The Yemenite Jews

The Mawza Exile[4], which took place in 1679 under Al-Mahdi Ahmad's authority, saw the mass expulsion of Jews from all throughout Yemen to the far-off province of Mawza. As a result, many Jews perished from malnutrition and illness. Up to two-thirds of the Jews who were banished perished. Numerous synagogues were demolished or turned into mosques, and their homes and belongings were taken. At the close of the 18th century, the Zaydis implemented a law known as the Orphan's Decree. It required the Zaydi state to protect and educate any Dhimmi child whose parents had passed away when he was a juvenile in an Islamic manner. During the Ottoman era (1872–1918), the Orphan's Decree was disregarded; nevertheless, it was revived under Imam Yahya (1918–1948). Jews were prohibited from touching Muslims or their food because they were viewed as impure. They had to move to the left, greet a Muslim first, and humble themselves in front of him. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels or construct homes higher than those of Muslims. A Jew was required to remove his shoes and walk barefoot when entering the Muslim district. Jews were prohibited from fighting Muslims if they assaulted them.

Yemenite Jews were mostly living in Sanaa (about 7,000), Sa'dah (about 1,000), Dhamar (1,000), Aden (200), the desert of Beda (2,000), Manakhah (3,000), and other locations around the start of the nineteenth century. Nearly all of them lived in the plateau's interior. In Yemen, they had 371 villages. Yemenite Jews were primarily artisans, such as coffee merchants in the south-central highland regions and gold, silver, and blacksmiths in the San'a region.

There were three waves of Jewish Yemeni emigration to Israel: from 1881 to 1918, from 1920 to 1950 and from 1990 to 2016. The majority of Yemenite immigrants had established their homes in Petach Tikvah, Rishon Lezion, Rehovot, Wadi Chanin (later called Ness Ziona), Be'er Ya'akov, Hadera (Nachliel), Zichron Yaakov, Yavne'el, Gedera, Ben Shemen, Kinneret, Degania, and Milhamia. Others decide to reside in the cities of Tel Aviv (Kerem Hateimanim), Jerusalem (Silwan and Nachalat Zvi), Jaffa, and eventually Netanya (Shekhunat Zvi)[5].

Up to 1,033 children of Yemenite immigrant families may have vanished from the camps between 1949 and 1951. After the parents were informed that their children were sick and needed to be admitted to the hospital, the children passed away. The parents learned later that some children had been abducted and placed with non-Yemenite families for adoption. In 2001 a seven-year public inquiry commission was unable to discover what happened. In the Yemenite Jewish children's case, 400,000 documents[6] were made public in 2016. "They took the children and gave them away," Cabinet Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said to Israeli TV after re-examining information presented to a committee of inquiry in the late 1990s. I'm not sure where, but "At least "hundreds" of youngsters were taken without their parents' permission, the minister said. Haaretz published a draft report on the affair in December 2021.

The Baladi, Shami, and Maimonideans, also known as "Rambamists"[7], are the three major Yemenite Jewish communities. The original Yemenite tradition, which was primarily based on the writings of Maimonides, and the Kabbalistic tradition represented in the Zohar and in the school of Isaac Luria, which became more and more influential starting in the 17th century, are the main causes of the differences between these groups:

The Baladi Jews: They often adhere to the legal decisions made by the Rambam (Maimonides) and recorded in his book, the Mishneh Torah.
The Shami Jews are those who adhere to rabbinic authority and the Sephardic/Mizrahi ritual.
The "Rambamists" are devout adherents of Maimonides' compilation of Talmudic law. They seek to uphold the Baladi tradition in its purest form. The Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah are typically completely rejected by them. They believe that they are merely adhering to the oldest Torah preservation, which was documented in the Mishneh Torah based on their research.

The connection between Teman and divine revelation comes from a poetic verse in the Book of Habakkuk (3:3), which states: "God comes from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran." While the Torah didn't start in Yemen, Yemenite Jews (Teimanim) are world-renowned for having preserved the most meticulous and unaltered version of the Torah text and its ancient pronunciation. Yemenite scrolls traditionally use geviel, a distinct dark brown leather processed with salt, flour, and wasp-pomegranate paste. They house the scroll in an ornate, multi-sided wooden case that stands upright during reading. They strictly maintain the ancient Talmudic custom of reading each verse aloud in Hebrew, followed immediately by a second reader translating it into the Aramaic Targum[8].

Operation Magic Carpet: Read about the massive airlift of nearly 49,000 Yemenite Jews between late 1948 and September 1950 via the Jewish Virtual Library Operational Record.
Himyarite Inscriptions & Roman-Era Roots: Access comprehensive geological-historical charts mapping out the Red Sea trade route expansion, Semitic tribal integration, and the ancient capital of Zafar via the OpenStax World History Textbook Portal.
The Conversion of Abu Karib: Review the historical timeline surrounding King Abu Karib As'ad's 4th-century conversion to Judaism, which turned it into a prominent state religion in Southern Arabia, on the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) Focus Project Briefing.
The Mawza Exile & Orphan's Decree: For a thorough academic analysis of the 1679 expulsion to the Red Sea coast, the destruction of synagogues, and the legal implementation of the Orphan's Decree under Imam Yahya, you can consult peer-reviewed studies on the Cambridge University Press Academic Archive.
Early Agricultural and Urban Settlement Sites: Read historical profiles detailing how early Yemenite pioneers established and integrated into neighborhoods like Kerem HaTeimanim in Tel Aviv, Silwan in Jerusalem, and agricultural colonies like Rehovot and Petah Tikva via the World Jewish Congress Community Profiles.
Declassification of 400,000 Documents: Read about the 2016 executive decision to open, digitize, and publish hundreds of thousands of state files regarding the missing toddlers via the Times of Israel State Archives Database Launch. You can also explore how independent researchers and families analyzed these scanned dossiers on the Jewish Review of Books Analytical Retrospective.
Baladi, Shami, and Rambamists: To study the distinct legal divergence between the original text-based Baladi tradition, the Kabbalah-influenced Shami liturgies, and the strict anti-Kabbalistic Rambamist factions, you can review the extensive community studies hosted on the Jewish Virtual Library Yemenite Heritage Archive.
Aramaic Targum Custom: Access detailed liturgical studies describing the mandatory, verse-by-verse public recitation of the Hebrew text followed immediately by the Aramaic translation via the Sotheby's Historic Judaica Curatorial Logs.