Jewish Population
1948: 55,000 | 2024: 4²⁶

Map of Jewish communities in Yemen prior to immigration to the British Mandate of Palestine and Israel

In 1922, the government of Yemen reintroduced an ancient Islamic law requiring that Jewish orphans under age 12 be forcibly converted to Islam.

Operation Magic Carpet

In 1947, after the partition vote, Muslim rioters, joined by the local police force, engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden that killed 82 Jews and destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes. Aden’s Jewish community was economically paralyzed, as most of the Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed. Early in 1948, the false accusation of the ritual murder of two girls led to looting.²

This increasingly perilous situation led to the emigration of virtually the entire Yemenite Jewish community - almost 50,000 - between June 1949 and September 1950 in Operation “Magic Carpet.” A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue into 1962, when a civil war put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus.

Until 1976, when an American diplomat came across a small Jewish community in a remote region of northern Yemen, it was believed the Yemenite Jewish community was extinct. As a result, the plight of Yemenite Jews went unrecognized by the outside world.

Immigrants from Yemen celebrating their first “Tu Bishvat” in Israel, at the “Rosh Ha’Ayin” camp.

It turned out some people stayed behind during Operation “Magic Carpet” because family members did not want to leave sick or elderly relatives behind. These Jews were forbidden from emigrating and not allowed to contact relatives abroad. They were isolated and trapped, scattered throughout the mountainous regions in northern Yemen and lacking food, clothing, medical care and religious articles. As a result, some Yemenite Jews abandoned their faith and converted to Islam.

For a short time, Jewish organizations were allowed to travel openly within Yemen, distributing Hebrew books and materials to the Jewish community.³

For many years, Jews were the only indigenous religious minority besides a small number of Christians, Hindus and Baha’is. The small community that remains in the northern area of Yemen is tolerated and allowed to practice Judaism; however, its members are still treated as second-class citizens and cannot serve in the army or be elected to political positions. Jews are traditionally restricted to living in one section of a city or village and are often confined to a limited choice of employment, usually farming or handicrafts. Jews may, and do, own property.⁴

Family walking through the desert to a reception camp near Aden.	Abraham b. Abraham Yitzhak Halevi, Sana’a, ca. 1940	Children in Sana’a (ca. 1909)
Yemenite Torah scrolls	Youth in Sana’a grinding coffee grains on millstone	Jews of Maswar, 1902
Family reading from the Psalms on Shabbat	Yemenites in Jerusalem	Elders studying in synagogue in Ottoman Palestine (ca 1906-1918)

A communal structure ceased to exist. Yemenite Jews have little social interaction with their Muslim neighbors and are largely prevented from communicating with world Jewry. It is believed that for a time there were two synagogues functioning in Saiqaya and in Amlah.

Religious life has not changed much in Jewish dietary laws, Jews are not allowed to eat meals with Muslims. Also, marriage is absolutely forbidden outside of the religion.

At the end of the 20th century, about 400 Jews have immigrated to Israel, despite the official ban on emigration.⁵

^{Decline Accelerates}

The State Department reported that in mid-2000 “the Government suspended its policy of allowing Yemeni-origin Israeli passport holders to travel to Yemen on laissez-passer documents. However, Yemeni, Israeli, and other Jews may travel freely to and within Yemen on non-Israeli passports.”⁶

In January 2001, the ruling “General People’s Party” placed a Yemeni Jewish citizen on the slate for parliamentary elections for the first time. The candidate, Ibrahim Ezer, was reportedly recommended by President Ali Abdallah Salah as a gesture to the incoming Bush administration in a bid to receive economic aid for Yemen. The General Election Committee subsequently rejected Ezer’s application on grounds that a candidate must be the child of two Muslim parents. Political analysts speculated that the true reason was a desire not to establish a precedent of allowing a Jew to run for office.⁷

