Josh Berer, 24, invites Rachael Strecher, 23, to taste Camel’s milk, a Yemeni delicacy.
Seraphic Secret has been writing about the Jews of Yemen for quite a while. An ancient Jewish community, The Jews of Yemen have long been oppressed by their government and their Muslim neighbors.
Soon, Yemen, like the rest of the Arab Muslim world—except for Morocco’s 2,000 Jews—will be Judenrein, forcibly cleansed of Jews.
Here’s the story of two young Jews who have been documenting the last of the Yemeni Jews and remarkably—because no other media outlet has reported on this—inform us that Jew-hatred spews from public loudspeakers on a daily basis.
Think of it, there are just a 67 Jews left in Yemen, yet the Mosques and the government blame Jews for all their troubles.
Hey, I have a fab-u-lous idea, let’s ethnically cleanse Judea and Samaria of Jews and create yet one more dysfunctional radical Islamist state built on pathological Jew-hatred.
They also encountered the strange paradox of living in a place where, they found, the Yemenis as individuals were utterly hospitable and open — even “goofy,” Strecher said — but where antisemitism was rife; where Berer said he often felt “like a criminal, like a fugitive”; where they had to hide the fact that they were Jews.
The experience was not dissimilar from how the Yemeni Jews themselves interacted with their society.
“People who knew them thought of them as the ‘good Jews’,” Strecher said. “But the idea of Jews was repulsive to the general public. I’m not exaggerating. Every week, you heard on the loudspeakers about how the Jews were the cause of all evil, the root of everybody’s problem.”
Partly as a reaction — as a form of “defiance,” as they put it — the two found themselves embracing their Jewish identities as they never had before.
Full story by Gal Beckerman here.
And here’s a lovely and poignant slide show by Rachael Strecher.
The Jews of Sana’a from Jewish Forward on Vimeo.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
3 Comments
Did someone say steel-toed boots?!!!!
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Earl:
Thanks so much for your articulate comment. You have identified what I believe lies at the core of Western Jew-hatred—Islamic Jew-hatred has a religious sanction piled on top of culturally jealousy.
George Gilder, a brilliant thinker, has just published a book called The Israel Test that makes this exact case.
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/capitalism-jewish-achievement-and-the-israel-test
Great book.
Tell you what. Send me a photo of your steel-toed boots and I’ll publish it in Friday Footwear.
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I never did GET why Jews were so reviled by so many people. When I was 18 (25 years ago) I knew people who claimed to be as ideologically sound as you could imagine, yet…
Lately, talking to Tanya, my beloved girlfriend, and Michael, the young bloke I work with, it all fell into place. I’m a bit embarrassed that it took so long to hit me, but here it is.
No group of people in the world have punched above their weight like the Jews have. Science, technology, culture, you’ll find them there. Rock and roll, the cornerstone of my life, would never have been heard without Jewish entrepreneurs running the record labels. Let alone, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, etc. Albert Einstein and so many other people I know too little about.
It’s just jealousy, angry jealousy. “Why should the Jews have everything?” Because they’ve worked for it. Despite a storm of tyrannic proportions that has rained upon them forever, they work hard, they create, they gift us with so much of great value, they do not run violent autocracies, they don’t start ruinous wars.
Hey, note here that I’m of Irish blood, we only start ruinous wars amongst ourselves!
I dig your writing, Robert, discovered your blog when searching for info on Colleen Moore, dig your pix that’ve re-opened my eyes to colour and texture. I don’t expect that Friday Footwear will ever feature beat-up steel-toed workboots, hey? I’d have to start my own blog for that.
Warm regards to you, Karen and all your family.
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