Operation Magic Carpet (Yemen)

{{Short description|1949–1950 transfer of Yemeni Jews to Israel}}

File:Op Magic Carpet (Yemenites).jpg, Yemen]]

Operation Magic Carpet is the widely known nickname for Operation On Wings of Eagles ({{langx|he|כנפי נשרים}} {{Transliteration|he|Knafei Nesharim}}), which was conducted by Israel between June 1949 and September 1950 to take in approximately 49,000 Yemenite Jews as part of the Jewish exodus from the Muslim world.[http://www.moia.gov.il/English/FeelingIsrael/AboutIsrael/Pages/kanfeyNesharim.aspx Ministry of immigrant absorption, Israel: "On Eagles' Wings" – Aliyah from Yemen (1949).] Retrieved 23 June 2012. With support from the United Kingdom and the United States, the majority of Jews in Yemen—as well as 500 Jews in Djibouti and Eritrea and some 2,000 Jews in Saudi Arabia—were brought to Israel. British and American transport planes made some 380 flights from Aden Colony to facilitate the airlift.

Background

Since 1881, there had been an influx of Yemenite Jews to Mandatory Palestine in intermittent waves of immigration.{{cite web|url=https://lib.cet.ac.il/Pages/item.asp?item=15640&kwd=753|title=העלייה מתימן – על כנפי נשרים|access-date=2022-05-17|language=he}} In 1924, the Yemeni king Imam Yahya officially forbade Jewish emigration, but the population was able to circumvent this restriction by going through the British-ruled Aden Colony.{{cite journal |last1=Halamish |first1=Aviva |title=A New Look at Immigration of Jews from Yemen to Israel |journal=Israel Studies |date=2006 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=59–78 |doi=10.2979/ISR.2006.11.1.59 |jstor=30245779 |s2cid=144740066 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245779|url-access=subscription }} At the beginning of World War II, there were some 28,000 Yemenite Jews among the Yishuv. A group of around 5,000 Jews were stuck in Aden since 1945 and only allowed to immigrate in 1948.{{cite web|url=https://lib.cet.ac.il/Pages/item.asp?item=15640&kwd=753|title="על כנפי נשרים" העלייה מתימן ומעדן : עליית יהודי תימן בתקופת מלחמת העולם השנייה|access-date=2022-05-17}}

In 1947, when the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was announced, there was an uproar among Yemen's Muslims, leading to anti-Jewish riots in Aden, which resulted in the killing of over 80 Jews and the widespread destruction of Jewish homes.Ahroni, R. The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: History, Culture, and Ethnic Relations. Brill, 1994: P210-11. Further looting of Jewish properties took place in 1948, following the circulation of rumours accusing the local Jewish community of killing two Yemeni girls.{{citation |last=Parfitt |first=Tudor |title=The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen 1900-1950 |pages=85–124 |year=1996 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S-nu8Z6yNIMC |publisher=Brill's Series in Jewish Studies vol. XVII |isbn=9789004105447 |author-link=Tudor Parfitt}}Reuben Ahroni, Jewish Emigration from the Yemen, 1951-98: Carpet Without Magic, pp.xi-xii, p. 1. Similar instances of harassment and violence prompted Jews throughout Yemen to emigrate in larger and more frequent waves.

Up until the establishment of the State of Israël in 1948, Yemeni Jews lived under Islamic rule with dhimmi status, although they endured persecution up to the 19th century.{{Cite web |last=Minority Rights Group |title=Jews in Yemen |url=https://minorityrights.org/communities/jews-8/ |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=Minorityrights.org|date=October 16, 2023 }}

In the 20th century, the Orphans' Decree, which was anchored in the 18th-century Zaydi legal interpretations, was reinforced. Most cases of Jewish orphans being forced into conversion to Islam occurred in the 1920s under the rule of Imam Yahyi (1918-1948).{{Cite journal |last=Eraqi-Klorman |first=Bat-Zion |date=February 2001 |title=The Forced Conversion of Jewish Orphans in Yemen |url=https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020743801001027 |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=23–47 |doi=10.1017/s0020743801001027 |issn=0020-7438}}

Operation

The Israeli operation's official name originated from two passages in the Hebrew Bible:

Book of Exodus 19:4 – Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.{{cite web|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=220736 |title=MLibrary Digital Collections: King James Bible: Exodus 19:4 |publisher=quod.lib.umich.edu |access-date=2013-08-31}}
Book of Isaiah 40:31 – But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.{{cite web|url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=2594466 |title=MLibrary Digital Collections: King James Bible: Isaiah 40:31 |publisher=quod.lib.umich.edu |access-date=2013-08-31}}

"Magic Carpet" was the first of a series of Israeli operations to aid Jewish emigration from Muslim lands.Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis. 1998, pp. 182–185.

