Jews flee homes after Muslim death threats

Jews flee homes after Muslim death threats
Accused of 'serving global Zionism,' paid special taxes for protection

Many of Yemen's Jews this weekend fled their homes for a hotel after receiving death threats from Islamic militants accusing the country's tiny Jewish community of serving as agents for "global Zionism."

The Jews said they feared for their lives. It was disclosed they had been forced to pay special taxes that Islam imposes on Jews and Christians in return for protection and security.

About 45 Jews left their village in Sa'ada county in Yemen after Dawoud Yousuf Mousa, one of the heads of the local Jewish community, was warned Jan. 10 if the Jews don't leave within 10 days they would be exposed to killings, abductions and looting.

Four masked militants approached Mousa and delivered a letter to him warning the Jewish community had been under Islamic surveillance.

"After accurate surveillance over the Jews residing in Al Haid, it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly global Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion," the letter stated.

"Islam calls upon us to fight against the disseminators of decay," the letter said.

The threats have been attributed to disciples of Shiite religious leader Hossein Bader a-Din al-Khouty.

Mousa reportedly told local authorities the militants told him if the Jews don't flee within 10 days "the Jewish community would bear the consequences."

According to a recent Yemeni immigrant to Israel with contacts in Sa'ada, the Jewish community there received another letter Friday warning, "whoever remains at his home, will be killed or his children will be taken away."

Sa'ada's Jewish community had lived in the village for generations.

They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave some of their possessions with local sheiks.

The displaced Jews are staying at a hotel in the center of Sa'ada, where they have been petitioning local authorities for protection. The Yemen Jews say the government has refused to offer assistance other than to temporarily pay for the hotel stays.

The Jews reportedly spoke of long-term Muslim intimidation and of having to pay special taxes because they were Jewish.

Salem Al Wehayshi, Sadaa deputy governor, told the Gulf News agency the Jews are being asked to go home.

"Yes, they received threats from Al Houthi supporters. They are now here in the hotel but I can assure you that the problem will be solved today, and they will return to their villages," Wehayshi said.

The Jewish community in Yemen consists of several hundred members. According to recent immigrants to Israel, the Yemeni Jews don't want to leave their country.

Yemen's Jews have faced persecution since Israel's establishment in 1948. After the declaration of the Jewish state, Muslim rioters killed 81 Jews in Aden, a large Yemeni city, and destroyed many Jewish cities.

Most of Yemen's Jews were evacuated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet, a series of semi-secret airlifts between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 45,000 to the Jewish state with the assistance of Britain and the U.S.

A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue until 1962, when a civil war in Yemen put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus. Several thousand Jews remained.

Then in the early 1990s, after years of petitioning by a group led by a professor at New York's Yeshiva University, most of the rest of Yemen's Jews were brought to Israel, except the few hundred who decided to stay in Yemen.