In 2008, in response to multiple violent attacks on Jewish citizens, including the murder of Rabbi Moshe Yaish Nahara’i by an Islamist radical, President Salah planned to relocate the Jewish community members from the Amran district and the city of Raidah to the capital, Sana’a. Once there, each Jewish family would receive a plot of land and join the community of around 50 Jews already transferred to the capital city in 2007. In Sana’a, the Jews faced less danger of attack from their Muslim neighbors as the government maintains law and order.⁸

In 2009, also in response to the heightened threat to the Jewish community from Islamist radicals, the United Jewish Communities, the US State Department, local federations, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society began working together to implement the evacuation of close to half of the remaining Jewish population in Yemen. 110 Yemenite Jews were scheduled to be evacuated over the course of two weeks in March 2009. The expense of absorbing the immigrants would be $800,000 that would go towards resettlement costs including food, housing, and social-service programs.⁹

In 2009, Yemeni authorities moved 70 Jews from northern Yemen to a compound in Sana’a, openly admitting they could not protect them elsewhere; and the Yemeni Jews did not have the means to earn a living in their new homes. On May 22, 2012, Aaron Zindani, a Jewish Yemeni man, was stabbed to death in the capital city of Saana, and his friend believes Al-Qaeda may have been behind the attack.¹⁰

^{Jews Become Victims of Civil War}

In October 2015, the Yemeni government handed down an ultimatum to the tiny Jewish community: convert to Islam or leave. Yemen’s Jews sought out asylum in Israel and the United States due to the country’s ongoing war with Houthi rebel tribes. The Houthi are an Iranian-backed tribe named after the radical Shia preacher Hussein Bedreddin al-Houthi.

The government ultimatum stated that they would not be able to protect the Yemeni Jews if they remained in the country as Jews.¹¹ The U.S. and Britain, countries that have historically helped Yemeni Jews and facilitated bringing groups of them to Israel, closed their embassies in Yemen in early November 2015. Yemeni Jews have suffered terribly during the country’s civil war and are almost oppressed by the Houthi leadership. Houthis are forcing the last Jews in Yemen to fight in their civil war against Saudi Arabian forces, often on the front lines.

Nineteen of the last remaining Jews in Yemen were airlifted to Israel on March 21, 2016, by the Jewish Agency. The secret operation, which rescued all but approximately 50 Yemeni Jews, had been in planning for more than a year and included coordination with the U.S. State Department. The remaining Jews refused to leave, even though transportation to Israel was offered. Jewish Agency chair Natan Sharansky excitedly stated, “From Operation Magic Carpet in 1949 until the present day, the Jewish Agency has helped bring Yemenite Jewry home to Israel. Today we bring that historic mission to a close. This chapter in the history of one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities is coming to an end, but Yemenite Jewry’s unique, 2,000-year-old contribution to the Jewish people will continue in the State of Israel.”¹²

A Jewish man, Rabbi Yahia Youssef Yaish, was arrested by the Yemeni government the following week for helping the group smuggle a historic and culturally significant Torah scroll out of the country. The rabbi, along with a Muslim airport worker, were arrested after authorities learned of the operation through news media. The Yemeni government contests that the Torah is government property and does not belong to the Jewish community.¹³

According to the State Department, approximately 50 Jews remained in 2019, concentrated in Sana’a and Raydah.¹⁴ Asharq Al-Awsat reported that members of the Jewish community said no more than 33 Jews remained, most of whom reside near the U.S. embassy in Sana’a.¹⁵ Jewish community members reported their declining numbers made it difficult to sustain their religious practices. The Houthis have given the remaining Yemeni Jews a choice of imprisonment or emigration. One Jew said, “There is nothing left in Amran except for an old woman who takes care of her brother who has lost his mind, while there are three others in Arhab district.”

Prior to the Houthi invasion of Amran, Jews coexisted with the Muslim population. Jews worked in iron workshops, carpentry and auto repair. Starting in mid-2004, however, the Houthis began to systematically target Jews and Yemen experienced the first wave of their forced internal displacement.

