“If any of thine that are dispersed be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee. And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.” (Deuteronomy 30:4-5)
In a complex covert mission on Wednesday, The Jewish Agency, along with the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Absorption, brought 17 Yemenite Jews home to Israel from across two continents, reuniting a divided family.
Anti-semitism is on the rise in Yemen, with several serious incidents having occurred in the past five years. In 2008, schoolteacher Moshe Nahari was attacked and killed for refusing to convert to Islam, and in 2012, community leader Aaron Zindani was stabbed to death in a market. As recently as this past January, the Yemenite Jewish community reported an assault on one of its members, Yosef Anati, who was hospitalized with serious injuries. Extremist Muslims, including those with Al-Qaeda affiliations, present an ongoing threat to the small Yemenite Jewish community of roughly 100 people.
The widows and orphans of Nahari and Zindani subsequently moved to Israel, the latter’s body being brought with for burial in the Jewish state. All told, some 150 Jews from Yemen have made aliyah in the past five years, according to the Jewish Agency.
Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky said, “Tonight we are privileged to engage in a mission that combined the saving of lives, the reunification of a family and immigration to Israel.
“Behind the scenes of this operation lies the dedication and expertise of the Jewish Agency and our partner organizations who all contributed to the mission’s success.
“The Jewish Agency stands at the ready to bring any Yemeni Jew who expresses interest in making aliyah to Israel, and to help the local community in any way possible.”
The story of Wednesday’s operation began two years ago, with a group of Satmar Hassidim. The Satmar community is anti-Zionist, and works to prevent Jews from moving to Israel, while still trying to provide for their safety and well-being. As a result, the movement has successfully convinced several groups of Yemenite Jews to flee the danger in their homes and move to new communities across the globe as refugees. Initially told they would move to the UK, a group of 30 Yemenite Jews left Yemen in August of 2011. When they were refused entry to the UK, they were brought instead to Argentina. Among the 30 were ten children, members of the extended Karni family. They had not seen their parents in the past two years.
Without informing the Satmar Hassidim who brought them to Argentina, the Jewish Agency brought twelve of them, including the ten children, to Israel, where they were reunited with their parents, arriving directly from Yemen. The children are all cousins, six of them the offspring of Yahia Karni and four the children of his brother, Haim. The 17 new Israelis will be settled in an absorption center in the country’s southern region.
Most Jews left Yemen for Israel in Operation Wings of Eagles (also known as Operation Magic Carpet), between June 1949 and September 1950. They were forced to leave their possessions and wealth behind, and forbidden from returning to Yemen, even to seek out family left there. The small remaining community is divided between the cities of Rayda and Sanaa.
