The father of Moshe Nahari, who was murdered in December, with his daughters outside a court in Yemen following a hearing in the murder case. AFP/Getty Images
A few observations about the slow fade to black of Yemenite Jews:
The Arab Muslim world is only comfortable as a self-contained organism.
The presence of non-Muslims is perceived as an insult, an open sore that must be corrected. Jews are seen as a particularly grievous minority. Thus the oppression of Jews is a religious mandate and creating a Judenrein Ummah—a unified worldwide Muslim Community—is considered a Muslim duty.
Remember, after the Algerian revolution, the 140,000 Jews of Algiers, en masse, were expelled by the Muslim government.
In 1922 there were 80,000 Jews in Egypt. Pogroms, confiscation of bank accounts, property and expulsions from 1942 onward has left the Jewish population at less than one-hundred.
It’s the same story for Jews from Iraq, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon.
Jews are officially barred from stepping on Saudi Arabian soil. Henry Kissinger was given special permission by the House of Saud to enter the Jew-hating kingdom.
Currently, Morocco is home to the largest Jewish Arab population, about 4,000. But growing hostility will most certainly force these remaining Jewish Arabs to emigrate.
Yemen is now Judenrein.
Naturally, the world community could not care less about the Jew hatred that infests the dysfunctional Arab Muslim world. The playbook is simple: make it politically acceptable to dictate where Jews can and cannot live. That is why it is vital that Judea and Samaria—known as The West Bank—never be ceded. For if Judea and Samaria is rendered Judenrein then Brooklyn, London, Paris and Melbourne will be the next targets.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal story:
In his new suburban American home, Shaker Yakub, a Yemeni Jew, folded a large scarf in half, wrapped it around his head and tucked in his spiraling side curls. “This is how I passed for a Muslim,” said the 59-year-old father of seven, improvising a turban that hid his black skullcap.
The ploy enabled Mr. Yakub and half a dozen members of his family to slip undetected out of their native town of Raida, Yemen, and travel to the capital 50 miles to the south. There, they met U.S. State Department officials conducting a clandestine operation to bring some of Yemen’s last remaining Jews to America to escape rising anti-Semitic violence in his country.
In all, about 60 Yemeni Jews have resettled in the U.S. since July; officials say another 100 could still come. There were an estimated 350 in Yemen before the operation began. Some of the remainder may go to Israel and some will stay behind, most in a government enclave.
The secret evacuation of the Yemeni Jews — considered by historians to be one of the oldest of the Jewish diaspora communities — is a sign of America’s growing concern about this Arabian Peninsula land of 23 million.
The operation followed a year of mounting harassment, and was plotted with Jewish relief groups while Washington was signaling alarm about Yemen. In July, Gen. David Petraeus was dispatched to Yemen to encourage President Ali Abdullah Saleh to be more aggressive against al-Qaeda terrorists in the country. Last month, President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to President Saleh that Yemen’s security is vital to the region and the U.S.
Full story here.
And do check out the Wall Street Journal’s slide show on the Jews of Yemen.
The Jewish Writing Project has just reprinted one of my posts about Ariel ZT’L: Remembrance of a Shabbos Past.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
9 Comments
Oddly enough, I was going to offer comment and addendum as to the fact that, in the words of our noble host, this is really “an Islamic religious war.”
I prefer to use the words “civil war” as it includes the Arab/Muslim world and all of their varying vicious philosophies.
Israel, the Jews, the US, and the rest of Dar al Harb, the “House of War” in Islam, are but pimples on the butt of the mass murder of Arab and Muslims massacring each other for the last 100 years or so.
Based on historical precedents of the last 2,000 years, one might take note that “The Wars of the Jews” (Josephus) ended with the utter annihilation of the entire Jewish world and that the “Christian Reformation” ended with Europe bankrupt, destroyed and approximately 1/3 of its population annihilated (including, of course, vast numbers of Jews). Based on these models, this current Arab/Muslim “Reformation” is just beginning in its vicious destructiveness. If it does not change, one could extrapolate billions of deaths and portions of the world left uninhabitable.
IMHO, it would seem to me that those who understand this idea might be able to use their skills of persuasion to offer a different solution to the Arab/Muslim course of self immolation and world wide destruction.
Otherwise, in the short term at any rate, the future looks a tad dismal…
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Ted:
You ask: What are the chances that compensation for these Jews will be on the table as part of the peace process negotiations.
Answer: Zero.
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Jack:
I can always count on you for the, um, unusual anecdote:-)
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Johnny:
Muslims were expelling Jews centuries before the reestablishment of the modern state of Israel. Maimonides, (1135-1204) one of the greatest Jewish philosophers and exegetes was among the Jews in Spain who were given the choice of conversion or exile.
As you know, Muslims have endless excuses for their Jew hatred. But it all comes down to Islam, which is, at the core, a Jew-hating faith.
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Soccer Dad:
I’m waiting for my copy of the Faith and Fate DVD. Tragically, the historical truth of the Arab Israeli conflict—really an Islamic religious war—has long since drowned in universe of blood libels and big lies.
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Great pictures.
What a shame.
What are the chances that compensation for these Jews will be on the table as part of the peace process negotiations.
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No Israeli soldier has been injured by a flying book.
Actually my cousin was struck with a phone book. Don’t think he’ll live that down.
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I’ve said it before. It is right and just that a Jewish state has been established. But it has allowed muslim leaders to expel their Jewish citizens while using the existence of Israel to deflect criticism of their own job performance. It’s a lot easier to blame the Jews for occupying Gaza and the west bank than to accept responsibility for the substandard living conditions in Egypt, Syria etc.
Israel, in a few short years, has created a first world country in the middle of muslim third world tinpot tyrants. There is no reason the muslim countries, with more natural resources, could not emulate Israel except that it’s a lot easier to lob missles at Sderot. Who wants to give a kid a book when they can be handed a brick. No Israeli soldier has been injured by a flying book.
And it is bad enough that Saudi Arabia is allowed to impose restrictions on visitors to their country. But why did we allow the Saudi jet bringing the Crown Prince to Texas to call for a male air traffic controller to guide the plane down? Or restrict booze to U.S servicemen during the first Gulf war when we were defending them?
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We just saw the most recent installment of Faith and Fate that covered Israel’s first 10 years as a nation. Rabbi Wein made very clear the contrast then between the 850,000 Jews who were expelled from their homes and property confiscated and the 750,000 Arabs who left their homes on the promise that they’d return victorious in a few weeks time.
The former group were expelled in a time of peace (or at least calm). The latter group largely left on their own from the theater of war. And it is the latter group who have perpetuated their suffering into unearned sympathy. If the Palestinian had their way, there would be no more Israel. Israel had its way (in the war) and the Palestinians live better than Arabs anywhere else in the world (outside of the ruling classes.)
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