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The Jewish Community in 19thCentury Yemen
In the 1970s, a new generation of scholarsconcerned with the history and culture of the Jews of the Muslimworld in the modern period began to be integrated into institutionsof higher learning in Israel. While the essential historicalnarrative of the dominant Ashkenazi communities was already wellestablished, relatively little was known of the modern history ofJews from the Arab world, nor was this history considered to be ofany great importance in the Israeli curriculum. As ethnicity becameincreasingly politicized in Israel in the 1970s, this attitude beganto change. Scholars, often of "Oriental" background, sought toincorporate into the national education the broad outlines of ahistory that could serve to legitimate the growing politicalimportance of communities that had felt and still feel discriminatedagainst by the Ashkenazi establishment.
These preliminary remarks, I believe, arenecessary for placing The Jews of the Yemen, 1800-1914 byProfessor Yehuda Nini in perspective. This translation of theoriginal 1982 edition in Hebrew from a 1976 doctoral dissertation, isone of a few pioneering scholarly works from the 1970s on the historyof Yemenite Jewry./1 No attempt was made to update the originaledition nor consider revisions in light of more recent scholarship.The translation is much too literal, and does not read like it wasdone by a native English speaker. The problematic syntax and awkwardlanguage of the translation is further hampered by the numeroustypographical errors. The many allusions to different regions andtowns in Yemen are confusing and could have been helped by theinclusion of a map. There is a great deal of parochial knowledge, butthe reader is not given a clear general picture of the relationshipof state and society, nor of the social structure of tribes, whichare of critical importance for understanding the relationship betweenthe Jewish community and the Muslim authorities&emdash;the centralfocus of the book. It is unfortunate that the editor chose not to payattention to these deficiencies.
Part of the problem lies not only in thetranslation, but also in the original Hebrew edition. The manyquotations from the original sources seem to blur together with theauthor's own turgid narrative. This stylistic difficulty points tothe major problem with the original work. The author is unable toseparate himself from his original sources, and much like thenineteenth century texts he is quoting, frequently passes judgment onthe moral and spiritual standards of the community. This creates arather odd semblance of a modern historical study combined with amoralizing tract, reminiscent of what one might expect to find in an"enlightened" rabbinical portrait of a community.
It is perhaps unfair to judge the author'slack of analysis, of an either comparative or theoretical nature,against the standards of scholaraly works for other parts of theworld where the essential historical narrative is already known. Niniis the first of a generation to provide a learned account of themajor events affecting the Yemenite Jewish community. A briefintroductory chapter on "Muslim Yemen," is followed by the largestchapter of the book, entitled "The Jews of the Yemen and Sanaaagainst the background of political events in the nineteenth andearly twentieth centuries." This chapter contains a somewhatfragmented chronological listing of "events" that were clearly deemedas important by the Yemenite community. Within this outline ofpolitical events, specific themes are treated, often with unduerepetition, in the following chapters: institutions and leadership ofthe community, messianic movements, relations between Yemenite Jewsand Jewish communities in other countries, and the migration toPalestine. In view of the paucity of the sources, and theirparticular literary and religious characteristics, the author devotesmuch attention to discussing the authenticity and reliability of histexts in an attempt to correct some of the conclusions drawn from thesame sources by other authors.
