Gulf | Yemen
Gaza invasion piles on misery on Jewish community in Yemen
Many scared of more violence after teacher's killer gets 'mild' penalty.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 23:03 April 20, 2009
- Image Credit: Bloomberg News
- Awad Haroun Zindani (left) stands with Samah Yousuf and Azri Haroun Zindani, boys from the Yemeni Jewish community near their home in Sana'a, Yemen. Yemen is in danger of losing what's left of its Jewish community.
Sana'a: Yemen is in danger of losing what's left of its Jewish community, which has called the country home for more than 2,500 years and provided its kings for a century.
Growing intimidation and violence are pushing the 300 Jews left in the Arabian Peninsula country to flee to Israel or the US. Four months ago, a gunman shot dead Jewish studies teacher Moshe Yaish Nahari, a father of nine, in the town of Raida, north of the capital of Sana'a.
"If the government doesn't protect us, Jews will be in danger," said Rabbi Yahya Yousuf Mousa, who leads the 65-person Jewish community in Sana'a. The group arrived there two years ago after escaping threats in its home region in northern Yemen.
About 7,000 Jews live in the Middle East outside Israel, down from more than 850,000 before the Jewish state was created in 1948. Yemen, with the third-largest community after Morocco and Tunisia, has become a more hostile place for Jews since Israel's January invasion of the Gaza Strip.
"Because of the deteriorating security situation, the Yemeni Jewish community as opposed to others in the Arab world is in need of making very serious decisions regarding their future," said Yehudit Barsky, a Middle East expert at the American Jewish Committee, a New York-based advocate for Jewish rights. "From a historical perspective, it's a sad situation. They have lived there for so long."
Yemeni Jews say they fear more violence after a Raida court in February ordered Nahari's convicted killer to pay blood money of 5.5 million riyals (Dh100,975), sparing him the death sentence.
"This kind of verdict encourages other people to attack Jews," Rabbi Mousa, 30, said at a guarded compound in Sana'a, where armed security personnel stationed at an entrance barrier checked all vehicles.
The first Jews arrived in Yemen at about the time of the 586BC destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. About 1,000 years later, the Himyari ruling family converted to Judaism; Jewish rule in Yemen lasted until 525AD, when Christians from Ethiopia took over.
Of the more than 50,000 Jews in Yemen in last century, most emigrated in Operation Magic Carpet, in airlifts organised by Israel in 1949-1950 after anti-Jewish riots.
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