"...the Jews in Yemen are Arabs."

By John Ballard

Things you might never know without Twitter include this article found by Blake Hounshell.

...the Jews in Yemen are Arabs. Their native language is Arabic, and their dress, food and gender norms are culturally indistinguishable from �normal� Yemeni Muslims. They are the ones who have stayed when almost all their brethren left, for the most part for Israel. And most remain determined to stay: Yemen is their home, and the thought of having to reinvent themselves in America or Israel is daunting and unappealing to them. Their identity is that of Arabs, and they speak of Zionism and Zionist organizations with disdain. Centuries of sparse contact with the wider Jewish world has deepened this identity, and they view even the Ashkenazic, anti-Zionist Satmar Hasidim who come to court them with deep suspicion.

In fact, nearly 10 of them have studied in Israel, some for two years or longer, and have chosen to return to Yemen rather than stay in Israel.

The families of this community are particularly concerned about their children losing touch with their heritage and religious tradition, should they emigrate. Those who have gone to Israel and returned have told tales of scantily clad Israeli women, men without peyes who do not pray and the disintegration of traditional Yemeni Jewish life. Faced with a multitude of options in Israel, children are no longer bound to the Jewish community by default, and the retention rate within the community plummets. From this perspective, Yemen is a vastly more pious country, where the children will be raised with a strong and comprehensive Jewish education � in the distinctive Yemeni way.

Many involved in the process of bringing Jews to Israel, learning lessons from earlier Yemini immigration waves, took these concerns into consideration and offered the Yemenis placement in Orthodox communities and religious-education options for their children. Despite those offers, the holdouts still refuse to leave their homeland.

Still, no degree of fervor or love of country can delay the inevitable, and given their numbers, it is within our lifetime that this ancient community will disappear.

In this far-flung and forgotten corner of the map, the perseverance of the last Arab Jews dimly flickers. It is a land with an ancient Jewish presence that

was once ruled by a Jewish king � Yusuf Dhu Nuwas in the sixth century. Many tribes back then converted to Judaism, and even today there are tribes, long Muslim now, whose members are nevertheless aware of their descent from Jewish forbears.

Prior to the 1950s, Yemen had more than 50,000 Jews spread throughout the country, but with the creation of the State of Israel, the vast majority left, in a legendary operation known as Magic Carpet. Several thousand remained until the early 1990s, until they, too, left for Israel. Now, only a few hundred remain. Besides the 67 refugees from Sa�ada now living in the capital, fewer than 200 live in a small village called Raida, roughly two hours north of Sana�a. It was in Raida that a Jew named Moshe Yaish al-Nahari was murdered one year ago, gunned down in the street outside his home. His murder sparked a new exodus of Jews from the country.

In other news, Jotman links to a maritime  incident involving a Japanese whaling vessel slicing through a smaller craft protesting illegal whaling. Jotman posts two dramatic videos, one made from the deck of the whaler, the other from a nearby vantage point in the ocean. ABC has the story, so with dramatic video it will probably make the TV news.