The Last Jews

The remaining Jews reportedly plan to immigrate to Abu Dhabi following the announcement on August 13, 2020, that Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize diplomatic ties. A Yemeni rabbi said 100 Jews remained and they all planned to move to the UAE, which agreed to accept them at the request of the United States.¹⁶

According to Yemeni publications published in July 2020, the last two Jewish families were waiting for deportation from the areas controlled by the Houthis, which would make Yemen, for the first time in its modern history, devoid of Jews, with the exception of the families of the brothers Suleiman Musa Salem and Sulaiman Yahya Habib in Sana’a and the family of Salem Musa Mara’bi who moved to the complex owned by the Ministry of Defense near the U.S. embassy in 2007 after the Houthis assaulted them and looted their homes. The publications said that a Jewish woman lives with her brother in the Rayda district and a man and his wife live in the Arhab district of the Sana’a governorate.

A source said, “It is now clear that the Houthis want to deport the rest of the Jews, and prevent them from selling their properties at their real prices, and we are surprised that the international community and local and international human rights organizations have remained silent towards the process of forced deportation and forcing the Jews to leave their country and prevent them from disposing of their property.”¹⁷

On November 10, 2020, the U.S. State Department called for the immediate and unconditional release of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi. A press statement said Marhabi has been wrongfully detained by the Houthi militia for four years, despite a court ordering his release in September 2019.¹⁸

In March 2021, the Houthis expelled 13 Jews from one family. They were relocated to Egypt. One official said they had not been forced to leave but had reached an agreement to do so with the Houthis after not being allowed to join other Yemeni Jews who went to the UAE.¹⁹

As of April 2021, the Houthis continue to illegally imprison Marhabi, who has been tortured for allegedly helping to smuggle a Torah scroll to Israel.²⁰

The 2020 State Department report on human rights practices in Yemen:

Use of anti-Semitic language was increasingly prevalent throughout the year. The Houthi movement adopted anti-Semitic slogans, including “death to Israel, a curse on the Jews.” Anti-Israel rhetoric often blurred into anti-Semitic propaganda. The Houthis propagated such materials and slogans throughout the year, including adding anti-Israel slogans and extremist rhetoric into the elementary education curriculum and books.

“At the end of the day, you have this movement whose anti-Semitism is genocidal, in a place where practically no Jews exist any more and neither Jews nor the Jewish state have any influence,” said Marcus Sheff, CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. “Yet, you have this outsized obsessional hatred toward them.”²¹

On a happier note, Rabbi Dr. Elie Abadie, Chair of the American Sephardi Federation’s Council of Sephardic Sages, worked with the UAE to reunite two Jewish families in Abu Dhabi who had been separated for 21 years.²²

The UN released a report on Yemen in 2022 that “documented the systematic persecution of Jews in Houthi-controlled areas,” finding that “[m]ost of Jewish population left Yemen after several years of persecution, which started under former President Ali Abdullah Saleh but intensified under the Houthis.”

The report said seven Jews remained in Yemen, including Levi Marhabi,” who was imprisoned by Houthi rebels in 2016 and has not been released despite an order to do so in July 2019.²³

On June 13, 2024, Yahya ben Yosef, one of Yemen's last Jews, passed away and was buried by his Muslim neighbors in the village of Madar, north of Sana'a, due to the absence of Jewish community members able to perform the burial. The news was shared in a Facebook group for Yemenite Jews. The Yemenite community highlighted this event as an example of humanity and compassion transcending religious boundaries. Ben Yosef had family in Israel. Sources familiar with ben Yosef's life and story said that in the past, he refused to immigrate to Israel, but later in life had reconsidered. However, the process was delayed on Israel's end.²⁴

The current number of Jews remaining in Yemen remains critically low. Estimates suggest there are between one and seven individuals left. Yahya’s passing marks a somber milestone in the history of Yemeni Jews, highlighting the near extinction of a once-flourishing community.²⁵

