]'' cited local sources stating that as of 19 June 2024 the actual number is five.<ref name=":0"/><ref name="israelnationalnews.com"/>(one of the last Jews in Yemen Yihye Ben-Yosef had just died leaving Marhabi and four others still alive )<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/2024/06/muslims-bury-one-of-the-last-jews-in-yemen.html|title=Muslims bury one of the last Jews in Yemen|last=Bataween|date=June 17, 2024|website=Point Of No Return}}</ref>

===Timeline of events===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
| 628&nbsp;BCE or 463&nbsp;BCE || According to tradition, Jews first settled in Yemen 42 years before the destruction of the [[First Temple]].<ref>Rachel Yedid & Danny Bar-Maoz (ed.), ''Ascending the Palm Tree – An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage'', E'ele BeTamar: Rehovot 2018, pp. 21–22 {{OCLC|1041776317}}</ref><ref>[[Jacob Saphir]], ''Iben Safir'' (vol. 1 – ch. 43), Lyck 1866, p. 99 – folio A (Hebrew). Bear in mind here that the Jewish year for the destruction of the First Temple is traditionally given in [[Missing years (Jewish calendar)|Jewish computation]] as 3338 [[Anno Mundi|AM]] or 421/2&nbsp;BCE. This differs from the modern scientific year, which is usually expressed using the [[Proleptic Julian calendar]] as 587&nbsp;BCE.</ref><ref>Shlomo Dov Goitein, ''From the Land of Sheba: Tales of the Jews of Yemen'', New York 1973</ref><ref>Rabbi [[Solomon Adeni]] (1567–1630), author of the Mishnah Commentary ''Melekhet Shelomo'', has alluded to this tradition, who wrote in his commentary's Introduction: "Says he who is but a servant of low station among all who be in the city, Shelomo (Solomon), the son of my lord my father, Rabbi Yeshu'ah, the son of Rabbi David, the son of Rabbi Ḥalfon of Aden. May the spirit of God lead them, and may He guide me in the paths of righteousness; and may I be satisfied with length of days by His Divine Law, and may He console me with complete solace. From the house of my father's father, who has here been mentioned, being from the Yemeni cities, I have received a tradition that we were exiled from the time of the first exile (''galut''), for the Scripture which is written at the end of the [Second] Book of Kings (18:11), ' ''and he placed them in Ḥelaḥ and in Ḥavor and the river Gozan and the cities of Madai'',' was spoken also about us. We have also received by way of tradition that we are from the group whom Ezra had sent word to come up [out of the exile] during the building of the Second Temple, but they stubbornly turned their backs [on him] and he then cursed them that they would remain all their lives in poverty. Now, because of [our] iniquities, there was fulfilled in us in that exile (''galut''), both, poverty in the [words of the] Law, as well as poverty in money, in an extraordinary manner – especially my small family! Wherefore, all of them, as far as I have been able to ascertain and verify by those who veritably speak the truth, were God–fearing people and men of Torah (the Divine Law), even the disciples of my lord my father, of blessed memory, insofar that he was the Rabbi of the city 'Uzal which is called Sana'a. Also my grandfather, the father of my father, before him, used to be a teacher of babes there. However, poverty clung to them, and famine, in such a way that the two curses of Ezra were fulfilled in us: the one, the curse just mentioned, along with the general curse hastily sent out against all teachers, that they might never become rich, lest they should leave-off their labour!, etc." See: ''Mishnayot Zekher Chanokh'' (ed. Menahem Vagshal, Zalman Shternlicht & Yosef Glick), vol. 1 – ''Zera'im''), Jerusalem 2000, s.v. Introduction to "Melekhet Shelomo."</ref><ref>In the [[Baladi-rite Prayer]] book, in the section which brings down the order on the Ninth of Av fast day, we read: "…[we count the years from the destruction of the house of our G-d], etc., and the destruction of the First Temple and the dispersion of '''the people of our exile''', etc." Here, Rabbi [[Yihya Saleh]], in his ''Etz Ḥayim'' commentary (see: Siddur – ''Tiklāl'', with ''Etz Ḥayim'' commentary, ed. Shimon Saleh, vol. 3, Jerusalem 1971, p. 67b), wrote: "By this he has alluded to the exile of the land of Yemen, whose exile has been since the days of the destruction, as it is traditionally held by us, and who did not return again during the building of the Second Temple, for in their intuition they saw that the Second Temple would, in the future, be destroyed, and they expounded concerning it: 'I have already taken off my tunic, how then can I wear it again?' (cf. Targum on ''Song of Songs'' 5:3). Now such things are old and are presently well-known."</ref>
|-
| 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.<ref>{{PACEJ|text=JW|bookno=1|chap=0|sec=5|show-translator=yes}} (Preface) Greek: Ἀράβων τε τοὺς πορρωτάτω = = lit. "the Arabian [Jews] that are further on"; See: Preface to Josephus' "De Bello Judaico", paragraph 2, "the remotest Arabians" (lit. "the Arabian [Jews] that are further on"). According to Rabbi [[Yihya Qafih]], quoting from a 14th-century Yemenite Rabbi, some of the Jews in Arabia were driven out by [[Caliph Ali]] and made their way into Yemen. See: ''Tehuda'', volume 30 (ed. Yosef Tobi), Netanya 2014, pp. 41–42 (Hebrew).</ref>
|-
| c. 250 CE || Jewish elder from Yemen ([[Himyar]]) brought for burial in [[Beit She'arim National Park#Tomb of Himyarites|Beit She'arim]], burial site of Rabbi [[Yehudah hanasi|Yehudah Ha-Nassi]].<ref>Yosef Tobi, ''The Jews of Yemen in light of the excavation of the Jewish synagogue in Qanī'<nowiki />'', article written in: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 43 (2013): British Museum, London, p. 351.</ref><ref>''Encyclopedia of Yemenite Sages'' (Heb. אנציקלופדיה לחכמי תימן), ed. Moshe Gavra, vol. 1, Benei Barak 2001–2003, p. 332, s.v. מנחם (Hebrew); ''Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Yemen'' (Heb. אנציקלופדיה לקהילות היהודיות בתימן), ed. Moshe Gavra, vol. 1, Benei Barak 2005, p. 248, s.v. טפאר (Hebrew)</ref>
|-
| 390 CE || The Himyarite king [[Abu Karib]] converts to Judaism.<ref name="google2"/><ref name=History1/>
|-
| 470–77 || Jews from Yemen ([[Himyar]]) brought to burial in [[Zoara]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Naveh |first=Joseph |title=Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar |journal= Tarbiẕ (Hebrew) |volume= סד|issue=64|pages= 477–497 |jstor= 23599945|date=1995}}; {{cite journal |last=Naveh |first=Joseph |title=Seven New Epitaphs from Zoar |journal= Tarbiẕ (Hebrew) |volume= סט|issue= 69|pages= 619–636 |jstor= 23600873 |date=2000}}; Joseph Naveh, ''A Bi-Lingual Tomb Inscription from Sheba'', Journal: ''Leshonenu'' (issue 65), 2003, pp. 117–120 (Hebrew); G.W. Nebe and A. Sima, Die aramäisch/hebräisch-sabäische Grabinschrift der Lea, ''Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy'' 15, 2004, pp. 76–83.</ref>
|-
| 524 || Jewish king, Yûsuf 'As'ar Yath'ar, known also in the Islamic tradition as [[Dhu Nuwas|Dhū Nuwās]], lays siege to the city [[Najran]] and takes it.<ref>Jacques Ryckmans, ''La Persécution des Chrétiens Himyarites'', Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Inst. in het Nabije Oosten, 1956</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Shahîd |first1=Irfan|author-link1=Irfan Shahid |last2=Simeon |first2=Arethas |title=The Martyrs of Najrân: New Documents|publisher=Société des Bollandistes|location=Bruxelles|year=1971|page=54 |language=en|oclc=516915 }}</ref>
|-
| 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<ref>''The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela'' (ed. Marcus Nathan Adler), Oxford University Press, London 1907, pp. 47–49. '''Note:''' In 1870, Yemeni researcher and scholar, [[Hayim Hibshush]], accompanied [[Joseph Halévy]] on an exploratory mission to the city of [[Sa'dah|Saadah]] and in places thereabout. In the book ''Masa'ot Habshush'' (''Travels in Yemen'', Jerusalem 1983), he mentions the city of Tilmaṣ being the old city of Saadah. He brings down an old Yemeni proverb: אדא אנת מן מלץ פאנא מן תלמץ = "If you are evasive (Ar. "malaṣ"), then I am from Tilmaṣ (i.e. Saadah)." In Hibshush's own time, Saadah was still known by the name of Wadi Tilmaṣ.</ref>
