In February 2009, 10 Yemeni Jews migrated to Israel, and in July 2009, three families, or 16 people in total, followed suit. [114] [115] On October 31, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that in June 2009, an estimated 350 Jews were left in Yemen, and by October 2009, 60 had emigrated to the United States, and 100 were considering following suit. [116] The BBC estimated that the community numbered 370 and was dwindling. [117] In 2010, it was reported that 200 Yemeni Jews would be allowed to immigrate to the United Kingdom. [118] History [ edit ] Ancient history [ edit ] Ring-stone of Yishak bar Hanina with a Torah shrine, 330 BCE – 200 CE, found in Dhofar The Scola Spagnola of Venice was originally regarded as the "mother synagogue" for the Spanish and Portuguese community worldwide, as it was among the earliest to be established, and the first prayer book was published there: later communities, such as Amsterdam, followed its lead on ritual questions. With the decline in the importance of Venice in the 18th century, the leading role passed to Livorno (for Italy and the Mediterranean) and Amsterdam (for western countries). The Livorno synagogue was destroyed in the Second World War: a modern building was erected in 1958–62. Since 1442, when the Kingdom of Naples came under Spanish rule, considerable numbers of Sephardi Jews came to live in Southern Italy. Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, from Portugal in 1495 and from the Kingdom of Naples in 1533, many moved to central and northern Italy. One famous refugee was Isaac Abarbanel. Northern Italy was a location in which Ashkenazi Jews came to establish Italian Jewish food traditions. Another significant aspect of this tradition was observing the religious ways of challah, from its ingredients, to its preparation, to the very moment it is shared amongst those gathered. With that said, the passage of time allowed for the transformation of such traditions to remain in respect to Ashkenazi Jews, while continuing to grow in food tradition and expand throughout Italy. [19] See also [ edit ]

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". [9] 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, [10] and did not reflect a demographic or general cultural shift among the vast majority of Yemenite Jews. Ebreo chi? Sociologia degli ebrei italiani ( Jewish who? A sociology of the Italian Jews today) Ugo G. Pacifici Noja and Giorgio Pacifici eds., with contributions of Umberto Abenaim, Massimiliano Boni, Angelica Edna Calo Livne, Enzo Campelli, Renata Conforty Orvieto, Sergio Della Pergola, Roberto Della Rocca, Anna Foa, Silvia \Maiocchi, Natan Orvieto, Rossana Ottolenghi, Giorgio Pacifici, Ugo G. Pacifici Noja, Vittorio Pavoncello, Gian Stefano Spoto, Claudio Vercelli, with a foreword of Furio Colombo, Jaca Book, Milan, 2017 ISBN 978-88-16-41419-8 This increasingly perilous situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish community between June 1949 and September 1950 in Operation Magic Carpet. During this period, over 50,000 Jews migrated to Israel. The operation began in June 1949 and ended in September 1950. [95] Part of the operation happened during the 1948 Palestine War and it was planned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The plan was for the Jews from all over Yemen to make their way to the Aden area. Specifically, the Jews were to arrive in Hashed Camp and live there until they could be airlifted to Israel. Hashed was an old British military camp in the desert, about a mile away from the city of Sheikh Othman. [96] The operation took longer than was originally planned. Over the course of the operation, hundreds of migrants died in Hashed Camp, as well as on the plane rides to Israel. [95] By September 1950, almost 50,000 Jews had been successfully airlifted to the newly formed state of Israel. [97]Zionist envoy Shmuel Warshawsky (later named Shmuel Yavne'eli) sent to Yemen, and persuades some 2,000 Yemenite Jews to make the aliya to Eretz Israel. [178] The differences between these groups largely concern the respective influence of the original Yemenite tradition, which was largely based on the works of Maimonides, and on the Kabbalistic tradition embodied in the Zohar and in the school of Isaac Luria, which was increasingly influential from the 17th century on.

