History of the Jews in Yemen
The origins of the Jews of Yemen remain
obscure. One local Yemenite Jewish tradition dates the earliest settlement of
Jews in the
The immigration of the
majority of Jews into Yemen Medina
In 518 the kingdom was taken
over by Zar'a Yusuf. He too converted to Judaism, and prosecuted wars to drive
the Aksumite Ethiopians from Arabia . Zar'a Yusuf is chiefly known in history by his
cognomen Dhu Nuwas, in reference to his "curly hair." Jewish rule
lasted until 525 CE (some date it later, to 530), when Christians from the
Aksumite Kingdom of Ethiopia defeated and killed Dhu Nuwas, and took power in Yemen
Islam came to Yemen
The Zaydi enforced a statute
known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own eighth century legal
interpretations and enforced at the end of that century. It obligated the Zaydi
state to take under its protection and to educate in Islamic ways any dhimmi
child whose parents had died when he or she was a minor. The Orphan's Decree
was ignored during the Ottoman rule (1872-1918), but was renewed during the
period of Imam Yahya (1918-1948).
Under the Zaydi rule, the
Jews were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or
a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to
walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher
than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a
donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to
take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by
Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he
had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim
passerby.
The Jews of Yemen had
expertise in a wide range of trades normally avoided by Zaydi Muslims. Trades
such as silver-smithing, blacksmiths, repairing weapons and tools, weaving,
pottery, masonry, carpentry, shoe making, and tailoring were occupations that
were exclusively taken by Jews. The division of labour created a sort of
covenant, based on mutual economic and social dependency, between the Zaydi
Muslim population and the Jews of Yemen. The Muslims produced and supplied
food, and the Jews supplied all manufactured products and services that the
Yemeni farmers needed.
The average Jewish population
of Yemen
One of Yemen's most respected
Jewish scholars, Jacob ben Nathanael al-Fayyumi, wrote for counsel to renowned
Sephardic Jewish theologian, philosopher, and physician from Spain resident in
Egypt, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. Maimonides replied
in an epistle entitled Iggeret Teman (The Yemen Epistle). This letter made a
tremendous impression on Yemenite Jewry. It also served as a source of
strength, consolation and support for the faith in the continuing persecution.
Maimonides himself interceded with Saladin in Egypt
At the beginning of the
nineteenth century the condition of the Jews of Yemen was miserable. They were
under the jurisdiction of the local Muslim Imam, and they were forbidden to
wear new or good clothes, nor might they ride a donkey or a mule. They were compelled
to make long journeys on foot when occasion required it. They were prohibited
from engaging in monetary transactions, and were all craftsmen, being employed
chiefly as carpenters, masons, and smiths.
At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, they are said to have numbered 30,000, and to have lived
principally in Aden Sana desert of Beda
Towards the end of the
nineteenth century new ideas began to reach Yemenite Jews from abroad. Hebrew
newspapers began to arrive, and relations developed with Sephardic Jews, who
came to Yemen
There were two major centres
of population for Jews in southern Arabia besides the
Jews of Northern Yemen, one in Aden
Emigration from Yemen Palestine
In 1947, after the partition
vote of the British Mandate of Palestine, rioters engaged in a bloody pogrom in
Aden Aden
This increasingly perilous
situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish
community between June 1949 and September 1950. During this period, over 50,000
Jews emigrated to Israel
In Yemen Bayt
Harash Raydah 45 mile north of Sana'a.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2012
New Work on the Jewish Himyarite Kingdom of South Arabia
The Fall 2011 publication of the Institute for Advanced Studycontains this piece by Glen Bowersock called "The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia." A quote:
Friends and colleagues alike have reacted with amazement and disbelief when I have told them about the history I have been looking at. In the southwestern part of Arabia, known in antiquity as Himyar and corresponding today approximately with Yemen, the local population converted to Judaism at some point in the late fourth century, and by about 425 a Jewish kingdom had already taken shape. For just over a century after that, its kings ruled, with one brief interruption, over a religious state that was explicitly dedicated to the observance of Judaism and the persecution of its Christian population
My reaction was, what, people don't know about the Himyarites? It's pretty much old news to specialists in late antiquity, early Islamic history, Byzantine history, and the history of Ethiopia. Now, the average man in the street may not fit into any of those categories, but I would have expected the "friends and colleagues" of Professor Bowersock, a distinguished expert on late antiquity, to know the basic outlines. Anyway, this blog has been stuck in the last couple of centuries lately, so the article is an excuse for a digression to provide you some weekend reading. Bowersock is working on a book on the subject, but the linked article is rather brief and introductory. Still, one of my old mentors, Irfan Shahid, did the landmark studies of pre-Islamic Arab relations with Byzantium, including one called The Martyrs of Najran, which relates directly to this subject, so I have an excuse to pontificate though I'm in no way qualified to really talk about the subject. The rest of this post is me, not Bowersock, and may not be how he interprets the period.
