HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF ADEN

The Jews of Aden are those Jews who were born in, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Aden, on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, bordering in Hadramaut—akin to Biblical Chatzar-Mavet. Aden is a seaport on the Red Sea, previously belonging to Great Britain. The Jews here must have been among the earliest settlers. Some five hundred years ago, the great Rabbi Obadiah of Bartinuro wrote that there had come to Jerusalem "Jews from the land of Eden . . . They are not much acquainted with the Talmud, but only with Rabbi Alfasi and Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon". Virtually the entire population emigrated from Aden between June 1947 and September 1967. Most now live in Israel, with some others in the United Kingdom, and fewer elsewhere.

Jews are certain to have appeared in Aden in 200 CE, and although the Jewish community seems to have eluded thorough historical documenting, a letter yet remains, "sent by a Jewish merchant from Aden in South Arabia to Cairo about 850 years ago. In this letter he asks his business correspondent in Cairo to buy for him all kinds of goods for the needs of his household." The Cairo Genizah (discovered in 1896) contains amazing letters from this period of the sages which reveal connections between these two communities. Some of the letters were sent by the heads of rabbinical academies to the Adeni and other communities seeking financial support for there institutions. Digs at Bet She’arim in Israel provide proof that Jews were settled in Aden and Yemen during the mishnaic period (second and third centuries CE). A hall was discovered there containing tombs of the Jews from Yemen. These Jews had been brought from Himyar for burial in the holy land. Tombstones were also found in Jewish cemeteries in Aden, dating as far back as the 12th century.

In the 10th century relations between the Jews of Yemen-Aden and of Babylonia became closer as evidenced by the formers adoption of upper pointing, (sometimes called Babylonian pointing, in which the vocal marks are placed above instead of below the line as is the case today.) Although this did not last long they retained this practice even after books began to be printed. Adeni Jewry possessed Saadia Gaon’s translations into Arabic of the torah and the five megilloth. The prayers and liturgies composed by the Babylonian sages, such as the “Hosha’not” for Sukkoth , which is contained in Saadia Gaon’s prayer book, were adopted by the Aden Jews and have been retained by them ever since. In one of the cairo documents there appear instructions from Madmon Ben Yafter Ben Bendar, the ruler of Yemen and himself from Aden, to Halfon Ben Nethaniel Halevi from Fustat in Egypt, which indicates that already in the tenth century there was a small Jewish settlement in Aden. From 1083-1173 Aden was ruled by an Arab dynasty called the Zura’ites. From this time onwards Aden served as an important community centre and became crucial as a port from the commercial sea lanes between the Mediterranean sea, India and further into the far east. The Jews became heavily involved in international trade and as a result they were able to support generously the yeshivoth of Babylonia, Egypt and the Land of Israel. From the 10th to the thirteenth centuries Aden was the centre of Yemeni Jewish life. The “Yemeni governors” or the “ministers of the communities” sat in Aden and from there led the entire community. Their influence spread as far as Persia and Babylonia and throughout the Arabian Peninsula as far as the Hijaz in the north and Hadramout in the east.

For hundreds of years, until 1947 the 8,550-strong Jewish community in Aden, despite some underlying resentment from the Arabs, lived in relative tranquility.

Before the last World War there were seven synagogues in Aden, and the Jewish population numbered several thousand.

In 1858 the Grand synagogue of Aden called the “Shield of Avraham” or “al-Milama’l-kabira” was built. It was large enough to house over 2000 worshippers.

A yeshiva called “Torah ve Hamitzvah” was also built next to the synagogue. The “shulchan Aruch”, zohar, “tikkun Hatzot”, psalms, “the law of Israel” and “Ein Ya’akov” (composed by Ya’akov Havib) was studied at the yeshiva.

While the great synagogue was the hub of the Jewish community, several smaller synagogues also existed. Most notable among these were the al-Farhi synagogue, which house the highly venerated Al-farhi torah scroll and the synagogue of “Shemuel Nissim” which served as the Talmud Torah for boys until the early 1940’s.

Another Synagogue was referred to as “Mi’lamat Hanokh”. It was established in Aden by a man named Moshe Hanokh Halevi. He had emigrated to Aden and made his livelihood by the importation of sacred books from Europe.

On the eve of rosh Hashanah in 1924 a new synagogue named “Sukkat Shalom”, popularly known as “Mialamat Silim”, was inaugurated and celebrations continued into the night.

There never was a Hebrew printing press in Yemen, with the exception of Aden, and all the thousands of holy books, used by the Jews there were handwritten.

The main Adeni synagogue in London was given the same name as the book “Nahalat Yosef. (1906) This book was written by Rabbi Shmuel Ben Yosef, grandson of the third dayan of the Aden rabbinical court Mori Yeshu’ah. This book covers all the religious practices of the Aden Jewish Community since the conclusions of the Jerusalem Talmud in the 5th Century CE.

Midrash ha-Gadol written by David bar Amram al-Adani in 13th century is a compilation of aggadic midrashim on the Pentateuch taken from the two Talmuds and earlier Midrashim. In addition, it borrows quotations from the Targums and Kabbalistic writings , and in this aspect is unique among the various midrashic collections.

The British Empire began to expand into the Middle East during the mid nineteenth century, and the Jews of Aden fared considerably better under the Aden Protectorate than under Muslim rule, which attracted Jewish immigrants from the rest of Yemen. After 1838, there were roughly 5,000 Jews in the city of Aden itself, and some 2,000 in the rest of what would become the Aden protectorate.

In 1928 A Jewish Agency establishes office in Aden. In the following years there were rare, religiously motivated, outbreaks of violence, and a relatively small riot in 1932. In 1933 Anti-Jewish attacks occurred in Aden, with many Jews stoned and stabbed by Arab rioters. These outbreaks of violence were of minor significance when compared to the terror unleashed three days after the 1947 UN vote on the partition of Palestine when the lives of the Adani were irreparably shattered. The protests in Aden erupted into unrestrained bloody violence against the Jews, triggered by the false accusation of Jews for the murder of two local girls.

The pogrom that erupted on December 2, 1947, was devastating -- 82 Jews were murdered and 76 wounded; 106 out of the 170 existing Jewish shops in Aden were robbed bare and eight were partially emptied. Four synagogues were "burnt to the ground" and 220 Jewish houses were burned and looted or damaged. The Selim Girl's School in 1929 which was located next to King George V Jewish Boys School and was also gutted in the 1947 riots.

With no British troops in Aden at that particular time the Jewish community felt some relief when they heard that the Aden Protectorate Levies were to be bought in to protect them. But the Levies, being Arab Muslims, were seen to turn a blind eye to the violence and themselves fired indiscriminately on the Jews, killing many.

The final destruction of the community took place in 1967, shortly after the six day war and after Aden had received independence from the British (Aden had been ceded to the British since 1839). Murder, looting, new destruction to the synagogues-Jews were finally evacuated with the help of the British, when they discovered the Arabs were planning to massacre what remained of the Jewish community. The Jewry of Aden became virtually "the community that was."

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