Yemenite Jews - Early History

Early History

The Jewish presence in Yemen is old and it is subject to many conflicting stories. One legend suggests that King Solomon sent Jewish merchant marines to Yemen to prospect for gold and silver with which to adorn the Temple in Jerusalem In 1881, the French vice consulate in Yemen wrote to the leaders of the Alliance in France, that he read a book of the Arab historian Abu-Alfada, that the Jews of Yemen settled in the area in 1451 BC Another legend says that Yemeni tribes converted to Judaism after the Queen of Sheba's visit to king Solomon The Sanaite Jews have a legend that their ancestors settled in Yemen forty-two years before the destruction of the First Temple. It is said that under the prophet Jeremiah some 75,000 Jews, including priests and Levites, traveled to Yemen. Another legend states that when Ezra commanded the Jews to return to Jerusalem they disobeyed, whereupon he pronounced a ban upon them. According to this legend, as a punishment for this hasty action Ezra was denied burial in Israel. As a result of this local tradition, which can not be validated historically, it is said that no Jew of Yemen gives the name of Ezra to a child, although all other Biblical appellatives are used. The Yemenite Jews claim that Ezra cursed them to be a poor people for not heeding his call. This seems to have come true in the eyes of some Yemenites, as Yemen is extremely poor. However, some Yemenite sages in Israel today emphatically reject this story as myth, if not outright blasphemy.

These are merely legend with minimal archaeological evidence to support. Archaeological records referring to Judaism in Yemen started to appear during the rule of Himyarite Kingdom The Himyarite Kings were mainly Christians as the kings converted to Christianity in the 4th century. an inscription dates back to this era refers to Jesus as the son of "rahman" (literary means the most merciful) after the name of a himyarite king called "shurhabil Yakuf" (Shurab - El) Nevertheless, evidence of a strong Jewish presence is proven by inscriptions. One inscription in Old south Arabian script mentions "rahman" as the God of Jews saying:"brk / wtbrk / sm / rḥmnn / dbsmyn / wyśr’l / w’lhhmw / rbyhd / dhrd’ / ‘bdhmw / šhrm " its translation can be read as :"May the name of the Merciful who is Heaven be blessed and praised, and Israel and their God, the Lord of the Jews, who helped his servant Shahrum" Another inscriptions found saying " Rahman Rab Yahud" (Rahman the god of Jews) during the rule of Dhu Nuwas (literary means the one with hair-locks) A number of Yemeni tribes were mentioned along the tribe of Himyar as being followers of this "Rahman". Those tribes were kindah, hamdan, Mazhaj, Khawlan, and Murad and were engaged in a military campaign led by Dhu Nuwas against the Christian tribes of Najran, Hadhramaut, Azd, and Banu Harith The reason behind their conversion to Judaism was political since they feared that the Kingdom of Aksum started to get powerful and already controlling the western parts of Yemen with the help of local Christian tribes in ancient Yemen The Himyarite kings started harboring Jewish refugees from the Roman persecution and started persecuting Christians themselves an inscription found in Zafar referring to a massacre committed by the Jewish king, 13,000 Christian were killed and 9,500 were taking captives Another massacre occurred in Najran where 12,500 were killed and 11,000 were taking captives The captives were taken to a "groove" in Najran and burned alive according to post Islamic tales. While the inscriptions support the historicity of the massacres, no references to a "groove" or a burning The Quran mentions this event in Surat al-Buruj. Nothing suggest that the tribes remained Jewish after the killing of Dhu Nuwas or "Yusuf Azar Yatha'ar" (literary means Joseph "Azar" avenge) as mentioned in the inscriptions, after the Byzantium king Justinian I sent a flee to aid the Christian tribes