|-
| 1174 || [[Maimonides]] writes his ''[[Iggeret Teman]]'' (Epistle to Yemen) to the Jews of Yemen<ref name="en.wikisource.org"/><ref>Maimonides was later prompted to write his famous ''Ma'amar Teḥayyath Hamethim'' (Treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead), published in ''Book of Letters and Responsa'' (ספר אגרות ותשובות), Jerusalem 1978, p. 9 (Hebrew). According to Maimonides, certain Jews in Yemen had sent to him a letter in the year 1189, evidently irritated as to why he had not mentioned the physical resurrection of the dead in his ''Hil. Teshuvah'', chapter 8, and how that some persons in Yemen had begun to instruct, based on Maimonides' teaching, that when the body dies it will disintegrate and the soul will never return to such bodies after death. Maimonides denied that he ever insinuated such things, and reiterated that the body would indeed resurrect, but that the "world to come" was something different in nature.</ref>
|-
| 1216 || Jews of Yemen send thirteen questions to Rabbi [[Abraham ben Maimonides]], relating to ''halacha''<ref>[https://www.hebrewbooks.org/43148 ''Abraham Maimuni Responsa''] (ed. Avraham H. Freimann and [[Shelomo Dov Goitein]]), Mekize Nirdamim: Jerusalem 1937, responsa # 82–94 (pp.{{nbsp}}107–136) (Hebrew). The people of the city of [[Aden]] (Yemen) posed an additional seven questions unto Rabbi Abraham ben Maimonides, preserved in a 15th–16th century document still in manuscript form (pp. 188b–193a), containing mostly the commentary of Zechariah HaRofe on Maimonides' legal code of Jewish law. The rare document can be seen at the Hebrew University National Library in Jerusalem, Department of Manuscripts, in microfilm # F-{{nbsp}}44265.</ref>
|-
| 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Raẓhabi |first=Yehuda|title=She'elot Hanagid — A Work by R. Yehoshua Hanagid |journal=[[Tarbiẕ]] |volume=54 |issue=4|pages=553–566 |date=1985|language=he |jstor=23596708}}</ref> 
|-
| 1457 || Old Synagogue in [[Sana'a|Ṣanʻā']] destroyed because of warring between Imam [[Al-Mutawakkil al-Mutahhar]] and Az-Zafir ʻAmir I bin Ṭāhir<ref>Yosef Tobi, ''Studies in 'Megillat Teman'<nowiki />'' (''ʻIyunim bi-megilat Teman''), The Magnes Press – Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1986, pp. 70–71 (Hebrew). Tobi holds that it was destroyed under the first Tahiride Imam, Az-Zafir ʻAmir I bin Ṭāhir, who had temporarily captured Sana'a.</ref>
|-
| 1489 || Rabbi [[Obadiah ben Abraham|Obadiah di Bertinora]] encounters Jews from Yemen while in Jerusalem.<ref>Avraham Yari, ''Igros Eretz Yisroel'' (''Letters of the Land of Israel''), in the "Letter of Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinora from Jerusalem to his Brother," written in 1489, Tel-Aviv 1943, [https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20677&st=&pgnum=140&hilite= p. 140] (in PDF); See also Gedaliah ibn Jechia the Spaniard, ''Shalshelet Ha-Kabbalah'', Venice 1585 (Hebrew), who testified in the name of Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinoro who had said that there came Jews in his days to Jerusalem, who had come from the southeastern hemisphere, along the sea of the [Indian] ocean, and who declared that they had no other book beside [[Mishne Torah|the Yad]], belonging to Maimonides. Rabbi Yihya Saleh, speaking more distinctly about this episode, writes in his Questions & Responsa (''Pe'ulath Sadiq'', vol. ii, ''responsum'' 180) that he was referring there to the Jews of Yemen who had made a pilgrimage to the Land of Israel at that time.</ref>
|-
| 1567 || [[Zechariah Dhahiri|Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Ḍāhirī]] visited Rabbi [[Joseph Karo]]'s yeshiva in [[Safed]]<ref>Zechariah al-Dhahiri, ''Sefer Ha-Mūsar'' (ed. Mordechai Yitzhari), Benei Baraq 2008 (Hebrew), pp. 58, 62. For his description of Rabbi Joseph Karo's ''yeshiva'', click here: [[Zechariah Dhahiri#Highlights from journey]].</ref>
|-
| 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<ref>Amram Qorah, ''Sa'arat'' Teman, p. 8 (Hebrew); Yosef Qafih, ''Halikhot Teman'', p. 186 (Hebrew); also described in book, ''Yemenite Authorities and Jewish Messianism'', by P.S. van Koningsveld, J. Sadan and Q. Al-Samarrai, Leiden University, Faculty of Theology 1990</ref>
|-
| 1679–80 || the [[Exile of Mawza|Exile of Mawzaʻ]]<ref>Yosef Qafiḥ (ed.), ''"Qorot Yisra'el be-Teman'' by Rabbi Ḥayim Ḥibshush," ''Ketavim'' (''Collected Papers''), Vol. 2, Jerusalem 1989, pp. 713–719 (Hebrew)</ref>
|-
| 1724 || Great [[famine]] in Yemen, causing many of the poor and impoverished Jews to convert to Islam<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gaimani|first=Aharon|title=Rabbi Yosef ben Salih's Moral Rebuke Concerning the Events of 1724 in Yemen |journal=Hebrew Studies |volume=57|pages=167–170 |date=2016|doi=10.1353/hbr.2016.0008 |language=en |jstor=44072299|s2cid=151985498 }}</ref> 
|-
| 1761 || Destruction of twelve synagogues in [[Sana'a|Ṣanʻā']] by Imam [[Al-Mahdi Abbas]]<ref>Carsten Niebuhr, ''Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern'', Zürich 1992, p. 417. Here, the English translation of M. Niehbuhr's Travels (''Travel through Arabia and Other Countries in the East'', vol. 1, London 1792, p. 409) has incorrectly translated the original German as saying ''fourteen'' synagogues were destroyed, whereas the original German says that only twelve synagogues were destroyed out of a total of fourteen: "Zu ebendieser Zeit wurden den hiesigen Juden von 14 Synagogen zwölf niedergerissen."</ref>
|-
| 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)<ref>Carsten Niebuhr, ''Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern'' (Description of Travel to Arabia and Other Neighboring Countries), Zürich 1992, pp. 416–418 (German)</ref>
|-
| 1805 || Rabbi [[Yiḥyah Salaḥ|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.<ref>Yaakov Ramon, ''The Jews of Yemen in Tel-Aviv'', Jerusalem 1935 (Hebrew). The journey to Israel by land and sea took them seven months to accomplish.</ref><ref>''Journal Har'el'', Tel-Aviv 1962, pp. 243–251 (Hebrew)</ref>
|-
| 1902 || Rabbi [[Yihya Yitzhak Halevi]] appointed judge and president of court at [[Sana'a|Ṣanʻā']]<ref>Amram Qorah, Sa'arat Teman, Jerusalem 1988, p. 62 (Hebrew)</ref>
|-
| 1907 || The Ottoman government of Palestine recognizes the Yemenites as an independent community (just as Ashkenazim and Sepharadim are independent communities);<ref>{{cite book |last=Rimon |first=Yaakov|author-link=:he:יעקב רימון |title=The Jews of Yemen in Tel-Aviv (יהדי תימן בתל-אביב)|publisher=Zuckerman Press|location=Jerusalem|year=1935|language=he|oclc=233187474 }}</ref> 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.<ref>Ester Muchawsky Schnapper, ''Ceremonial Objects in Yemenite Synagogues'', pub. in: ''Judaeo-Yemenite Studies – Proceedings of the Second International Congress'' (ed. [[Ephraim Isaac]] and Yosef Tobi), Princeton University: Princeton 1999, p. 121</ref>
|-
| 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.<ref>{{cite book|title=A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel|first=Gudrun |last=Krämer|author-link=Gudrun Krämer|publisher=Princeton University Press|page=117 |year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tWrW_CKODdQC&q=A+History+of+Palestine:+From+the+Ottoman+Conquest |isbn=978-0-691-11897-0}}</ref>
|-
| 1911 || [[Abraham Isaac Kook]], Chief Rabbi in Ottoman Palestine, addresses twenty-six questions to the heads of the Jewish community in Yemen<ref>Shmuel Yavne'eli, ''Masa le-Teiman'', Tel-Aviv 1952, pp. 187-188; 196-199 (Hebrew)</ref>
|-
| 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 I|Nathan ben Abraham]]'s 11th-century [[Mishnah]] commentary was discovered in the ''[[genizah]]'' of the Jewish community of [[Sana'a]], Yemen.
|-
| 1949 || [[Ahmad bin Yahya|Imam Ahmad]] announces that any Jew who is interested in leaving Yemen is permitted to do so.<ref>Tuvia Sulami, ''Political vs. religious motivations behind Imam Ahmad's decision to permit Jewish emigration in 1949'' (Lecture at the United Nations building in New-York, 2018)</ref>
|-
| 1949–50 || Operation ''On Eagles' Wings'' (also called [[Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)|Operation Magic Carpet]]) brings to Israel some 48,000 Yemenite Jews
|}

