Religious traditions [ edit ] 1914 photograph of a Yemenite Jew in traditional vestments under the tallit gadol, reading from a scroll Yemenite Jews and the Aramaic speaking Kurdish Jews [181] 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. In the Yemenite tradition, each person called to the 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. Byzantine emperor Justin I sent a fleet to Yemen and Joseph Dhu Nuwas was killed in battle in 525 CE. [35] The persecutions ceased, and the western coast of Yemen became a tributary state until Himyarite nobility (also Jews) managed to regain power. [36] Popular mythology [ edit ]

The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own 18th-century legal interpretations and enforced at the end of that century. It obligated the Zaydi state to take under its protection and to educate in Islamic ways any dhimmi (i.e. non-Muslim) child whose parents had died when he 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). [66] 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 Esther (the Scroll of Esther read on Purim). Unlike Ashkenazic communities, there are melodies for Mishle (Proverbs) and Psalms. [182] 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 [161] 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. [191]Con la creazione dello Stato di Israele, nel maggio del 1948, i profughi e i rifugiati ebrei si trasferirono in massa nel nuovo stato. Si stima che da lì al 1953 ben 170.000 profughi e rifugiati ebrei siano emigrati in Israele. Further information: Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen) Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries: Yemenite Jews en route from Aden to Israel on "wings of eagles". Yemenite Jews at a Tu Bishvat celebration, Ma'abarat Rosh HaAyin, 1950 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. [102]

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 had imposed limitations and a special tax on land held by Jews and Christians of Najran. In the mid-11th century, Jews from a number of communities in the Yemen highlands, including Sana'a, appear to have been attracted to the Sulayhids' capital of Dhu Jibla. [49] 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. [50] 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, 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." [206] The earliest complete Judeo-Arabic copy of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, copied in Yemen in 1380, was found in the India Office Library and added to the collection of the British Library in 1992. [207] Section of Yemenite Siddur, with Babylonian supralinear punctuation (Pirke Avot) Ferrara degli Uberti, Carlotta, "Making Italian Jews: Family, Gender, Religion and the Nation 1861–1918, Palgrave MacMillan (London) 2017. Sephardi Jews, in particular Spanish and Portuguese Jews, i.e., Jews who arrived in Italy following their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. The Kingdom of Spain expelled Jews with the 1492 Alhambra Decree and the persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal led to their forced conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1497, at which time many Iberian Jews immigrated to Italy. In addition, in 1533, Iberian Sephardi Jews were forced out of the Spanish territory/colony in Italy known as the Kingdom of Naples and began migrating to other parts of the Italian peninsula. These groups also include anusim, crypto-Jewish families who left Iberia in subsequent centuries and reverted to Judaism in Italy, as well as immigration by Sephardi families which had lived in the Eastern Mediterranean following expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula before coming to Italy.Italian Jewish Musical Traditions from the Leo Levi Collection (1954–1961) (Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel, 14, edited by Francesco Spagnolo): contains examples of Italian liturgical music from the Italiani/Bené Romi, Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions Yemenite Jews were acquainted with the works of Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Kimhi, Nahmanides, 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, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Abraham ben Solomon wrote on the Prophets.

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. [173] [174]In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Italian Jews (mostly but not exclusively from the Spanish and Portuguese group) maintained a trading and residential presence in both Italy and countries in the Ottoman Empire: even those who settled permanently in the Ottoman Empire retained their Tuscan or other Italian nationality, so as to have the benefit of the Ottoman Capitulations. Thus in Tunisia there was a community of Juifs Portugais, or L'Grana (Livornese), separate from, and regarding itself as superior to, the native Tunisian Jews ( Tuansa). Smaller communities of the same kind existed in other countries, such as Syria, where they were known as Señores Francos, though they generally were not numerous enough to establish their own synagogues, instead meeting for prayer in each other's houses. European countries often appointed Jews from these communities as their consular representatives in Ottoman cities. 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 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 marry him, but had been forced to convert to Islam as well. [108] The Houthis directly threatened the Jewish community in 2007, prompting the government of President Saleh to offer them refuge in Sanaʽa. As of 2010 [update], around 700 Jews were living in the capital under government protection. [109]

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. [104] 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. Yomtob Sémach, an envoy from the Alliance Israélite Universelle, scouts out the possibility of opening a school in Yemen. [177] The Shami Jews (from Arabic ash-Sham, the north, referring to Greater 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. [196] [197] The "local rabbinic leadership resisted the new versions... Nevertheless, the new prayer books were widely accepted." [197] As part of that process, the Shami accepted the Zohar and modified their rites to accommodate the usages of the Ari to the maximum extent. The text of the Shami siddur now largely follows the Sephardic tradition, though the pronunciation, chant and customs are still Yemenite in flavour. They generally base their legal rulings both on the Rambam (Maimonides) and on the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law). In their interpretation of Jewish law, Shami Yemenite Jews were strongly influenced by 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. [198]

Conferma con la tua e-mail.

A Tunic ( Hebrew: חלוק) and habit ( Hebrew: סודרא), the latter made with a central hat ( Hebrew: כומתא), were the traditional items of clothing worn by a married Jewish man in Yemen. [209] [210] 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: Dopo la liberazione, molti tra i sopravvissuti ebrei erano molto spaventati all'idea di ritornare alle proprie case, sia a causa dell'antisemitismo (cioè l'odio contro gli Ebrei) che ancora imperava in molte parti d'Europa, sia per i traumi subiti in quegli anni. Alcuni di quelli che decisero di tornare a casa si trovarono, infatti, a temere per la propria vita. Nella Polonia del dopoguerra, per esempio, avvennero alcuni pogrom (violente manifestazioni contro gli Ebrei), il più grande dei quali ebbe luogo a Kielce, nel 1946, quando i manifestanti polacchi uccisero almeno 42 Ebrei e ne picchiarono molti altri.