The operation continues to be widely celebrated among Israelis. Kanfei Nesharim Street in Jerusalem is named for it, as well as a street in Herzliya, one in Ramat Gan, and another in Kerem HaTeimanim, which is a neighbourhood of Tel Aviv that was established by Yemenite Jews in 1906.

In 1948, there were 55,000 Jews living in Yemen,{{clarify|reason=What "Yemen" ? How can the 8000 in the Colony of Aden be "another" ?|date=January 2015}} and another 8,000 in Aden Colony.

Motives and preparation

Jewish Agency's emissary, Rabbi Yaakov Shraibom was sent in 1949 to Yemen and discovered that there were around 50,000 Jews living in Yemen, which was unknown at the time to Israel. He sent multiple letters{{Cite web|url=https://www.kedem-auctions.com/he/product/%d7%90%d7%95%d7%a1%d7%a3-%d7%9e%d7%a1%d7%9e%d7%9b%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%9e%d7%a2%d7%96%d7%91%d7%95%d7%9f-%d7%99%d7%a2%d7%a7%d7%91-%d7%a9%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%91%d7%95%d7%9d-%d7%94%d7%a2%d7%9c%d7%90%d7%aa-%d7%99/|title=אוסף מסמכים מעזבון יעקב שריבום - העלאת יהודי תימן לישראל, 1949|website=kedem|language=he-IL|access-date=2020-02-09}}{{Dead link|date=September 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} to convey the community's strong religious and messianic desire to come to Israel. David Ben-Gurion was reluctant at first, but he came around eventually.{{Cite news|url=https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4778918,00.html|title=Meir-Glitzenstein on Yaakov Shraibom efforts in Yemen, and the failure of Operation Magic Carpet|date=3 March 2016|website=Ynet |last1=פרקש |first1=טלי }}

Esther Meir-GlitzensteinEsther Meir-Glitzenstein, The Exodus of the Yemenite Jews − A Failed Operation and a Formative Myth, Resling, Tel Aviv 2012. showed evidence how the community's sentiment for aliyah played a part in the exodus, the extent of which surprised even the Jewish state and the agency in charge of the operation, who were not prepared for the mass of Jews who were fleeing Yemen. Once he realized that, Shraibom tried to prevent the coming crisis and urged the community to stay in Yemen, but the sentiment of the community for Aliyah was stronger and they came nonetheless.

Meir-Glitzenstein also claims that collusion between Israel and the Imam of Yemen who "profited hugely from confiscatory taxes levied on the Jewish community" led to a botched operation in which the Jewish community suffered terribly.[http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/israel_studies/summary/v016/16.3.meir-glitzenstein.html 'Operation Magic Carpet: Constructing the Myth of the Magical Immigration of Yemenite Jews to Israel,'] in Israel Studies, vol.16, No.3 (Fall) 2011 pp. 149-173. Reuven AhroniReuben Ahroni, Jewish Emigration from the Yemen, 1951-98: Carpet Without Magic, pp.xi-xii, p.20. and Tudor ParfittParfitt, Tudor. The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900-1950. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996). argue that economic motivations also had a role in the massive emigration of Yemeni Jews, which began prior to 1948.