==Religious traditions==
[[File:YemeniJew1914.jpg|thumb|left|upright|1914 photograph of a Yemenite Jew in traditional vestments under the [[Tallit#Tallit gadol|tallit gadol]], reading from a [[Torah scroll (Yemenite)|scroll]]]]

Yemenite Jews and the Aramaic-speaking [[Kurdish Jews]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2005/4/kurdisrael1.htm|title=The passion of Aramaic-Kurdish Jews brought Aramaic to Israel|publisher=Ekurd.net|access-date=October 28, 2014|archive-date=August 16, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816193341/http://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2005/4/kurdisrael1.htm}}</ref> are the only communities who maintain the tradition of reading the [[Torah]] in the synagogue in both Hebrew and the Aramaic [[Targum]] ("translation"). Most non-Yemenite synagogues have a specified person called a Baal Koreh, who reads from the Torah scroll when congregants are called to the Torah scroll for an [[aliyah (Torah)|aliyah]]. In the Yemenite tradition, each person called to the [[Torah scroll (Yemenite)|Torah scroll]] for an aliyah reads for himself. Children under the age of [[Bar Mitzvah]] are often given the sixth aliyah. Each verse of the Torah read in Hebrew is followed by the Aramaic translation, usually chanted by a child. Both the sixth aliyah and the Targum have a simplified melody, distinct from the general Torah melody used for the other aliyot.

Like most other Jewish communities, Yemenite Jews chant different melodies for Torah, Prophets (Haftara), Megillat Aicha ([[Book of Lamentations]]), Kohelet (Ecclesiastes, read during [[Sukkot]]), and Megillat [[Book of Esther|Esther]] (the Scroll of Esther read on [[Purim]]). Unlike [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazic]] communities, there are melodies for Mishle (Proverbs) and [[Psalms]].<ref>''Yemenite Jewry: Origins, Culture, and Literature'', page 6, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986)</ref>

{{blockquote|Every Yemenite Jew knew how to read from the Torah Scroll with the correct pronunciation and tune, exactly right in every detail. Each man who was called up to the Torah read his section by himself. All this was possible because children right from the start learned to read without any vowels. Their diction is much more correct than the Sephardic and Ashkenazic dialect. The results of their education are outstanding, for example if someone is speaking with his neighbor and needs to quote a verse from the Bible, he speaks it out by heart, without pause or effort, with its melody.|Stanley Mann<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.doingzionism.org.il/resources.html?id=1472&subject=50 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205083110/http://www.doingzionism.org.il/resources/view.asp?id=1472&subject=50|title=Doing Zionism – Resources|archive-date=February 5, 2007|website=www.doingzionism.org.il}}</ref>}}
[[File:Shofar-Sabbath-Horn-Yemenite-Jew.jpg|thumb|upright|Yemenite Jew sounding the [[Shofar]], 1930s Mandatory Palestine (possibly Jerusalem)]]

In larger Jewish communities, such as [[Sana'a]] and [[Sad'a]], boys were sent to the ''melamed'' at the age of three to begin their religious learning. They attended the ''melamed'' from early dawn to sunset on Sunday through Thursday and until noon on Friday. Jewish women were required to have a thorough knowledge of the laws pertaining to [[Kashrut]] and Taharat Mishpachah (family purity) i.e. [[Niddah]]. Some women even mastered the laws of [[Shechita]], thereby acting as ritual slaughterers.

People also sat on the floors of synagogues instead of sitting on chairs, similar to the way many other non-Ashkenazi Jews sat in synagogues. This is in accordance with what Rambam (Maimonides) wrote in his [[Mishneh Torah]]:

{{blockquote|Synagogues and houses of study must be treated with respect. They are swept and sprinkled to lay the dust. In [[Spain]], and in the Maghreb ([[Morocco]]), in Babylonia ([[Iraq]]), and in the [[Holy Land]], it is customary to kindle lamps in the synagogues, and to spread mats on the floor on which the worshippers sit. In the lands of Edom ([[Christendom]]), they sit in synagogues on chairs [or benches].
|Hilchot Tefillah 11:4 [5]}}
[[File:Yemenite Jewish elders at study, 1906–1918, in Israel.jpg|thumb|right|Elders studying in a synagogue in Ottoman Palestine (1906–1918)]]

The lack of chairs may also have been to provide more space for [[prostration]], another ancient Jewish observance that the Jews of Yemen continued to practise until very recent times.<ref name="chayas">{{cite web|url=http://www.chayas.com/qidah.htm|title=Naphillath Panim|publisher=chayas.com|access-date=July 12, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716204529/http://www.chayas.com/qidah.htm|archive-date=July 16, 2012}}</ref> There are still a few Yemenite Jews who prostrate themselves during the part of everyday Jewish prayer called [[Tachanun]] (Supplication), though such individuals usually do so in privacy. In the small Jewish community that exists today in Bet Harash, prostration is still done during the tachanun prayer. Jews of European origin generally prostrate only during certain portions of special prayers during [[Rosh Hashanah]] (Jewish New Year) and [[Yom Kippur]] (Day of Atonement). Prostration was a common practise amongst all Jews until some point during the late [[Middle Ages]] or [[Renaissance]] period.

Like Yemenite Jewish homes, the synagogues in Yemen had to be lower in height than the lowest mosque in the area. In order to accommodate this, synagogues were built into the ground to give them more space without looking large from the outside. In some parts of Yemen, [[minyanim]] would often just meet in homes of Jews, instead of the community having a separate building for a synagogue. Beauty and artwork were saved for the ritual objects in the synagogue and in the home.