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| Arabia and Vicinity 565 AD (Wikipedia) See Link for Creative Commons attribution |
In the centuries immediately before the rise of Islam, the Arabian Peninsula was something of a competitive ground for the great regional powers of the day: the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the Sassanian Empire in Iran, and the somewhat smaller Ethiopian Empire. Two of these, Byzantium and Ethiopia, were Christian (though divided by the Orthodox-"Monophysite" split), and the Sassanians were revivalist Zoroastrians.
In addition, there had long been a series of kingdoms in South Arabia, most famously Saba (as in the Queen of Sheba) and its neighbor and successor Himyar. These spoke a group of Semitic languages more closely related to the languages of Ethiopia than those of northern Arabia, and were sometimes under Ethiopian control. From the fifth century, as noted, Himyar's kings converted to Judaism. It may be that they saw this as a means of counterbalance to their Christian and Zoroastrian great power neighbors, or as a means of proclaiming neutrality; in any event, it was one of the rare instances (like the conversion of the Khazar Kingdom in western Asia centuries later) where a kingdom with no direct connection with Jewish history adopted Judaism as its official faith.
The rest of the Arabian Peninsula outside what we now call Yemen was a zone of regional power competition, with the more powerful neighboring powers cultivating local Arab tribal kingdoms as client or satellite states. Byzantium's client state was the Ghassanid Kingdom, based at Jabiya in the Golan Heights and embracing what is now parts of Syria, Jordan, and northwestern Saudi Arabia. Like their Byzantine patrons, the Ghassanids were Christians, though of the Monophysite variety. To their east, in what is today Iraq and northeastern Saudi Arabia, lay the Lakhmids, based at Hira on the Euphrates in Iraq, a client state of the Sassanians. Though mainly Christian rather than Zoroastrian, they were Nestorian Christians, like most Christians in the Sassanian sphere of influence. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids formed buffer states between Byzantium and Persia and between both of those powers and the nomadic Arab raiders of the peninsula.
The Himyarite Kingdom in South Arabia also had its own client buffer state in the northern part of the peninsula: this was Kinda, which ruled Hadramawt and the Najd, and was usually under Himyarite influemce. (Imr'ul-Qays, the great pre-Islamic poet, was a son of one of the last Kings of Kinda.) Meanwhile the Hijaz, including the caravan cities of Mecca and Yathrib (later Medina), provided the trading corridor among these rival powers, where all the competing political and religious tendencies would be in evidence.