The book is primarily a political andreligious study of the Jewish community, conforming to what iscommonly referred to as the "lachrymose" tradition in Jewishhistoriography. A successive chain of incidents of persecution anddistress (drought, famine, and poverty), are seen as leading to aresurgence of messianic expectations, and inspiring Jews to migrateto Palestine. The Yemenite emigration to the Holy Land began almostsimultaneously with the Eastern European Biluists, but the authoralso underscores the difference between the two movements: "the 1881Yemenite immigration was characteristic of unorganized distressimmigration [sic] without distinct ideology, apart from vaguetheories about the Holy Land. But this distress immigration, emergingfrom the black night of exile, created its own poetic force becauseof its ability to detach itself from its country of birth and putdown deep roots elsewhere (p. 190)." By placing emphasis onpersecution that culminated in emigration to the Land of Israel,Yemenite Jewish history, with its particularistic messianicyearnings, is represented as a legitimate part of Zionist history.The teleological framework of the book is revealed in the title ofthe original 1982 Hebrew edition that was published by the WorldZionist Organization: Yemen and Zion: the Political, Social, andSpiritual Background to the First Waves of Emigrants from Yemen,1801-1914. /2
The essential contours of the historicalnarrative are the following: The beginning of the nineteenth centuryspelled the end to a period of political stability for the Shi'iteZaydi state. Coinciding with the spread of the Wahhabi movement, theZaydi imams were barely able to extend their authority beyond Sanaa,while much of Yemen was ruled by independent forces. In 1818, Sanaawas put under siege and plundered, gravely affecting the Jewishcommunity. The political disorder and the British occupation of Adenin 1839 resulted in heightened messianic expectations in the Jewishcommunity. The increasing inability of the Zaydi state to rule,marked by the frequent overthrow of imams, subjected the Jews (aswell as the general population)&emdash;especially of Sanaa&emdash;toconstant persecution and caused the community to scatter throughoutYemen. The first apocalyptic figure, Shukr Kuhayl appeared in 1859when "Sanaa's cup of bitterness was full" (p. 138), while the secondappeared in 1863./3 From 1872, the Ottomans succeeded in takingcontrol of Yemen, and Ottoman rule (referred to curiously as "liberalbut decadent," p. xi) was at first welcomed by the Jews but proved tobe exacting, as corrupt Ottoman walis arbitrarily exploited theJewish community, such as forcing the community to mill grain forsoldiers. Increasingly the institutions of the Jewish community, suchas the Rabbinical Court (Beit Din), were undermined as werethe moral standards, and hardships increased messianic expectations(the third apocalyptic figure, Yosef 'Eved ha-El, appeared in the1890s) and the appeal for emigration to Palestine. Throughemissaries, merchants, and connections with the growing Jewishcommunity under British rule in Aden, Yemenite Jews increased theircontacts with their coreligionists abroad, raising false expectationsthat powerful Jewish notables and philanthropic organizations such asthe Alliance Israélite Universelle, the British Board ofDeputies, and the Anglo-Jewish Association, were capable of effectingchange in the status of the Jewish community in Yemen.
For each phase in Yemen's history, Nini seesa worsening of Jewish status and a decline in moral and spiritualstandards, yet for the reader it is hard to distinguish between theperiods since the whole narrative in linked by what appears to beconstant oppression. Two abusive edicts especially are emphasized:one that ordered the forcible conversion of Jewish orphans to Islam,and the second, the "decree of the dung-gatherers," that compelledthe Jews to clear the dung and sewage from the streets and pathwaysof Sanaa and perhaps other surrounding communities. The authorasserts unconvincingly that these two decrees, that plagued theJewish community throughout the nineteenth century, "gradually sappedthe strength of the community and were eventually to cause itsdisintegration (p. 26)." Another major cause of tension for theJewish community was the role of some Jews in minting coins for theZaydi rulers, which often put them in the middle of politicalintrigues and exposed the Jewish community as a whole to considerabledanger.
The period of Ottoman rule in Yemen raisessome interesting questions about the position and status of the Jewsin the Ottoman Empire. Nini describes how the Tanzimat reforms wereimplemented in Yemen. In conformity with the reform of the OttomanJewish community, a hahambasi was appointed (the president ofthe rabbinical court of Sanaa, Rabbi Sulayman al-Qareh). In thelanguage of the Tanzimat decrees, civic notions of equality wereintroduced. Nini does not mention that the status and terminology ofdhimm£ status were formally abolished. The capitation tax(jizya), required of ahl al-dhimma, was eliminated, andin its place, a military substitution tax was paid (bedel-iaskeri). But according to the author, the Jews continued to payjizya and to be regarded as dhimmi. Did this mean thatthe central Ottoman authorities considered it inopportune to disruptthe social order by fully implementing the reforms effected elsewherein the Ottoman Empire? To what degree was Ottoman policy created on alocal level? Was it because of the relative absence of foreigners inYemen that the Ottoman government felt little pressure to implementchanges that may have adversely affected their ability to rule? Suchquestions are highly relevant both for understanding the position ofthe Jewish community of Yemen in this period and the relationship ofthe Ottoman government to the periphery regions in the last period ofthe empire.