Yemenite Jews also wore a distinctive [[tallit]] often found to this day. The Yemenite tallit features a wide ''atara'' and large corner patches, embellished with silver or gold thread, and the fringes along the sides of the tallit are netted. According to the Baladi custom, the [[tzitzit]] are tied with seven ''chulyot'' (hitches), based on [[Maimonides]]' teaching.<ref>Their Rabbis have interpreted the Talmud (''Menahoth'' 39a) with a view that the "joints" and the "knots" are one and the same thing.</ref>

On Sabbath days, the traditional Yemenite bread was not the ''[[Challah]]'', as found in Western Jewish communities, but the ''[[Kubaneh]]'', which was eaten on Sabbath mornings after first making the blessing over two [[flatbreads]] baked in an [[earthen oven]].<ref>{{Citation |contribution=The Yemenite Cuisine |title=Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage|last=Mizrachi|first=Avshalom|editor1=Rachel Yedid|editor2=Danny Bar-Maoz|publisher=E'ele BeTamar|place=Rehovot|page=134 |year=2018 |language=en |oclc=1041776317 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Qafih |first=Y. |author-link=Yosef Qafih|title=Halichot Teman (Jewish Life in Sanà) |publisher=[[Ben-Zvi Institute]] |date=1982 |location=Jerusalem |page=210 |language=he |isbn=965-17-0137-4 |oclc=863513860 }}</ref>

===Weddings and marriage traditions===
[[File:Jewish Yemenite bride.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|A bride in traditional Yemenite Jewish bridal vestment, in Israel 1958.]]
During a Yemenite Jewish wedding, the bride was bedecked with jewelry and wore a traditional wedding costume, including an elaborate headdress decorated with flowers and rue leaves, which were believed to ward off evil. Gold threads were woven into the fabric of her clothing. Songs were sung as part of a seven-day wedding celebration, with lyrics about friendship and love in alternating verses of Hebrew and Arabic.<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/media_701507535_761574825_-1_1/Yemenite_Jewish_Wedding.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070813203103/http://encarta.msn.com/media_701507535_761574825_-1_1/Yemenite_Jewish_Wedding.html|date=August 13, 2007}}</ref>

In Yemen, the Jewish practice was not for the groom and his bride to be secluded in a canopy (''chuppah'') hung on four poles, as is widely practiced today in Jewish weddings, but rather in a bridal chamber that was, in effect, a highly decorated room in the house of the groom. This room was traditionally decorated with large hanging sheets of colored, patterned cloth, replete with wall cushions and short-length mattresses for reclining.<ref>[[Yosef Qafih]], ''Halikhot Teiman'' (Jewish Life in Sana), Ben-Zvi Institute – Jerusalem 1982, pp. 143 and 148 (Hebrew); Yehuda Levi Nahum, ''Miṣefunot Yehudei Teman'', Tel-Aviv 1962, p. 149 (Hebrew)</ref> Their marriage is consummated when they have been left together alone in this room. This ancient practice finds expression in the writings of [[Isaac ben Abba Mari]] (c. 1122 – c. 1193), author of ''Sefer ha-'Ittur'',<ref>Isaac ben Abba Mari, ''Sefer ha'Ittur'', Lwów, Ukraine 1860</ref> concerning the Benediction of the Bridegroom: "Now the ''chuppah'' is when her father delivers her unto her husband, bringing her into that house wherein is some new innovation, such as the sheets… surrounding the walls, etc. For we recite in the Jerusalem Talmud, ''Sotah'' 46a (''Sotah'' 9:15), 'Those bridal chambers, (''chuppoth hathanim''), they hang within them patterned sheets and gold-embroidered ribbons,' etc."

[[File:Ketuba from Yeman.jpg|thumb|upright|Yemenite [[Ketubah]] from 1794, now at the [[Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design]]]]
After immigration to Israel, the regional varieties of Yemenite bridal jewelry were replaced by a uniform item that became identified with the community: the splendid bridal garb of Sana'a.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/not-all-yemenite-brides-need-to-look-the-same-1.242599|title=Not all Yemenite brides need to look the same |date=March 25, 2008|work=Haaretz.com|access-date=October 28, 2014}}</ref>

Before the wedding, Yemenite and other Eastern Jewish communities perform the [[henna ceremony]], an ancient ritual with [[Bronze Age]] origins.<ref>De Moor, Johannes C. (1971). The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Ba'lu According to the Version of Ilimilku. Neukirchen&nbsp;– Vluyn, Germany: Verlag Butzon & Berker Kevelaer</ref> The family of the bride mixes a paste derived from the [[henna]] plant that is placed on the palms of the bride and groom, and their guests. After the paste is washed off, a deep orange stain remains that gradually fades over the next week.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.jewishjournal.com/weddings/article/henna_party_adds_colorful_touch_to_the_happy_couple_20080411|title=Henna party adds colorful touch to the happy couple|work=Jewish Journal|access-date=October 28, 2014}}</ref>

Yemenites had a special affinity for Henna due to biblical and Talmudic references. Henna, in the Bible, is Camphire, and is mentioned in the [[Song of Solomon]], as well as in the [[Talmud]]. This tradition is also practiced by [[Pashtuns]] and [[Afghan Jews]].

:''"My Beloved is unto me as a cluster of Camphire in the vineyards of En-Gedi"'' '''Song of Solomon, 1:14'''

A Yemenite Jewish wedding custom specific only to the community of Aden is the Talbis, revolving around the groom. A number of special songs are sung by the men while holding candles, and the groom is dressed in a golden garment.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bhol.co.il/article.aspx?id=28876 |title=כשהגאב"ד האשכנזי התפלל בנוסח תימני • גלריה – בחצרות קודש – בחצרות חסידים – בחדרי חרדים |publisher=Bhol.co.il |access-date=2015-03-09 |archive-date=November 5, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151105015057/http://www.bhol.co.il/article.aspx?id=28876 }}</ref>

===Religious groups===
[[File:YemeniJew.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Elderly Yemenite Jew, between 1898 and 1914.]]

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]].<ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/easton/ebd2.html?term=Rechabites Rechabites] – ''[[Easton's Bible Dictionary]]''</ref>

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 [[Kabbalah|Kabbalistic]] tradition embodied in the [[Zohar]] and in the school of [[Isaac Luria]], which was increasingly influential from the 17th century on.
* The [[Baladi-rite Prayer|Baladi]] Jews (from Arabic ''balad'', country) generally follow the [[halakha|legal rulings]] of the ''Rambam'' (Maimonides) as codified in his work the ''[[Mishneh Torah]]''. Their [[Baladi-rite Prayer|liturgy]] was developed by a rabbi known as the [[Yihhyah Salahh|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 [[Isaac Luria|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 the [[Syria (region)|region of 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.<ref name=Berachyahu>{{cite book |last=Tobi |first=Yosef |editor-first=Berachyahu |editor-last=Lifshitz |title=The Jewish Law Annual |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gt_FwomH-aYC&q=Shami+yemenite+jews&pg=PT253 |chapter-format=electronic version |volume=15 |year=2004 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-134-29837-2 |page=PT253 |chapter=Caro's ''Shulhan Arukh'' Versus Maimonides' ''Mishne Torah'' in Yemen |quote=Two additional factors played a crucial role in the eventual adoption by the majority of Yemenite Jewry of the new traditions, traditions that originate, for the most part, in the land of Israel and the Sefardic communities of the Diaspora. One was the total absence of printers in Yemen: no works reflecting the local (baladi) liturgical and ritual customs could be printed, and they remained in manuscript. By contrast, printed books, many of which reflected the Sefardic (shami) traditions, were available, and not surprisingly, more and more Yemenite Jews preferred to acquire the less costly and easier to read printed books, notwithstanding the fact that they expressed a different tradition, rather than their own expensive and difficult to read manuscripts. The second factor was the relatively rich flow of visitors to Yemen, generally emissaries of the Jewish communities and academies in the land of Israel, but also merchants from the Sefardic communities&nbsp;... By this slow, but continuous, process, the Shami liturgical and ritual tradition gained every more sympathy and legitimacy, at the expense of the baladi }}</ref><ref name=Simon>{{cite book |last1=Simon |first1=Reeva S. |last2=Laskier |first2=Mikha'el M. |last3=Reguer |first3=Sara |title=The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in modern times |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMM1L4YqASgC&q=Shami+yemenite+jews&pg=PA398 |year=2003 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |isbn=978-0-231-10796-9 |page=398 }}</ref> The "local rabbinic leadership resisted the new versions&nbsp;... Nevertheless, the new prayer books were widely accepted."<ref name=Simon/> As part of that process, the Shami accepted the Zohar and modified their rites to accommodate the usages of the [[Isaac Luria|Ari]] to the maximum extent. The text of the Shami siddur now largely follows the [[Sephardic Judaism|Sephardic]] tradition, though the pronunciation, chant and customs are still Yemenite in flavour. They generally base their [[halakha|legal rulings]] both on the Rambam (Maimonides) and on the [[Shulchan Aruch]] (Code of Jewish Law). In their interpretation of [[halakha|Jewish law]], Shami Yemenite Jews were strongly influenced by [[Syrian Jews|Syrian]] [[Sephardi Jews]], though on some issues, they rejected the later European codes of Jewish law, and instead followed the earlier decisions of Maimonides. Most Yemenite Jews living today follow the Shami customs. The Shami rite was always more prevalent, even 50 years ago.<ref>Rabbi Yitzhaq Ratzabi, ''Ohr Hahalakha'': Nusakh Teiman Publishing, Bnei Braq.</ref>
* 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.

