Yemenite Jews

Yemenite Jews or Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from יהודי תימן Yehudei Teman; اليهود اليمنيون) are those Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of the country's Jewish population immigrated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. After several waves of persecution throughout Yemen, the vast majority of Yemenite Jews now live in Israel, while smaller communities live in the United States and elsewhere. Only a handful remain in Yemen. The few remaining Jews experience intense, and at times violent, anti-Semitism on a daily basis. Yemenite Jews observe a unique religious tradition that distinguishes them from Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, and 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". Yemenite Jews fall within the "Mizrahi" (eastern) category of Jews, though they differ from other Mizrahi Jews who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to Sephardic liturgy and custom. While the Shami sub-group of Yemenite Jews did adopt a Sephardic-influenced rite, this was mostly due to it being forced upon them, and did not reflect a demographic or general cultural shift among the vast majority of Yemenite Jews. Records referring to Judaism in Yemen started to appear during the rule of the Himyarite Kingdom, established in Yemen in 110 BCE. Various inscription in Musnad script in the second century CE refer to constructions of synagogues approved by Himyarite Kings. In the aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba revolt, there was significant Jewish emigration from Judea to Yemen, which was then famous in the Greco-Roman world for its prosperous trade, particularly in spices. The Christian missionary, Theophilos, who came to Yemen in the mid-fourth century, complained that he had found great numbers of Jews. By 380 CE, Himyarites religious practices had undergone fundamental changes.

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Yemenite Jews