Doda Badra, the widow of Yahya Ben Youssef, one of the last remaining Jews in Yemen, has left the country following her husband’s death from cholera in June 2024. Despite declining earlier offers to emigrate, her deteriorating health and pressure from family abroad prompted her departure. Yahya, known for his deep love of Yemen, was buried by his Muslim neighbors in the absence of a local Jewish community. According to journalist Ali Ibrahim Al-Moshki, only four Jews now remain in Yemen, one of whom has been detained since 2015 for allegedly smuggling a Torah scroll to Israel.²⁶

Sources:
¹Melissa Weiss, “New U.N. report highlights Houthis’ ‘systematic persecution’ of Yemeni Jews,” JewishInsider, (February 2, 2022).
²Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), pp. 397-98; Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, (Tel Aviv: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, 1977), pp. 32-33; Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, (NY: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), p. 498.
³Jerusalem Post, (February 15, 1992); Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (February 26, 1992).
⁴ Jewish Communities of the World; U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997.
⁵ Jewish Communities of the World.
⁶ U.S. Department of State, 2001 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, Released by the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Washington, DC, (October 26, 2001).
⁷Jerusalem Post, (January 30, 2001).
⁸Haaretz. (December 18, 2008).
⁹Jerusalem Post, (March 18, 2009).
¹⁰ Gabe Kahn, “Yemeni Jew Murdered in Sana’a,” Israel National News, May 22, 2012.
¹¹ Ruthie Blum. “Druze-Israeli deputy minister says Yemen told Jews to leave or convert to Islam,” Algemeiner, (October 11, 2015).
¹² Ilan Ben-Zion, “17 Yemenite Jews secretly airlifted to Israel in end to ‘historic mission’,” Times of Israel, (March 21, 2016).
¹³ “Report: Yemen imprisons two for helping smuggle out Torah,” Jerusalem Post, (March 25, 2016).
¹⁴U.S. State Department International Religious Freedom Report for 2019, U.S. State Department, (June 10, 2020).
¹⁵Asharq al-Awsat,, (July 16, 2020).
¹⁶Yoni Weiss, “Report: Yemen’s Remaining Jews to Move to UAE Following Israel Treaty,” Hamodia, (August 16, 2020).
¹⁷“Will Yemen become, for the first time in history, free of Jews ... Al-Houthi pushes the last of the Jewish families to leave,” Yemen News, (July 27, 2020); “Deportation of the last Jewish families from militia-controlled areas,” Aden Times, (July 27, 2020).
¹⁸“Wrongful Detention by the Houthis of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi,” Press Statement, U.S. State Department, (November 10, 2020).
¹⁹Aaron Boxerman, “As 13 Yemeni Jews leave pro-Iran region for Cairo, community of 50,000 down to 6,” Times of Israel, (March 30, 2021).
²⁰Sephardi World Weekly, (April 11, 2021).
²¹David Ian Klein, “In Yemen, antisemitism is rampant even though few Jews actually live there,” Forward, (April 14, 2021).
²² @HSajwanization.
²³Melissa Weiss, “New U.N. report highlights Houthis’ ‘systematic persecution’ of Yemeni Jews,” JewishInsider, (February 2, 2022).
²⁴“One of Yemen's last Jews laid to rest by his Muslim neighbors - report,” Jerusalem Post, (July 16, 2024).
²⁵ Fuad Al-Qrize - Yemeni Writer.
²⁶“Lior Ben Ari, “One of Yemen’s last remaining Jews leaves country following husband’s death, report says,” Ynet, (June 12, 2025).

Map: Noahedits, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photos: Tu Bishvat - Zoltan Kluger, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Going to Aden - Zoltan Kluger, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Halevi - Yihye Haybi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Children - Hermann Burchardt (1857-1909), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Scrolls - Davidbena, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Grinding coffee - Carl Rathjens (Life time: 1887 - 1966), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Maswar - Hermann Burchardt(Life time: 1857 – 1909), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Psalms - Zoltan Kluger, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Jerusaelm - Adler, Elkan Nathan, 1861-1946, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Studying - Ephraim Moses Lilien (Life time: 1874–1925), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Jews in Islamic Countries: Yemen