The Jewish Community of Yemen in Jerusalem before World War I

Aliya, Settlement and Relation with Sephardim

Abstract

The aim of the article is to survey Jewish immigration to Palestine (Aliya) from Yemen, Yemenite settlement in Silwan near the old city of Jerusalem, and their separation from the Sephardi rabbinate in Jerusalem. The article relies upon recent studies on this subject written in Hebrew.
The first mass Aliya of Yemenites in 1882 (called 'Aliyat Tarmab according to the Jewish calendar), which was coincident with Bilu's Aliya, that is, the first Zionist Aliya, has been ignored in Zionist's historiography. Recently academic endeavors have been made to explore early history of Yemenites in Jerusalem before World War I, as well as Old Yishuv in general.
Yemenites immigrated to the Holy Land, motivated mainly by the messianic aspirations, but found themselves disappointed in difficult situations in Jerusalem. Most of them remained too poor to find their accommodations. Israel Frumkin (1850-1914), editor of ha-Vatzelet, the second Hebrew magazine in Palestine, gave assistance to poor Yemenite immigrants so as to settle them in an Arab village, Silwan (Shiloah in Jewish history), which had been the main community center of Yemenites until the Arab Revolt of 1936.
When Yemenites immigrated, they were under the patronage of the Sephardi rabbinate which was recognized as the sole Jewish representative, millet, in Jerusalem by the Ottoman authorities. But later they differed with the Sephardi rabbinate on problems such as Haluka (charitable funds from abroad to Palestine) and Balad Askari (Tax for exemption from conscription), finally to separate as de facto independent kolel (a Jewish community in Palestine from a particularcountry or town) from the Sephardi rabbinate in 1908.