Yemeni Jewish Study From The Mid-19th To The Mid-20th Century

Yemeni Jews is one of the ancient and unique Jewish groups in the World History.As a non-Muslim minority,they lived in the Islamic world and were relatively intact from the outside world.In the early 19th century,because of the internal special political,economic and social communications between the Yemeni tribes and the Jewish settlement and the free and relaxed discourse environment in Yemen society,a lot of unique Jewish communities in Muslim Yemen were appeared.The invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1872 started the Yemeni modernization,but the change of economic model has broken the traditional Jewish social-economic foundation and Jewish community cohesion.Some of the Yemeni Jews either converted to Islam or migrated to Ethiopia,the Palestinian or other places in the world in order to have a better living condition.After the World War I,the Arab world has emerged large-scale wave of anti-Semitism,Yemeni Jews constantly suffered a lot of discrimination and persecution from the Imam regime and Muslims,the national identity of the Yemeni Jews are heavily damaged.After the establishment of the state of Israel,the Yemeni Jewish emigration reached it's climax.From 1949 to1951,50000 Jews emigrated to Israel with the"Magic Carpet Operation".In modern Israeli society,the Yemeni Jews have become an important part of the Israeli society.The purpose of this thesis is to explore the relationship between Yemeni Jews and Arabs and the historical change of social status of Yemeni Jews during the 19th century until the middle of 20th century,and then to further explore the historical roots and its internal and external factors of Yemeni Jewish emigration from the year of 1881 to 1950,so as to have a deep understanding of the frontier group-----Yemeni Jews.The thesis consists of three parts,which are introduction,main body and conclusion.The introduction mainly illustrated the background and significance of studying Yemeni Jews,and it has reviewed and summarized the domestic and international research of this topic,and have drew the outline of the research idea,the methods and innovation of this thesis.The main body includes four chapters.The first chapter elaborated the history and population distribution of Yemeni Jews,the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Muslim Yemen during the first half of the 19th century,and the Yemeni Jewish social-economic status and their identity.The second chapter mainly focus on the transformation of Yemeni Jews from 1872 to 1918 when Ottoman Empire invaded Yemen.Chapter three and Chapter.four expounded the world background of Yemen Jewish emigration,the process of the movement and the reasons of why Yemeni Jews emigrated to Ethiopia and Palestinian.The conclusion proposed that the world powers,historical background,the domestic situation in Yemen,Imam regime's emigration policy towards Jews,the Zionism and Yemeni Jews themselves all made great effects on the Yemeni Jewish emigration movement from the year 1881 to 1950.Yemeni Jews has made a great contribution to the development of Judaism and it plays as a very important role in the construction of Israeli national state.