Adeni Jews

Adeni Jews (Hebrew: יהדות עדן), or Adenite Jews are the historical Jewish community which resided in the port city of Aden. Adenite culture became distinct from other Yemenite Jewish culture due to British control of the city and Indo-Iraqi Jewish influence as well as recent arrivals from Iran and Egypt. Although they were separated, Adeni Jews depended on the greater Yemenite community for spiritual guidance, receiving their authorizations from Yemeni rabbis. Virtually the entire population emigrated from Aden between June 1947 and September 1967. As of 2004, there were 6,000 Adenites in Israel, and 1,500 in London.

In 1489, Rabbi Obadiah di Bertinora encountered Jews in Jerusalem who had come from Aden, and who described for him their polity and settlement in the land of Yemen, as also knowledge about Moses' progeny who were settled some fifty-days' walking distance from their place as one journeys in the desert, and that they were encompassed by the river Sambation. He says that the Jews of Aden were only knowledgeable in the writings of Rabbi Alfasi and Maimonides—both of whom wrote in Judeo-Arabic—and they were especially well-versed in the later work of the latter.

The Cairo Genizah (discovered in 1896) contains extraordinary letters from an earlier period of the sages which reveal connections between the Jewish communities of Egypt and Aden, and trade to India via Aden. Some of the letters were sent by the heads of rabbinical academies to the Adeni and other communities seeking financial support for their institutions.

Digs at Beit She'arim in Israel provide proof that Jews were settled in Aden during the mishnaic period (2nd and 3rd centuries CE). A hall was discovered there containing tombs of the Jews from Yemen. These Jews had been brought from Himyar for burial in the holy land. Tombstones were also found in Jewish cemeteries in Aden, dating as far back as the 12th century.

In the 10th century relations between the Jews of Yemen-Aden and of Babylonia became closer as evidenced by the adoption of upper pointing by the former, (sometimes called Babylonian pointing, in which the vocal marks are placed above instead of below the line as is the case today.) Although this did not last long, they retained this practice even after books began to be printed.

Adeni Jewry possessed Saadia Gaon's translations into Arabic of the Torah and the five megilloth. The prayers and liturgies composed by the Babylonian sages, such as the "Hosha'not" for Sukkoth, which is contained in Saadia Gaon's prayer book, were adopted by the Aden Jews and have been retained by them ever since. In one of the Cairo documents there appear instructions from Madmon Ben Yafter Ben Bendar, the ruler of Yemen and himself from Aden, to Halfon Ben Nethaniel Halevi from Fustat in Egypt, which indicates that already in the 10th century there was a small Jewish settlement in Aden.

From 1083 to 1173 Aden was ruled by an Arab dynasty called the Zura'ites. From this time onwards Aden served as an important community centre and became crucial as a port from the commercial sea lanes between the Mediterranean sea, India and further into the far east. The Jews became heavily involved in international trade and as a result they were able to support generously the yeshivoth of Babylonia, Egypt and the Land of Israel. From the 10th to the 13th centuries, Aden was the centre of Yemeni Jewish life. The "Yemeni governors" or the "ministers of the communities" sat in Aden and from there led the entire community, including Abu Ali Hasan in the late 11th century. Their influence spread as far as Persia and Babylonia and throughout the Arabian Peninsula as far as the Hijaz in the north and Hadramout in the east.

The British Empire began to expand into the Middle East during the mid-19th century, and the Jews of Aden fared considerably better under the Aden Protectorate than under Muslim rule, which attracted Jewish immigrants from the rest of Yemen. After 1838, there were roughly 5,000 Jews in the city of Aden itself, and some 2,000 in the rest of what would become the Aden protectorate.