Secret Mission Brings Yemen's Jews to Israel

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• published: 21 Mar 2016
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In the midst of the bloody war in the country, 17 Yemenite Jews landed in Israel last night. They were rescued in a complicated operation, which was conducted by the Jewish Agency and made possible by the US State Department. The group of Yemenite Jews was transferred to a 3rd country from which they arrived in Israel. Last night (Sunday), a group of Yemenite Jews arrived in Israel. The 17 Yemenite Jews were rescued from the deadly civil war that has taken over their country. The Jewish Agency was working on this secret operation for a year. Among the 17 new immigrants was Rabbi Saliman Dahari who arrived with his parents and his wife. Dahari, who brought with him an 800-year-old Torah scroll, met his children upon arrival at an absorption center in Israel. The US State Department and US government officials helped plan the complex covert mission. Officials from the Jewish Agency have been guiding the group of Yemenite Jews for the past few months and last night, the new immigrants were greeted by them upon arrival at Ben Gurion Airport. In addition, Channel 2 News discovered that 1 of the parents of a new immigrant was the victim of an anti-Semitic stabbing recently. Currently in Yemen, only a few Jewish families who refuse to immigrate to Israel remain. JERUSALEM -- Nineteen Jews from war-torn Yemen have been brought to Israel in a covert operation, completing, according to Israeli immigration officials, the repatriation of the 2,000-year-old Yemenite Jewish community. Some 50,000 Yemenite Jews have immigrated to Israel since 1949. Only 50 remain in Yemen, by choice. Among the new arrivals Monday was a rabbi carrying a 500-year-old Torah scroll. Most Yemenite Jews moved to Israel after it became a state in 1948 because of increasing Arab antagonism over the establishment of the Jewish nation. Things took a turn for the worse for the remaining Yemenite Jews after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital city, Sanaa, in 2014. The Houthis are hostile to both Israel and the U.S., and the Jews in Yemen complained of increasing harassment. The escalating civil war there, and Saudi-led coalition bombing in and around Sanaa, where most of the Jews live, only made things worse. "This is a highly significant moment in the history of Israel," said Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental body responsible for immigration. "Yemenite Jewry's unique, 2,000-year-old contribution to the Jewish people will continue in the State of Israel." The Jewish Agency did not reveal details of the mission, which it described as a "complex, covert operation." It named the mission "Miktze Teiman," from a Hebrew verse in the Old Testament roughly meaning "from the far borders of Yemen." Israel has launched other operations to bring back the Jews of the Diaspora, including two mass airlifts of Ethiopian Jewry in 1984 and 1991, which saw the influx of 22,000 people. Officials describe the latest arrival of Yemenite Jews as a historic moment in the biblical "Return of the Exiles."