Ottoman rule both formalized the position ofthe autonomous Jewish millet, yet in theory weakened theauthority of the self-governing institutions by its appointments ofhahambasis and its introduction of notions of Ottoman civilstatus. The result in Yemen, or at least in Sanaa and those regionsunder direct Ottoman control, was the weakening of the jurisdictionof the Jewish court, to such an extent that by 1902, it had ceased tofunction. Prior to the Ottoman period, the institutions of the Jewishcommunity were tenuous and their functions were not clearly defined.According to Nini, the rabbinical court of Sanaa exercisedconsiderable moral authority over all of Yemen. Its decisions,however, were sometimes challenged by the Sanaa yeshiva (notan academy of religious instruction as elsewhere), that also passedjudgment on religious issues and sometimes came into conflict withthe Rabbinical Court. In smaller communities throughout Yemen, Jewishauthority was centered in the mori, an individual whoperformed numerous religious functions.
This structure of the community, at least inSanaa, was considerably undermined by Ottoman rule. With thedeclining influence and ultimate eclipse of the rabbinical court,Jews began going to "gentile" courts, and finally, the revolt of theImam Yahya ibn Muhammad Hamid al-Din that devastated Sanaa in 1905put an end to the court. The author does not clarify if the demise ofthe Sanaa court meant that local courts elsewhere in Yemen, mentionedbriefly by the author, ceased to function. What the end of theBeit Din in Sanaa implied for rabbinical and halakhicauthority in the diverse communities in Yemen, which seems to be theimportant question, is not discussed. Perhaps the nature of theavailable sources circumscribes the kinds of questions asked, butthis should have at least been acknowledged by the author. At timesit is unclear if the author is speaking about all of Yemen or justSanaa, but what is sure is that the reader has a more completepicture for the community of Sanaa than for the rest of thecountry.
The "veil of tears" approach to the Jewishhistory of the Diaspora pursued by Nini, is a reflection of Jewishliterature and religious thinking from time immemorial, but one canalso deduce from reading this book that for the most part Jews weregiven a large measure of autonomy to run their own communities(though with some change in the Ottoman period), were able to movefrom place to place, and especially outside Sanaa, were protected bythe Muslims in a network of patron-client relations. Nini's studygives us little sense of the day to day interaction with the Muslimpopulation and the degree to which Yemenite Jewish culture was also areflection of the wider cultural milieu of the Yemenite Muslimcommunity. The realities of Muslim-Jewish coexistence are subsumed inthe theme of persecution and visions of the apocalypse.
The translation of this erudite history ofYemenite Jews in the nineteenth century can serve to point futureresearchers in the direction of a more analytical study of thehistorical experience of the Jewish communities of Yemen.
1 The same year of thedissertation, another study on 19th century Yemenite Jewry waspublished by Yosef Tobi, The Jews of Yemen in the 19th Century (TelAviv: Afikim, 1976) [in Hebrew]. Nini does not refer to thiswork in either the Hebrew nor English edition of his book.
2 A less precise Englishtranslation of this title is given in the book: Yemen and Zion:The Jews of Yemen, 1801-1914; A Political and Social Study oftheir Emigration to Palestine. The settlement of Yemenite Jews inPalestine has been thoroughly investigated by Nitza Driyan,Without a Magic Carpet: Yemenite Settlement in Eretz Israel(1881-1914) (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1981) [inHebrew].
3 These messianic movements havebeen studied in depth in a recent book by Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman,The Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of aMessianic Community (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993)