The Jews of Yemen have been threatened by Islamists. So the few Jews that remain of the millennia-old Jewish community are going to be protected by tye state by being moved to—a ghetto.
Two weeks after the murder of Moshe Yaish Nahari, the brother of Yemen’s Jewish community’s head, the country’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh pledged to build a secured Jewish ghetto in the outskirts of the capital San’a.
The new neighborhood will house the 300 Jews of the Umran province where the murder took place.
Yemen’s president has informed human rights organizations and the heads of the Jewish community in the country of his decision to allocate an area in Sana’s northern suburb for the construction of a residential neighborhood for Jews on the state’s expense.
Any family who decides to move there from Umran will receive $10,000 in compensation.
According to President Saleh, the Jewish neighborhood will be guarded by security forces at all hours.
There are so many things wrong with this picture, it’s difficult to begin. But here’s the first thing that’s wrong: The Jews of Yemen are going to rely on others for their protection. I predict that the Jews of Yemen will be extinct as a result of that policy.
The second thing that’s wrong is the state of Yemen isn’t pursuing the Islamists who are threatening Jews until after Jews have been killed. The people of Yemen are not standing up to the Islamists who are murdering Jews. Not that I expect that to happen—after all, the Koran calls for the murder of Jews, which is why they’re being murdered by Islamists—but it shows the difference between a nation ruled by religion without any real foundation of democracy, and a nation like America, where our citizens rise up in protest of hateful acts and prosecute the haters wherever they’re found.
No one knew why it started, but 12 years ago the town of Billings began to be infiltrated by skinheads and members of racist groups. The tiny minority of Jews, African Americans, and mixed-race families who lived there were immediately targeted for acts of hate. Though the vast majority of residents were white and Christian, they chose to take a principled stand based upon their conviction that an act of hate toward one citizen was an act of hate toward all. Many individuals and groups rose up to respond. For example, the Billings Painters Union offered to repaint for free any houses or businesses that had been spray painted with racial or religious epithets. And members of churches with predominantly white congregations came to the African Methodist Episcopal Church to pray with black neighbors when menacing skinheads began to show up at church services.
But then, as the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah approached, Jews became a special target. Windows in Jewish homes displaying Hanukkah menorahs began to be smashed. Jewish families were advised to remove their menorahs until the perpetrators were caught, but they resisted. And so menorahs continued to be displayed and windows continued to be smashed. Ultimately, in a show of solidarity and support, tens of thousands of Billings residents displayed paper menorahs in their windows.
May I take this moment to say: God Bless America.
There has been no such recorded incident in all of the Middle East, no matter how many times Jews have been threatened, attacked, and murdered. Nor will there be. The Middle East will be free of Jews in another few decades, except for Israel. And Iran, since Iran refuses to let its Jews leave.
The final thing wrong with the Yemeni ghetto: It may be guarded, but it will be attacked, and the Jews in it will be destroyed. Al-Qaeda loves those kinds of targets, and the guards will be poorly-trained Yemenis who will save their own skins rather than stop an attack on the complex.
If the Jews of Yemen wish to survive, they need to leave Yemen. Muslims forced Jews out of their communities throughout the Middle East. Israel’s detractors like to accuse Israel of manipulating anti-Semitic incidents and creating fear in Jewish communities in order to get Jews to emigrate to Israel. But there was no need for that. The Muslims of the Middle East prove, over and over again, that the myth of religious tolerance is just that—a myth.
One last thought: I don’t expect Yemen to do anything about the Islamists in its midst. This is the nation that hosted the Cole attackers; that keeps commuting sentences of Islamist murderers, and that seems to have more jailbreaks by Islamists than any other nation in existence. Which is why I predict an end to the Jews of Yemen. I hope they realize the threat and emigrate before they’re murdered. But the Jewish community of Yemen is doomed.