YEMEN: Yemeni jews forced to flee after receiving death threats from radical Islamists

Nearly forty-five Yemeni Jews were forced to flee their homes in Saada region of northern Yemen after receiving death threats from supporters of radical Shi'ite Muslim Cleric Hussein Badr Eddin al-Houthi. Members of Saada's Jewish community say that al-Houthi's supporters have issued them with warnings to leave Saada and have threatened their safety if they remain. "What happened is we came here the day when these rebels and followers of [Hussein Badr Eddin] al-Houthi gave us a warning, which I can show to you (he pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket.) In the letter, they said that all the Jews have to leave and they gave us ten days. There were threats from them and other people, then at night on Monday, four representatives came and said that you are not safe here so we got all of the families together and we came here," said Daoud Youssef Moussa, a Jew, who was forced to flee his home in Saada. "We came to Saada with the help of the Yemeni government and they said that they would protect us. So we agreed and thankfully we are alright," added another Yemeni Jew, Daoud Suleiman. Israel's YNetNews has reported that one letter received by the Yemeni Jewish community says that they have been involved in activities that "serve global Zionism." While the Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported that the threats have led to a meeting between local authorities and religious leaders in Saada. "Honestly, we didn't do anything wrong. We didn't do anything wrong and this is our punishment," said Suleiman Moussa Salem, an elderly Jewish man who was forced to flee his home. The Yemeni authorities have been providing financial compensation to the Jews who have fled in order for them to rent accommodation in safer places. Hassan Mohammed Munaa, the head of the local council of Saada said that tribal and religious leaders have been complaining of the "inappropriate" behaviour of the Jewish community. "They are not the first to complain about the behaviour of the Jews. I have contacted the religious and tribal leaders of the area whose protection the Jews are under -- everyone of course is under the protection of the government -- and they completely refuse the return of the jews because they have made commitments with them several times in the past and they have always broke their commitments," he said. "They have said to them that they should stop their inappropriate behaviour and they always promise that they will but they always return to their past behaviour, this is what they say. I personally, and the Mayor Mazen, we are in contact with the religious leaders of the area to convince them to allow the Jews to return, and they will return," he added. But he did not elaborate or explain what the "inappropriate" behaviour might be. Yemen's Jewish community once gave the country its master silversmiths and half a century ago it was numbered in the tens of thousands. Now Yemen's Jews belong to a dwindling community in this Muslim country. Their workshops in the ancient capital Sanaa have long been abandoned to Muslim traders and there are only a handful of northern towns where they still live. Members of the community say there may be no more than 250 Jews left, but official figures put the number at 600. The Jews, with skullcaps and sidelocks, stand out from their Muslim compatriots. They have a number of small synagogues and schools where children learn Hebrew and study the Torah, the Jewish holy book. Soon after the founding of the Israel in 1948, most of Yemen's estimated 45,000 Jews were airlifted in an operation codenamed "Magic Carpet" to the Jewish state from the southern port city of Aden, then controlled by Britain. Others left to North America and Europe. Jewish communities in the Middle East stretch back over 2,500 years. But anti-Jewish sentiment, fanned by Arab nationalism, swept through the region in the early 1940s and was exacerbated by the establishment of Israel in 1948 and a war in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became the Jewish state. After 1948, conditions deteriorated for Jews in many Arab countries, including property confiscation by Arab governments.

ITN Source | January 25, 2007

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