====School reform dispute (Dor Daim vs Iqshim)====
[[File:Yemen1.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Yemenite Jew in Jerusalem, late 19th century.]]

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,{{Citation needed|date=January 2015}} 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.<ref name="simon">''The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times'', by Reeva Spector Simon, Michael Menachem Laskier, Sara Reguer editors, Columbia University Press, 2003, pages 403–404</ref>

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<ref>Shalom 'Uzayri, ''Galei-Or'', Tel-Aviv 1974, pp. 15; 19 (Hebrew)</ref> 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 [[Yihya Yitzhak Halevi|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.<ref name="simon"/> Due to the Dor Daim and Iqshim dispute, the school closed 5 years after it was opened, before the educational system could develop a reserve of young people who had been exposed to its ideas.<ref>''Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity'', by Norman A. Stillman, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995, page 19</ref>

====Yemenite rabbis====
{{colbegin|colwidth=25em}}
* [[Solomon Adeni]] (1567–1625)
* [[Yihye Bashiri]] (died 1661)
* [[Zechariah Dhahiri]] (c. 1531–1608)
* [[Hayyim Habshush]] (c. 1833–1899)
* [[Yihya Yitzhak Halevi]] (1867–1932)
* [[Avraham Al-Naddaf]] (1866–1940)
* [[Yosef Qafih]] (1917–2000)
* [[Yiḥyah Qafiḥ]] (1850–1931)
* [[Amram Qorah]] (1871–1952)
* [[Mordechai Sharabi]] (1908–1994)
* [[Maharitz (Yihya Salah)]] (1713–1805)
* [[Shalom Shabazi]] (1619–c. 1720)
* [[Uzi Meshulam]] (1952–2013)
* [[David ben Amram Adani]] (14th century)
* [[Nethanel ben Isaiah]] (14th century)
* [[Zechariah ha-Rofé]] (15th century)
* [[Natan'el al-Fayyumi]] (c. 1090–1165)
* [[Jacob ben Nathanael]] (12th century)
* [[Shalom Sharabi]] (1720–1777)
{{colend}}

===Education===
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.<ref>Pages 18, 19 (note 44) in: {{cite journal |last=Goitein|first=S.D. |author-link=Shelomo Dov Goitein |title=Portrait of a Yemenite Weavers' Village|journal=Jewish Social Studies|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=3–26|date=1955|jstor=4465298|language=en}}</ref> 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 ({{Langx|he|הרשאה}}) from a qualified instructor to slaughter domestic livestock.

====Baladi-rite and Shami-rite prayer books====
{{main|Baladi-rite Prayer}}

* ''Siaḥ Yerushalayim'', ''Baladi'' prayer book in 4 vols, ed. [[Yosef Qafih]]
* ''Tefillat Avot'', ''Baladi'' prayer book (6 vols.)
* ''Torat Avot'', ''Baladi'' prayer book (7 vols.)
* ''Tiklal Ha-Mefoar ([[Yiḥyah Salaḥ|Maharitz]]) ''Nusaḥ Baladi, Meyusad Al Pi Ha-Tiklal Im Etz Ḥayim Ha-Shalem Arukh Ke-Minhag Yahaduth Teiman'': Bene Berak: Or Neriyah ben Mosheh Ozeri'': 2001 or 2002
* ''Siddur Tefillat HaḤodesh&nbsp;— Beit Yaakov'' (Nusaḥ Shami), ''Nusaḥ Sepharadim'', Teiman, and the Edoth Mizraḥ
* Rabbi [[Shalom Sharabi]], ''Siddur Kavanot HaRashash'': Yeshivat HaChaim Ve'Hashalom
* ''Hatiklāl Hamevo'ar'' (Baladi-rite), ed. Pinḥas Qoraḥ, Benei Barak 2006

==Yemenite Jewish culture==

===Yemenite Hebrew===
{{main|Yemenite Hebrew}}

Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by scholars, many of whom believe it to contain the most ancient phonetic and grammatical features.{{nbsp}}<ref>''Judaeo-Yemenite Studies – Proceedings of the Second International Congress'', Ephraim Isaac & Yosef Tobi (ed.), Introduction, Princeton University 1999, p. 15</ref> 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 alphabet|Hebrew letters]] have a distinct sound, except for ''sāmeḵ'' ({{Langx|he|'''ס'''}}) and ''śîn'' ({{Langx|he|'''שׂ'''}}), which are both pronounced {{IPA|/s/}}.<ref>Shelomo Morag, ''Pronunciations of Hebrew'', Encyclopaedia Judaica XIII, 1120–1145</ref> The [[Sanaani Hebrew]] pronunciation (used by the majority) has been indirectly critiqued by [[Saadia Gaon]] since it contains the Hebrew letters ''{{not a typo|jimmel}}'' 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 ''{{not a typo|jimmel}}'' 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 [[Judeo-Yemenite|regional Judeo-Arabic]].

===Yemenite Jewish literature===
[[File:Midrash hagadol manuscript.png|thumb|right|upright=1.35|Manuscript page from Yemenite '''Midrash ha-Gadol''' on Genesis.]]

The oldest Yemenite manuscripts are those of the [[Tanakh|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.<ref>''Torah Qedumah'', Shaul Ben Shalom Hodiyafi, Beit Dagan, 1902, page Aleph</ref>

Yemenite Jews were acquainted with the works of [[Saadia Gaon]], [[Rashi]], Kimhi, [[Nahmanides]], [[Judah ha-Levi|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]], [[Book of Numbers|Numbers]], and [[Deuteronomy]]. Abraham ben Solomon wrote on the [[Nevi'im|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]], [[Book of Lamentations|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."<ref>''Yemenite Midrash-Philosophical Commentaries on the Torah'', translated by Yitzhak Tzvi Langermann, HarperCollins Publishing</ref> The earliest complete [[Judeo-Arabic]] copy of [[Maimonides]]' ''[[Guide for the Perplexed]]'', copied in [[Yemen]] in 1380, was found in the [[India Office Records|India Office Library]] and added to the collection of the [[British Library]] in 1992.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Tahan |first=Ilana |title=The Hebrew Collection of the British Library: Past and Present |journal=European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe |volume= 41|issue= 2 |pages= 43–55 |date=2008 |jstor=41443966 |doi=10.3167/ej.2008.410211}}</ref>
[[File:Babylonian_Supralinear_Punctuation,_from_Yemenite_Siddur,_April_2015.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|right|Section of Yemenite Siddur, with [[Babylonian supralinear punctuation]] (Pirke Avot)]]