Tudor Parfitt described the reasons for the exodus as multi-faceted, some aspects due to Zionism and others more historically based:

{{blockquote|economic straits as their traditional role was whittled away, famine, disease, growing political persecution, and increased public hostility, the state of anarchy after the murder of Yahya, often a desire to be reunited with family members, incitement and encouragement to leave from those who played on their religious sensibilities, promises that their passage would be paid to Israel and that their material difficulties would be cared for by the Jewish state, a sense that the Land of Israel was a veritable Eldorado, a sense of history being fulfilled, a fear of missing the boat, a sense that living wretchedly as dhimmis in an Islamic state was no longer God-ordained, a sense that as a people, they had been flayed by history long enough: All these played a role. ... Purely religious, messianic sentiment, too, had its part, but by and large, this has been over-emphasised.{{cite book | author = Tudor Parfitt | title = The Road to Redemption – The Jews of the Yemen 1900-1950 | publisher = Brill | year = 1996 | page = 285}}}}

Criticism

Esther Meir-Glitzenstein criticized the execution of the operation. She especially criticized the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Israel, which, according to her, abandoned thousands of Jews in the deserts on the border between North Yemen and Aden. Mismanagement or corruption by the British authorities and the Jewish Agency also played a role. Some 850 Yemenite Jews died en route to their departure points, and in the community which reached Israel, infant mortality rates were high, albeit lower than in Yemen.Vered Lee [http://www.haaretz.com/culture/books/the-frayed-truth-of-operation-magic-carpet-1.432991 'The frayed truth of Operation Magic Carpet'], at Haaretz, 28 May 2012Tudor Parfitt, The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900-1950, BRILL, 1996, p. 239ff. According to Ben-Gurion's diary, the Yemeni children in the Israeli ma'abarot or tent transit camps were dying like flies. Children were often separated from their parents for hygienic reasons, or taken away to hospitals for treatment, but often, parents only received notification, often by loudspeaker, they had died. According to some testimony, there was a suspicion that the state kidnapped healthy Yemeni children, for adoption, and then informed the parents they had died. As a result, some decades later, the Yemenite Children Affair exploded, in which it was rumoured that something of the order of 1,000 children had gone missing.Meira Weiss, 'The Immigrating Body and the Body Politic: The 'Yemenite Children Affair' and Body Commodification in Israel', in Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Loïc Wacquant (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=eQ8oiUCXNtYC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93 Commodifying Bodies], Sage Publications, 2002 pp. 93-110, pp. 93ff. In 2019, Yaacov Lozowick, the former Israel State Archivist, explained the cases of the missing Yemenite babies in an article in Tablet magazine. There was a very high death rate, and disturbed medical professionals, he said, autopsied some of the bodies to try to find out why. Traditionally, autopsies were forbidden under Jewish law, and so this was hidden from the parents. Lozowick wrote that the files contained no evidence of any kidnappings.Yaacov Lozowick, "The Myth of the Kidnapped Yemenite Children, and the Sin it Conceals," Tablet Magazine, March 14, 2019 https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/278261/myth-of-kidnapped-yemenite-children However in February 2019 New York Times published article, in which some of the missing children were found by DNA test by their living relatives. They were given for adoption to Ashkenazi Jewish families.Malin Fezehai, "The Disappeared Children of Israel" New York Times, 20. February 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/world/middleeast/israel-yemenite-children-affair.html

Aftermath

In 1959, another 3,000 Jews from Aden fled to Israel, while many more left as refugees to the United States and the United Kingdom. The emigration of Yemeni Jews continued as a trickle but stopped in 1962 when a civil war broke out in North Yemen, which put an abrupt halt to further emigration. In 2013, a total sum of 250 Jews still lived in Yemen.[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/yemenjews.html The Jews of Yemen] by Mitchell Bard], Jewish Virtual Library[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/talking/jew_refugees.html Fact Sheet: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries], Jewish Virtual Library, September 2012 The Jewish communities in Raydah were shocked by the killing of Moshe Ya'ish al-Nahari in 2008. His wife and nine children emigrated to Israel.{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4267604,00.html |title=Wife, children of gunned down Yemenite teacher make aliyah - Israel News, Ynetnews |newspaper=Ynetnews |publisher=Ynetnews.com |date=1995-06-20 |access-date=2013-08-31 |last1=Efraim |first1=Omri }} Other members of the Jewish community received hate letters and threats by phone. Amnesty International wrote to the Yemeni government, urging the country to protect its Jewish citizens. The human rights organization stated that it is "deeply concerned for the safety of members of the Jewish community in northwestern Yemen following the killing of one member of the community and anonymous serious threats to others to leave Yemen or face death".[http://jta.org/news/article/2008/12/24/1001798/group-urges-yemen-to-protect-its-jews Amnesty Int'l urges Yemen to protect its Jew] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130212021333/http://www.jta.org/news/article/2008/12/24/1001798/group-urges-yemen-to-protect-its-jews |date=February 12, 2013 }}, JTA, 24-12-2008.

