There are not many Jews left in Yemen. In fact, there are not many Jews in any Muslim-dominated country. Despite the fact that they pre-date Muslims in the Middle East, there are very few Jews left in that region, other than Israel. And if Iran’s Ahmadinejad and the Palestinians have their way, Israel would have none either, because it wouldn’t exist.

No matter how much people insist that they are Anti-Zionist not Anti-Semitic, this is just not true. And as much as Muslims claim tolerance of other religions, this too is simply not true, as evidenced by the intolerance, persecution and violence against those of other religions in many Islamic countries. Yemen is an example. According to historians Yemeni Jews are considered to be

one of the oldest remaining Jewish communities in the Arab world. Jews are believed to have reached what is now Yemen more than 2,500 years ago as traders for King Solomon. They survived — and at times thrived — over centuries of change, including the spread of Islam across the Arabian Peninsula.

For the most part they lived peacefully in Yemen for centuries, until 1947 when homes and shops of Jews were destroyed and dozens of Jews were killed as a backlash to the creation of the state of Israel. This was anti-Semitism, not anti-Zionism. So, from 1949 to 1950 most of the Yemeni Jewish population (over 49,000) were sent to Israel to escape the violence. Some 2,000 opted to remain, understandably so, since this had been their home for centuries. Then again in the early 90s another 1,200 or so left, mostly to Israel, after decades of not being allowed to leave the country. Several hundred stayed behind, by choice.

Arthur Hughes, American ambassador to Yemen at the time, recalls that those who chose to remain insisted: “This is where we have been for centuries, we are okay; we’re not going anywhere.”

Fast forward to 2004- persecution of Jews by a rebel Shiite group (Houthis) increased in Saada, one of the 2 remote areas of Yemen where Jews lived.

In 2007 they were threatened by the Houthis,

“We warn you to leave the area immediately... [W]e give you a period of 10 days, or you will regret it,” read a letter signed by a Houthi representative cited in a Reuters article.

So all 60 of the Jews from Saada fled to the capital where President Saleh has been taking care of them since. Meanwhile the Jews in Raida (the last Jewish enclave) remained in relative peace there until December 2008 when a retired air force pilot (Abdul-Aziz al-Abdi) shot a prominent Jew, Moshe Nahari, because he refused to convert to Islam. The violence against Jews escalated when Israel mounted their offensive in Gaza towards the end of December, 2008, with men and children being beaten and pelted with rocks. And even though these were not Israelis or Zionists, these were Jews who wanted to remain in Yemen, they were still harassed and persecuted until they were forced to leave. What I find interesting is that the Jews in Raida lived very similar pious, religious lives as their Muslim neighbours. In fact, Jewish women, like their Muslim sisters, rarely appeared in public and when they did they wore the Niqab (the black robes that cover the whole body except the eyes). If you look at the photo above, you can’t even tell the women are Jewish.

So this year, as a result of continued anti-Semitism, the U.S. state department mounted a clandestine mission to save the Jews of Yemen. Some have been brought to the U.S, some will go to Israel and some will remain under the auspices of the Yemeni government.

It’s ironic that as much as people carp about the Israelis and Zionism, their population increases as a result of anti-Semitism in other countries. If Muslims in Asia and the Middle East could just live in peace with other religions, allowing them to worship as Muslims are freely allowed to worship in western countries most would happily remain in their homelands.