Among the [[Yemenite Jewish poetry|Yemenite poets]] who wrote Hebrew and Arabic hymns modeled after the Spanish school, mention may be made of [[Zechariah Dhahiri|Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Dhahiri]] and the members of the [[Shalom Shabazi|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|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."<ref>''Chakhamei Teiman'' (Sages of Yemen), by Yeshivat Hod Yoseph, volume 1</ref>

===Yemenite Jewish clothing===
[[File:Hermann Burchardt.jpg|thumb|right|Jewish children in Sana'a, Yemen (ca. 1909)]]

====Men's clothing====
[[File:Abraham b. Abraham Yitzhak Halevi and family.jpg|thumb|Abraham b. Abraham Yitzhak Halevi and family, photo by [[Yihye Haybi]], ca. 1940]]
A [[Tunic]] ({{Langx|he|'''חלוק'''}}) and habit ({{Langx|he|'''סודר'''}}; {{Langx|tmr|סודרא|label=[[Jewish Babylonian Aramaic|Aramaic]]}}), the latter made with a central hat ({{Langx|he|'''כומתא'''}}), were the traditional items of clothing worn by a married Jewish man in Yemen.<ref>Rabbi [[Yosef Qafih]], ''Halikhot Teman'', ([[Ben-Zvi Institute]]: Jerusalem 1982, p. 186. Cf. ''[[Kiddushin (tractate)|Kiddushin]]'' 29b where it mentions a scholar who refused to wear a "sudarium" (habit) on his head until he was married, meaning, his head was only covered by a cap.</ref><ref>Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper, "The Clothing of the Jews of Yemen", in: ''Ascending the Palm Tree – An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage'', Rachel Yedid & Danny Bar-Maoz (ed.), E'ele BeTamar: Rehovot 2018, pp. 161–162 {{OCLC|1041776317}}</ref> 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:
{{blockquote|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'').<ref>This is true also with the Arabs of Yemen.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Brauer|first=Erich|author-link=Erich Brauer|year=1934|title=Ethnologie der Jemenitischen Juden|location=Heidelberg|publisher=Carl Winters Kulturgeschichte Bibliothek, I. Reihe: Ethnologische bibliothek|volume=7|issue=1934|page=81}} [http://jewishclothing.blogspot.com/2008/09/jewish-clothing.html This translation] by Esther van Praag.</ref>}}

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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Brauer|first=Erich|author-link=Erich Brauer|year=1934|title=Ethnologie der Jemenitischen Juden|location=Heidelberg|publisher=Carl Winters Kulturgeschichte Bibliothek, I. Reihe: Ethnologische bibliothek|volume=7|issue=1934}}, p. 79.</ref> 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.<ref>[[Carsten Niebuhr]], ''Description of Travel to Arabia and Other Neighboring Countries'' [Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern], Akademische Druch- und Verlagsanstalt: [[Graz]] 1968, pp. 416–417.</ref>

The traditional Yemenite ''[[Tallit|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.<ref name="Erich Brauer 1934, p. 85">Erich Brauer, ''Ethnologie der Jemenitischen Juden'', Heidelberg 1934, p. 85</ref> Jewish garments, however, bore the ritual [[Tzitzit|fringes]] prescribed for such garments. The wearing of such garments was not unique to prayer time alone, but was worn the entire day.<ref>Yehuda Ratzaby, ''Ancient Customs of the Yemenite Jewish Community'' (ed. Shalom Seri and [[Israel Kessar]]), Tel-Aviv 2005, p. 30 (Hebrew)</ref> 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.<ref name="Erich Brauer 1934, p. 85"/>

====Women's clothing====
[[File:Yemenite Gargush.jpg|thumb|Traditional Yemenite attire for women]]

Jewish women in Yemen traditionally wore branched [[Trousers|pantaloons]] beneath their long black tunics. The pantaloons were usually made of a jet-black color, tapering close to their ankles, and decorated at the lower seams with a fine embroidered stitch of silver. The tunic served as, both, a dress and long-sleeved blouse, all in one piece. In addition, all young girls wore a black, conical shaped hat upon their heads, which took the place of a scarf. These hats were called in the local vernacular, ''[[gargush]]'', and were also decorated with an embroidered sash about its borders, besides being equipped with tapering flaps that extended down to the ears and to the nape of the neck. Older women in [[Sana'a]] would wear a broad veil-like scarf over their heads, called ''maswan'', especially when going out in public places, and which was traditionally worn above the closer fitting scarves that covered their hair. All women were adorned with black slippers when walking in public places, and only very small girls would walk barefoot.

Jewish women and girls in [[Haydan District|Haydan a-sham]] (in the far northern districts of Yemen) did not make use of the [[gargush]], but would wear a black scarf tied firmly to their foreheads, resembling a black band, along with the covering made by an additional scarf that covered the hair.

===Culinary specialties===
The Yemenite Jews are known for bringing to Israel certain culinary dishes, now popularly eaten by all ethnic-groups living in Israel, namely, the ''[[malawach]]'' (itself an adaptation of the Yemeni ''[[khubz mulawah|mulawah]]''), and ''[[jachnun]]''. Lesser-known breadstuffs include the ''[[kubaneh]]'' (a traditional Sabbath bread), ''[[Lahoh|luḥūḥ]]'', ''[[sabayah]]'', and ''[[zalabiyeh]]''.

===Yemenite Jewish surnames===
The subject of Jewish surnames in Yemen is a complex one. Most surnames are [[gentilic]] or [[toponymic surnames]], meaning, they are derived from the name of an ancestor's place of residence (the name of a town or village, such as Gadasi from al-Gades; Qa'taby from Qa'tabah; Manqadi from Manqadah; Damari from Dhamar, Damti from Damt, etc.), while fewer are eponymous or [[patronymic surname]]s, being derived from the name of an ancient ancestor.<ref name="GavraM2014"/> Some surnames reflect an ancestor's profession.<ref name="GavraM2014">Moshe Gavra, ''Surnames of Jews in Yemen'' (''shemot ha-mishpahah shel ha-yehudim be-teman''), Benei Barak 2014, Preface p. 6 (Hebrew)</ref> In some cases, surnames are derived from a certain physical characteristic of one's distant ancestor.<ref>Aharon Gaimani, ''Family Names and Appellations Among Yemenite Jews'', pub. in: ''These are the Names – Studies in Jewish Onomastics'' (vol. 3), ed. [[Aaron Demsky]], [[Bar-Ilan University]]: Ramat Gan 2002, p. 24; Moshe Gavra, ''Surnames of Jews in Yemen'', Benei Barak 2014, Preface p. 6</ref> 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]]: {{Script/Hebrew|רצ'א}}) have changed their surname to Ratzon ([[Hebrew]]: {{Script/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]]: {{Script/Hebrew|שחב}}), meaning "one whose voice is hoarse," which was changed to Shevach (Hebrew: {{Script/Hebrew|שבח}}), meaning "praise," by a reversal of the last two letters.