It was forbidden for native-born Yemeni Jews who had left the country to re-enter, rendering communication with these communities difficult. Muslims were therefore hired as shelihim (emissaries) to locate the remaining Jews, pay their debts, and transport them to Aden. Little came of this.Reuven Ahloni, Jewish Emigration from the Yemen, 1951-98, pp. 11ff.

In August 2020, of an estimated 100 or so remaining Yemen Jews, 42 have migrated to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the rest would also leave.{{cite web|url=https://hamodia.com/2020/08/16/report-yemens-remaining-jews-move-uae-following-israel-treaty/|title=Report: Yemen's Remaining Jews to Move to UAE Following Israel Treaty|date=August 16, 2020|access-date=August 17, 2020}}{{cite web|url=https://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/4851429/jewish/Emirate-Prince-and-Russias-Chief-Rabbi-Bring-a-Yemenite-Couple-to-Safety.html|title=Emirate Prince and Russia's Chief Rabbi Bring a Yemenite Couple to Safety|date=August 24, 2020|website=chabad.org|accessdate=March 30, 2021}}{{cite web|url=https://www.aish.com/jw/s/The-Last-Jews-of-Yemen.html|title=The Last Jews of Yemen|date=September 5, 2020}}

On November 10, 2020, the U.S. State Department called for the immediate and unconditional release of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, who had been imprisoned for helping smuggle a Torah scroll out of Yemen. 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."Wrongful Detention by the Houthis of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi," Press Statement, U.S. State Department, (November 10, 2020).

On 28 March 2021, 13 Jews were forced by the Houthis to leave Yemen, leaving the last four elderly Jews in Yemen.{{Cite web|url=https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/03/houthis-deport-some-yemens-last-remaining-jews|title=Houthis deport some of Yemen's last remaining Jews - Al-Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East|website=www.al-monitor.com|date=March 29, 2021 }}{{cite web |url=https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/almost-all-remaining-jews-in-yemen-deported-saudi-media-663486 |first=Tzvi |last=Joffre |date=2021-03-29 |website=Jerusalem Post |title=Almost all remaining Jews in Yemen deported - Saudi media |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024175404/https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/almost-all-remaining-jews-in-yemen-deported-saudi-media-663486 |archive-date=2021-10-24 }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/some-of-yemens-last-remaining-jews-said-expelled-by-iran-backed-houthis/|title=Some of Yemen's last remaining Jews said expelled by Iran-backed Houthis|first=T. O. I.|last=staff|website=www.timesofisrael.com}} At the time, it was reported that there were six Jews left in Yemen: one woman; her brother; three others, and Levi Salem Marhabi.{{Cite web|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-13-yemeni-jews-leave-pro-iran-region-for-cairo-nations-community-down-to-6/|title=As 13 Yemeni Jews leave the pro-Iran region for Cairo, community of 50,000 down to 6|first=Aaron|last=Boxerman|website=www.timesofisrael.com}} In March 2022, the United Nations reported that only one Jew remained in Yemen.{{Cite web|url=https://jewishinsider.com/2022/03/only-one-jew-remains-in-yemen-u-n-says/|title=Only one Jew remains in Yemen, U.N. says|first=Gabby|last=Deutch|date=March 14, 2022|website=Jewish Insider}}

References

External links

[http://search.archives.jdc.org/query_ext.asp?query=101204_18&site=ideaalm&lang=ENG Photographs of Operation Magic Carpet]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} from the JDC Archives

Category:Aliyah operations

Category:1950 in French Somaliland

Category:Jews and Judaism in Eritrea

Category:Jews and Judaism in Yemen

Category:1949 in Israel

Category:1950 in Israel

Category:Kingdom of Yemen

Category:1950 in Asia

Category:Non-combat military operations involving Israel

Category:Jewish exodus from the Muslim world

Category:Military air transport

Category:Yemenite Jews