 | Yemenite Jews: Encyclopedia II - Yemenite Jews - History of the community
Yemenite Jews - History of the community
Local Yemenite Jewish traditions trace the earliest settlement of Jews in this region back to the time of King Solomon. One legend has it that King Solomon sent Jewish merchant marines to Yemen to prospect for gold and silver with which to adorn the Temple in Jerusalem. Another legend places Jewish craftsmen in the region as requested by Bilqis, the Queen of Saba (Sheba). Interestingly enough, the Beta Israel or Chabashim (Jews in neighboring Ethiopia) have a sister legend of their origins that places the Queen of Sheba as married to King Solomon.
The Sanaite Jews have a legend that their ancestors settled in Yemen forty-two years before the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. It is said that under the prophet Jeremiah some 75,000 Jews, including priests and Levites, travelled to Yemen. The Jews of Habban in southern Yemen have a legend that they are the descendents of Judeans who settled in the area before the destruction of the Second Temple. These Judeans supposedly belonged to a brigade dispatched by King Herod to assist the Roman legions fighting in the region.
Also, another legend states that when Ezra commanded the Jews to return to Jerusalem they disobeyed, whereupon he pronounced a ban upon them. According to this legend, as a punishment for this hasty action Ezra was denied burial in Israel. As a result of this local tradition, which can not be validated historically, 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.
The actual immigration of the majority of Jews into Yemen appears to have taken place about the beginning of the second century C.E., although the province is mentioned neither by Josephus nor by the main books of the Jewish oral law, the Mishnah and Talmud. According to some sources, the Jews of Yemen enjoyed prosperity until the sixth century C.E. In the 3rd century C.E. a Himyarite king named Abu-Kariba Asad-Toban (c. 390 - 420 C.E.) converted to Judaism and was successful in spreading the religion throughout the region. Even more dramatic was the conversion of Abu-Kariba's grandson, Zar'a who reigned from C.E. 518 to 525. Legend ascribes his conversion to his having witnessed a rabbi extinguish a fire worshiped by Arab magi, merely by reading a passage from the Torah over it. After changing his religion, he assumed the name Yusef Ash'ar, but gained notoriety in history by his cognomen Dhu Nuwas.
The Himyaties who ruled at this time had a large number of people who converted to Judaism. Sometime after the 3rd century, the Himyarite ruling family converted to Judaism, making Judaism the ruling religion. Jewish rule lasted until 525 CE, when Christians from Ethiopia took power in Yemen.
Ethiopian rule ended in the 7th century with Muslim conquest. The Muslim conquest changed Jewry in this area forever. Jews went from being equal citizens to dhimmis, second class citizens in Muslim countries who are officially protected under law as believers of a non-Islamic faith. They were required to pay a poll tax, a standard tax for Jews, Christians and other protected peoples in the Muslim world. They did not have much contact with other Jewish communities. Over the years their culture took on similarities to Arab culture, and little is known about this early part of Arab rule in Yemen, but we know the Jewish community was in distress from letters in the Cairo Genizah.
From the 1200s to the 1600s, the hardship of Yemenite Muslim rule was brought to a temporary halt by the Rasulides, a tribe from Africa. In 1547 the Turks took over the region from the Rasulides. This allowed the Jews a chance to have contact with the Kabbalists in Safed, which was a major Jewish center at that time. The Yemenite Jews were also able to have relations with other Jewish communities under Ottoman rule.[1]
Other related archivesAden, Africa, Arab, Arabian peninsula, Babylonian, Baladi, Bar Mitzvah, Beta Israel, Book of Isaiah, Cairo Genizah, Christians, Demographics of Yemen, Dhu Nuwas, Dor Daim, Esther, Ethiopia, Ezra, God, Hanukkah, Hebrew Bible, Hebrew letters, Isaac Luria, Jeremiah, Jerusalem, Jewish exodus from Arab lands, Jewish law, Jews, Josephus, Kabbalah, Kashrut, Kfar Tapuach was founded by Yemenite Jews in the late 1970's, King Herod, Lamentations, List of Jews from the Arab World, Maharitz, Maimonides, Mishnah, Mizrachi Jews, Mizrahi, Muslim, Muslims, Nahmanides, Niddah, Operation "Magic Carpet", Psalms, Queen of Sheba, Rashi, Saadia Gaon, Safed, Saladin, Sana, Sanaani Hebrew, Sephardi Jews, Shabbat, Shami, Shechita, Shiite, Solomon, Standard Hebrew, Syrian, Talmud, Targum, Temple in Jerusalem, Tiberian Hebrew, Torah, Tunisia, Turks, Who is a Jew?, Yemen, Yemenite Hebrew, Zion, Zohar, aliyah, children of Israel, dhimmis, midrash, nineteenth century, pottery, second century, siddur, sixth century, sultan, synagogue, twelfth century
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History of the community", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