====Claimed family lineages====
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 [[Tribe of Judah|Judah]], others trace their lineage to [[Tribe of Benjamin|Benjamin]], and others trace their lineage to [[Tribe of Levi|Levi]]<ref>Unfortunately, this genealogical record was broken off sometime in the late or early 1500s. Nevertheless, it listed ninety-one successive generations, starting with [[Jacob]], the son of [[Isaac]], the son of [[Abraham]]. A copy of this family's genealogy and a description of it has been published in the book "Mi-Yetzirot Sifrutiyyot Mi-Teman" (''Fragments of Literary Works from Yemen'' = מיצירות ספרותיות מתימן), Holon 1981, by Yehuda Levi Nahum, pp. 191–193 (Hebrew). Today, the original manuscript is at the Westminster College Library in Cambridge, England.</ref> and [[Tribe of Reuben|Reuben]]. Of particular interest is one distinguished Jewish family of Yemen, named Salah, which traced its lineage to Bani, one of the sons of Perez, the son of Judah.
[[File:Mori Yoseph Saleh.jpg|thumb|Silversmith, Yosef Salah (1888–1999)]]

===Interaction with Israeli culture===
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.<ref>{{cite news|author=Fezehai, Malin|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/17/style/bride-wedding-jewish-yemen.html?rref=collection/seriescollection/surfacing-subculture-communities|title=For Jewish Israelis of Yemenite Heritage, Reviving a Past|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=2018-11-17|access-date=2018-12-18}}</ref>

====Music====
{{See also|Yemenite Jewish poetry}}
Yemeni Jews are predominant among Israeli performers of Mizrahi music.<ref name="Wagner 2009"/> Yemenite singer [[Shoshana Damari]] is considered "The queen of Israeli music", and 2 of the most successful Israeli singers abroad, [[Ofra Haza]] and [[Achinoam Nini]] (Noa), are of Yemenite origin. At the [[Eurovision Song Contest]], 1998, 1979, and 1978 winners [[Dana International]], [[Gali Atari]], and [[Izhar Cohen]], 1983 runner-up [[Ofra Haza]], and 2008 top 10 finalist [[Boaz Mauda]], are Yemenite Jews. [[Harel Skaat]], who competed at Oslo in 2010, is the son of a Yemenite Jewish father. Other Israeli singers and musicians of Yemenite Jewish descent include [[Zohar Argov]], the three sisters of the music group [[A-WA]] (Yemenite Jewish father), [[Inbar Bakal]], [[Mosh Ben-Ari]], [[Yosefa Dahari]], [[Daklon]], [[Eyal Golan]], [[Zion Golan]], [[Yishai Levi]], [[Sara Levi-Tanai]] (choreographer and songwriter), [[Bo'az Ma'uda]], [[Avihu Medina]], [[Boaz Sharabi]], [[Pe'er Tasi]], [[Shimi Tavori]], [[Margalit Tzan'ani]], and [[Tomer Yosef]] of [[Balkan Beat Box]].

====Israelis of Yemenite descent====
[[File:Gila Gamliel.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Gila Gamliel]], member of the Knesset for the [[Likud Party]] and [[Minister in the Prime Minister's Office]]]]

=====Israeli soldiers of Yemenite descent=====
* [[Avigdor Kahalani]]
* [[David Maimon]]

=====Politics=====
Israeli Politicians of Yemenite Jewish descent include [[Gila Gamliel]] (current member of the Knesset for Likud), [[Meir Yitzhak Halevi]] (the Mayor of [[Eilat]]), [[Saadia Kobashi]] (leader of the Yemenite Jewish community in Israel, and one of the signatories of the country's declaration of independence), and [[Avraham Taviv]].

=====Sports and media=====
[[Becky Griffin]], whose mother is Yemenite Jewish, works as a model, TV presenter and actress.
[[Shahar Tzuberi]] is an Olympic windsurfer.
[[Linoy Ashram]] is an Israeli individual rhythmic gymnast. She is the 2020 Olympic All-around Champion. [[Sagi Muki]] is an Olympic champion [[judoka]].

==Genetic studies==
{{further|Genetic studies on Jews}}
{{further|Yemenis#Genetic studies}}

By [[autosomal DNA]], Yemenite Jews are distinct from other Jewish groups. Instead, they are close to the non-Jewish population of the Arabian Peninsula.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kopelman |first1=Naama M. |last2=Stone |first2=Lewi |last3=Hernandez |first3=Dena G. |last4=Gefel |first4=Dov |last5=Singleton |first5=Andrew B. |last6=Heyer |first6=Evelyne |last7=Feldman |first7=Marcus W. |last8=Hillel |first8=Jossi |last9=Rosenberg |first9=Noah A. |date=2020 |title=High-resolution inference of genetic relationships among Jewish populations |journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |language=en |volume=28 |issue=6 |pages=804–814 |doi=10.1038/s41431-019-0542-y |issn=1476-5438 |pmc=7253422 |pmid=31919450}}</ref> 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.<ref>[[Simon Schama]],  ''The Story of the Jews:Finding the Words 1000 BCE-1492 CE,'' Vintage Books 2014 p.234.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bonné-Tamir |first=Batsheva |title=Oriental Jewish communities and their relationship with South-West Asian Populations |journal=Indian Anthropologist |volume=1 |date=1985 |pages=153–170}}</ref>