This is the context in which the Jewish Himyarite Kingdomflourished and eventually fell. Leaving aside a lot of history (mostly known from Byzantine, Syriac, Ethiopian, and early Islamic Arab histories, though there are some Old South Arabian inscriptions and coins confirming the basic outlines), Himyar ruled the region in the fifth and sixth centuries AD; the downfall began after the accession of Joseph or Yusuf, known to history as Dhu Nuwas, as King. Some feel he was a usurper of the rightful Himyarite line. In either 518 or 523 (the chronology is confusing) he attacked the towns of Zafar and Najran, largely Christian towns in southwest Arabia under the control of the Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum, killing the Christian population. King Kaleb of Axum, the Ethiopian Negus, went to war against Dhu Nuwas, with a Byzantine Navy providing assistance in an alliance of Christian states against the Jewish Himyarites.
That was the end of the Jewish Kingdom of Himyar; Dhu Nuwas was killed and Himyar came under Axumite rule. Eventually a Christian viceroy of the Axumite King named Abraha made himself ruler; Islamic tradition speaks of a raid he made against Mecca in the "Year of the Elephant" (570 AD or somewhat earlier), said by some to be the year of the Prophet Muhammad's birth. Abraha's successors eventually lost their independence to Persian rule.
With that little glimpse into pre-Islamic late antiquity, enjoy your weekend.
This is the context in which the Jewish Himyarite Kingdomflourished and eventually fell. Leaving aside a lot of history (mostly known from Byzantine, Syriac, Ethiopian, and early Islamic Arab histories, though there are some Old South Arabian inscriptions and coins confirming the basic outlines), Himyar ruled the region in the fifth and sixth centuries AD; the downfall began after the accession of Joseph or Yusuf, known to history as Dhu Nuwas, as King. Some feel he was a usurper of the rightful Himyarite line. In either 518 or 523 (the chronology is confusing) he attacked the towns of Zafar and Najran, largely Christian towns in southwest Arabia under the control of the Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum, killing the Christian population. King Kaleb of Axum, the Ethiopian Negus, went to war against Dhu Nuwas, with a Byzantine Navy providing assistance in an alliance of Christian states against the Jewish Himyarites.
That was the end of the Jewish Kingdom of Himyar; Dhu Nuwas was killed and Himyar came under Axumite rule. Eventually a Christian viceroy of the Axumite King named Abraha made himself ruler; Islamic tradition speaks of a raid he made against Mecca in the "Year of the Elephant" (570 AD or somewhat earlier), said by some to be the year of the Prophet Muhammad's birth. Abraha's successors eventually lost their independence to Persian rule.
With that little glimpse into pre-Islamic late antiquity, enjoy your weekend.
History of the Jews in Yemen
English » Muslims and Jews » Muslims and Jews in History » History of the Jews in Yemen
The origins of the Jews of Yemen remain obscure. One local Yemenite Jewish tradition dates the earliest settlement of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula to the time of King Solomon. Another legend places Jewish craftsmen in the region as requested by Bilqis, the Queen of Saba (Sheba). A more likely explanation is the spice trade: Yemen was a key point on the ancient trade route that brought spices and perfumes from India to Yemen and from there to Greater Syria through the Hijaz from the third century BC to the third century CE. Jewish merchants played an important part in this trade.
The immigration of the majority of Jews into Yemen appears to have taken place about the beginning of the second century. According to some sources, the Jews of Yemen enjoyed prosperity until the sixth century. The Himyarite King, Abu-Karib Asad Toban converted to Judaism at the end of the 5th century, while laying siege to Medina.
In 518 the kingdom was taken over by Zar'a Yusuf. He too converted to Judaism, and prosecuted wars to drive the Aksumite Ethiopians from Arabia. Zar'a Yusuf is chiefly known in history by his cognomen Dhu Nuwas, in reference to his "curly hair." Jewish rule lasted until 525 CE (some date it later, to 530), when Christians from the Aksumite Kingdom of Ethiopia defeated and killed Dhu Nuwas, and took power in Yemen.
Islam came to Yemen around 630, during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime. As Ahl al-Kitab, protected Peoples of the Scriptures, the Jews were assured freedom of religion only in exchange for the jizya, payment of a poll tax imposed on all non-Muslims. Active Muslim persecution of the Jews did not gain full force until the Shiite Zaydi clan seized power from the more tolerant Sunni Muslims early in the 10th century.