Rabbi Mazuz postulates this hypothesis through the Djerban ( Tunisia) Jewish dialect's use of gimmel and quf, switching to jimmel and guf when talking with Gentiles in the Arabic dialect of Jerba. While Jewish boys learned Hebrew from the age of 3, it was used primarily as a liturgical and scholarly language. In daily life, Yemenite Jews spoke in regional Judeo-Arabic. Un gran numero di associazioni ebraiche si adoperarono, inoltre, per assistere i profughi e i rifugiati. Il Comitato Congiunto Ebreo-Americano addetto alla distribuzione degli aiuti ai sopravvissuti all'Olocausto fornì cibo e abiti, mentre l'Organizzazione per la Riabilitazione Attraverso il Training Professionale (ORT) offrì corsi gratuiti in diversi campi. I rifugiati inoltre crearono a loro volta diverse organizzazioni e molti si attivarono per la costituzione di uno stato israeliano indipendente in Palestina. The rule of Shafi'i Rasulids which lasted from 1229 to 1474 brought stability to the region. During this period, Jews enjoyed social and economic prosperity. This changed with the rise of the Tahiri dynasty that ruled until the conquest by the Ottoman Empire of Yemen in 1517. A note written in a Jewish manuscript mentions the destruction of the old synagogue in Sana'a in 1457 under the rule of the dynasty's founder Ahmad 'Amir. An important note of the treatment of Jews by Tahirids is found in the colophon of a Jewish manuscript from Yemen in 1505, when the last Tahirid Sultan took Sana'a from the Zaydis. The document describes one kingdom as exploitive and the other as repressive. [48] The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own 18th-century legal interpretations and enforced at the end of that century. It obligated the Zaydi state to take under its protection and to educate in Islamic ways any dhimmi (i.e. non-Muslim) child whose parents had died when he was a minor. The Orphan's Decree was ignored during the Ottoman rule (1872–1918), but was renewed during the period of Imam Yahya (1918–1948). [66] Atzmon, Gil; Hao, Li; Pe'Er, Itsik; Velez, Christopher; Pearlman, Alexander; Palamara, Pier Francesco; Morrow, Bernice; Friedman, Eitan; Oddoux, Carole; Burns, Edward & Ostrer, Harry (2010). "Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry". American Journal of Human Genetics. 86 (6): 850–59. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.04.015. PMC 3032072. PMID 20560205.The medieval pre-expulsion Jews of Southern Italy (the Jews of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily) are often subsumed under the designation of "Italian Jews", and from a geographical point of view this is correct. In truth, however, Southern Italy, divided into the provinces of Sicily and the Catepanate of Italy, belonged to the Byzantine Empire till 1071. Accordingly, the medieval Jewish communities of Southern Italy were linguistically a part of the Yevanic area [4] and as concerns customs and liturgy a part of the Romaniote area. [5] Even after the Byzantine Empire had lost the Southern Italian provinces, the Kehillot in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily maintained connections to their coreligionists in Greece and Constantinople. [6] [7] Nevertheless, Jews in rural areas of Emirate of Sicily and Apulia are known to have made some use of Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Italian languages in addition to Greek. [8] [9] Ashkenazi Jews in Italy [ edit ] The vast majority of Yemenite immigrants counted by the authorities of Mandate Palestine in 1939 had settled in the country prior to that date. Throughout the periods of Ottoman Palestine and Mandatory Palestine, Jews from Yemen had settled primarily in agricultural settlements in the country, namely: Petach Tikvah (Machaneh Yehuda), [82] Rishon Lezion (Shivat Zion), [82] Rehovot (Sha'arayim and Marmorek), [82] Wadi Chanin (later called Ness Ziona), [82] Beer Yaakov, [82] Hadera (Nachliel), [82] Zichron Yaakov, [82] Yavne'el, [82] Gedera, [82] Ben Shemen, [83] Kinneret, [84] Degania [84] and Milhamia. [85] Others chose to live in the urban areas of Jerusalem ( Silwan, and Nachalat Zvi), [85] Jaffa, [85] Tel Aviv ( Kerem Hateimanim), [86] and later, Netanya (Shekhunat Zvi). [87] First wave of emigration: 1881 to 1918 [ edit ] A Yemenite Jewish wedding custom specific only to the community of Aden is the Talbis, revolving around the groom. A number of special songs are sung by the men while holding candles, and the groom is dressed in a golden garment. [194] Religious groups [ edit ] Elderly Yemenite Jew, between 1898 and 1914. Bonfil, Robert, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) (1989) ISBN 0-19-710064-3, ISBN 978-0-19-710064-6