However, studies on uniparental haplogroups have indicated shared roots between Yemenite Jewish and [[Jewish ethnic divisions|members of the world's other various Jewish communities]], as well as some type of contribution from the local non-Jewish population. [[Y chromosome]] haplogroups have shown a strong link to other Jewish groups, such as the European [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]] and Middle Eastern [[Iraqi Jews]], and to non-Jewish [[Levant]]ine populations, such as [[Palestinians]]<ref name=":1" /> and [[Samaritans]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Shen |first1=Peidong |last2=Lavi |first2=Tal |last3=Kivisild |first3=Toomas |last4=Chou |first4=Vivian |last5=Sengun |first5=Deniz |last6=Gefel |first6=Dov |last7=Shpirer |first7=Issac |last8=Woolf |first8=Eilon |last9=Hillel |first9=Jossi |last10=Feldman |first10=Marcus W. |last11=Oefner |first11=Peter J. |date=2004 |title=Reconstruction of patrilineages and matrilineages of Samaritans and other Israeli populations from Y-Chromosome and mitochondrial DNA sequence Variation |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/humu.20077 |journal=Human Mutation |language=en |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=248–260 |doi=10.1002/humu.20077 |pmid=15300852 |issn=1059-7794|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Yemenite Jews commonly carry West Eurasian [[mitochondrial DNA]] haplogroups that are found in other Jewish and Levantine groups but not in non-Jewish Yemenis, possibly suggesting ancient [[Israelites|Israelite]] descent. What makes them stand out among Jewish populations is the presence of [[sub-Saharan Africa]]n [[Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA)|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.<ref name=":1" /> It has been proposed that the L lineages might reflect admixture from a local non-Jewish source,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Behar |first1=Doron M. |last2=Metspalu |first2=Ene |last3=Kivisild |first3=Toomas |last4=Rosset |first4=Saharon |last5=Tzur |first5=Shay |last6=Hadid |first6=Yarin |last7=Yudkovsky |first7=Guennady |last8=Rosengarten |first8=Dror |last9=Pereira |first9=Luisa |last10=Amorim |first10=Antonio |last11=Kutuev |first11=Ildus |last12=Gurwitz |first12=David |last13=Bonne-Tamir |first13=Batsheva |last14=Villems |first14=Richard |last15=Skorecki |first15=Karl |date=2008-04-30 |title=Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=3 |issue=4 |article-number=e2062 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0002062 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=2323359 |pmid=18446216 |bibcode=2008PLoSO...3.2062B |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Richards |first1=Martin |last2=Rengo |first2=Chiara |last3=Cruciani |first3=Fulvio |last4=Gratrix |first4=Fiona |last5=Wilson |first5=James F. |last6=Scozzari |first6=Rosaria |last7=Macaulay |first7=Vincent |last8=Torroni |first8=Antonio |date=2003 |title=Extensive Female-Mediated Gene Flow from Sub-Saharan Africa into Near Eastern Arab Populations |journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=1058–1064 |doi=10.1086/374384 |issn=0002-9297 |pmc=1180338 |pmid=12629598}}</ref> whereas a 2011 study by Amy L. Non and others concluded that there is "little evidence for large-scale conversion of local Yemeni".<ref name=":1">A. L. Non, A. Al-Meeri, R. L. Raaum, L. F. Sanchez,  C. J. Mulligan, [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.21360 'Mitochondrial DNA reveals distinct evolutionary histories for Jewish populations in Yemen and Ethiopia,'] [[American Journal of Physical Anthropology]], 2011 Jan;144(1):1–10</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sprecher|first=Eli|date=March 2010|title=Familial Tumoral Calcinosis: From Characterization of a Rare Phenotype to the Pathogenesis of Ectopic Calcification|journal=Journal of Investigative Dermatology|volume=130|issue=3|pages=652–660|doi=10.1038/jid.2009.337|pmid=19865099|issn=0022-202X|pmc=3169303}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Judaism|Yemen}}
{{colbegin|colwidth=27em}}
* [[Jewish culture]]
* [[Jewish diaspora]]
* [[Jewish ethnic divisions]]
* [[Jewish customs of etiquette]]
* [[List of Jews from the Arab World]]
* [[Jews of Hadramaut|Hadhrami Jews]]
* [[Habbani Jews]]
* [[Adeni Jews]]
* [[Arab Jews]]
* [[Maghrebi Jews]]
* [[Shara'b As Salam District#Shara'bi Jews|Shara'bi Jews]]
* [[Mizrahi Jews]]
* [[Genetic history of the Middle East]]
* [[Genetic studies on Jews]]
* [[History of ancient Israel and Judah]]
* [[History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel]]
* [[Israelites]]
* [[Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites]]
* [[Twelve Tribes of Israel]]
* [[Ten Lost Tribes]]
* [[Jewish history]]
* [[History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula]]
* [[The Jewish community of Saada]]
* [[History of Yemen]]
* [[Israel–Yemen relations]]
* [[Human rights in Yemen]]
* [[Religion in Yemen]]
* [[Freedom of religion in Yemen]]
* [[History of the Jews under Muslim rule]]
* [[Antisemitism in Islam]]
* [[Antisemitism in the Arab world]]
* [[Racism in the Arab world]]
* [[Racism in Muslim communities]]
* [[Xenophobia and racism in the Middle East]]
* [[Islamic–Jewish relations]]
* [[Jewish exodus from the Muslim world]]
* [[Kfar Tapuach]] (Apple-village), an [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jewish]] [[Israeli settlement]] which is located in the [[west Bank]] and was founded by Yemenite Jews in 1978
* [[Torah scroll (Yemenite)]]
* [[Yemenite citron]]
* [[Yemenite Hebrew]]
* [[Yemenite Jewish poetry]]
* [[Yemenite Jewish silversmiths]]
* [[Mawza Exile]]
* [[Midrash HaGadol]]
* [[Nathan ben Abraham I]]
* [[Yemenite Children Affair]]
* [[Orphans' Decree]]
* [[Baladi-rite prayer]]
* [[Epistle to Yemen]]
* [[Al-Ousta Codex]]
{{colend}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book|last=Gavra|first=Moshe|title=Surnames of Jews in Yemen (Shemot ha-mishpachah shel ha-yehudim ba-teiman) |year=2014|location=B'nei Brak|publisher=Ha-mekhon le-ḥeker ḥakhamei teiman |page=|language=he|oclc=892488824}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* [[Abraham Zevi Idelsohn|Idelsohn, Abraham Z.]] (1914). ''Thesaurus of Hebrew–Oriental Melodies'', vol. 1 (''Songs of the Yemenite Jews''), by Abraham Z. Idelsohn, Leipzig
* [[Yosef Qafih|Qafih, Yosef]] (1982). ''Halikhot Teiman&nbsp;— The Life of Jews of Sana'a'', [[Ben-Zvi Institute]]: Jerusalem (in Hebrew)
* [[Amram Qorah|Qorah, Amram]] (1988). ''Sa'arat Teiman'', Jerusalem (in Hebrew)
* {{Cite book |last=Lenowitz |first=Harris |title=The Jewish Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights |publisher=Oxford University Press |place=[[New York City|New York]] |year=1998}}
* [[Megillah (Talmud)|Megillah]] (tractate) ([https://archive.org/stream/yemenitemsmegil00pricgoog#page/n4/mode/2up The Yemenite MS]. of [[Megillah (Talmud)|Megillah]] in the Library of [[Columbia University]])
* Parfitt, Tudor (1996) ''The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen 1900–1950''. Brill's Series in Jewish Studies vol. XVII. Leiden: Brill.
* Rohrbacher, Peter (2006). [https://www.academia.edu/8940429/_W%C3%BCstenwanderer_gegen_Wolkenpolitiker_Die_Pressefehde_zwischen_Eduard_Glaser_und_Theodor_Herzl_in_Anzeiger_der_philosophisch-historischen_Klasse_142_Wien_%C3%96sterreichische_Akademie_der_Wissenschaften_2007_103_116 "Wüstenwanderer" gegen "Wolkenpolitiker" – Die Pressefehde zwischen Eduard Glaser und Theodor Herzl] in: Anzeiger der philosophisch-historischen Klasse; 141. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp.&nbsp;103–116.
* Simon, Reeva; Laskier, Michael; Reguer, Sara (eds.) (2002). ''The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa In Modern Times'', Columbia University Press, s.v. Chapters 8 and 21
*{{cite journal |last=Tobi |first=Yosef |author-link=:he:יוסף טובי |title=Information about Yemenite Jews in Arab essays from Yemen (ידיעות על יהודי תימן בחיבורים ערביים מתימן) |journal=Pe'amim: Studies in Oriental Jewry |publisher=Ben-Zvi Institute |volume=64 |year=1995 |pages=68–102 |language=he |jstor=23425355}}
* Verskin, Alan (2018). ''A Vision of Yemen: The Travels of a European Orientalist and His Native Guide''. A Translation of Hayyim Habshush's ''Travelogue.'' Stanford, CA. Stanford University Press
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Jewish people of Yemen}}
* [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=33&letter=Y Jews of Yemen] [[Jewish Encyclopedia]], 1906
* [https://aish.com/history-of-the-jews-of-yemen/ History of the Jews of Yemen] Rabbi Menachem Levine, Aish.com
* [https://www.imj.org.il/he/search/site/%D7%99%D7%97%D7%99%D7%90%20%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%91%D7%99 Yihye Haybi's Collection], now at the [[Israel Museum]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150831225216/http://www.genizah.org/onlineFGP.htm?type=Nachum&lang=eng Geniza Project, the Nahum Collection]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YdZJIo7u7U Television Documentary of Yemen's Jewish Community in 1929] (in Arabic), filmed in Sana'a by Russian film director, Vladimir Shnejderov
* [http://yemenitejews.blogspot.co.il/ Yemenite Jews and Antiquity]
*[https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Yemens-Last-Jews.html#:~:text=%20Yemen%E2%80%99s%20Last%20Jews%20%201%20Under%20Attack.,their%20possessions%20behind%20when%20they%20fled…%20More%20#:~:text=%20Yemen%E2%80%99s%20Last%20Jews%20%201%20Under%20Attack.,their%20possessions%20behind%20when%20they%20fled…%20More%20#:~:text=%20Yemen%E2%80%99s%20Last%20Jews%20%201%20Under%20Attack.,their%20possessions%20behind%20when%20they%20fled…%20More%20 Yemen's Last Jews March 2015] 
*[https://thearabweekly.com/yemen-loses-last-its-jews-israel Yemen loses the Last of its Jews to Israel (Arab Weekly March 2016)]
*[https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5068444,00.html Yet News]
*[https://haifa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/collectionDiscovery?vid=HAU&inst=972HAI_MAIN&collectionId=81198393000002791&lang=en_US Yefet Shlomo Collection] (in Hebrew) on the Digital collections of [[Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library]], University of Haifa
{{Demographics of Yemen}}
{{Arabian Peninsula Jewish tribes}}
{{Asia topic|History of the Jews in}}
{{Jews and Judaism}}

[[Category:Yemenite Jews| ]]
[[Category:Jewish ethnic groups|Jewish ethnic groups]]
[[Category:Mizrahi Jews| Yemenite]]
[[Category:Arabian Jews]]