The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own eighth century legal interpretations and enforced at the end of that century. It obligated the Zaydi state to take under its protection and to educate in Islamic ways any dhimmi child whose parents had died when he or she was a minor. The Orphan's Decree was ignored during the Ottoman rule (1872-1918), but was renewed during the period of Imam Yahya (1918-1948).
Under the Zaydi rule, the Jews were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby.
The Jews of Yemen had expertise in a wide range of trades normally avoided by Zaydi Muslims. Trades such as silver-smithing, blacksmiths, repairing weapons and tools, weaving, pottery, masonry, carpentry, shoe making, and tailoring were occupations that were exclusively taken by Jews. The division of labour created a sort of covenant, based on mutual economic and social dependency, between the Zaydi Muslim population and the Jews of Yemen. The Muslims produced and supplied food, and the Jews supplied all manufactured products and services that the Yemeni farmers needed.
The average Jewish population of Yemen for the first five centuries is said to have been about 3,000. The Jews were scattered throughout the country, but carried on an extensive commerce and thus succeeded in getting possession of many Jewish books. When Saladin became sultan in the last quarter of the twelfth century and the Shiite Muslims revolted against him, the trials of the Yemenite Jews began. There were few scholars among them at that time, and a putative prophet arose; he preached a syncretic religion that combined Judaism and Islam, and claimed that the Bible foretold his coming.
One of Yemen's most respected Jewish scholars, Jacob ben Nathanael al-Fayyumi, wrote for counsel to renowned Sephardic Jewish theologian, philosopher, and physician from Spain resident in Egypt, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. Maimonides replied in an epistle entitled Iggeret Teman (The Yemen Epistle). This letter made a tremendous impression on Yemenite Jewry. It also served as a source of strength, consolation and support for the faith in the continuing persecution. Maimonides himself interceded with Saladin in Egypt, and shortly thereafter the persecution came to an end.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the condition of the Jews of Yemen was miserable. They were under the jurisdiction of the local Muslim Imam, and they were forbidden to wear new or good clothes, nor might they ride a donkey or a mule. They were compelled to make long journeys on foot when occasion required it. They were prohibited from engaging in monetary transactions, and were all craftsmen, being employed chiefly as carpenters, masons, and smiths.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they are said to have numbered 30,000, and to have lived principally in Aden (200), Sana (10,000), Sada (1,000), Dhamar (1,000), and the desert of Beda (2,000). The chief occupations of the Yemenite Jews were as artisans, including gold-, silver- and blacksmiths in the San'a area, and coffee merchants in the south central highland areas.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century new ideas began to reach Yemenite Jews from abroad. Hebrew newspapers began to arrive, and relations developed with Sephardic Jews, who came to Yemen from various Ottoman provinces to trade with the army and government officials.
There were two major centres of population for Jews in southern Arabia besides the Jews of Northern Yemen, one in Aden and the other in Hadramaut. The Jews of Aden lived in and around the city, and flourished during the British protectorate. The Jews of Hadramaut lived a much more isolated life, and the community was not known to the outside world until the early 1900s. In the early 20th century they had numbered about 50,000; they currently number only a few hundred individuals and reside largely in Sa'dah and Rada'a.
Emigration from Yemen to Palestine began in 1881 and continued almost without interruption until 1914. It was during this time that about 10% of the Yemenite Jews left.
In 1947, after the partition vote of the British Mandate of Palestine, rioters engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. Aden's Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. Early in 1948, the unfounded accusation of the ritual murder of two girls led to looting.
This increasingly perilous situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish community between June 1949 and September 1950. During this period, over 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.
In Yemen itself, there exists today a small Jewish community in the town of Bayt Harash. A small Jewish enclave also exists in the town of Raydah, which lies approximately 45 mile north of Sana'a.
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