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Magic Carpet to the East End
Joseph Finklestone
(February 6, 1997)Anti-Zionist hasidim are persuading Yemenite Jews to move to London, not Israel - and transforming them into Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim in the process
Little Moshe was shouting "Gib mir, gib mir" ("Give me, give me," in Yiddish), as he chased a ball amid a crowd of youngsters outside an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Clapton, in London's East End. He looked different from the others, with his long braided payot and dark skin, but he appeared at ease and was obviously enjoying the pick-up game of soccer. Only a few months ago, 8-year-old Moshe was living in a mud house in Saada, a village in Yemen, over 100 kilometers away from the capital Sana'a. Emigration restrictions against Jews had been relaxed, and his father, who made necklaces to be sold in the Sana'a marketplace, was preparing to leave for Israel, where he and his wife have many relatives. Then, Moshe recalls, two men dressed in strange black clothes and wearing large black hats arrived at his house and talked for hours with his father and mother. After the visit, the plans were changed. London, not Jerusalem, would be their destination. Moshe heard of other families in the village who were also changing their plans in the wake of the visit. His friend Ya'akov told him he too had been about to leave for Israel with his parents and six brothers and sisters. But the two men persuaded them they should head for New York instead. Moshe couldn't understand why the two men, and the others dressed like them who followed, were so persuasive. "I only know that they said that there was a lot of sin and bad things in Israel," he says. Without knowing it, Moshe was confirming allegations being made by a London Jewish organization that wishes to remain anonymous, led by leading figures of the British Jewish community who are concerned with the fate of Yemen's remaining Jews. The group charges that the fanatically anti-Zionist Satmar hasidim are stopping Yemenite Jews from leaving for Israel by scaring them with stories about the undermining of the Jewish religion in the Jewish state and - through monetary inducements - persuading them to settle instead in the main Satmar community in New York, or in the smaller colony in London. In London's ultra-Orthodox enclave in Clapton and Stamford Hill, the extreme sect has acquired a group of apartments to house the new arrivals. When he arrived in Clapton, one of the poorest areas in the East End, Moshe says he was bewildered by the large houses and the strange weather - one moment it was raining and the next the sun was shining - so different from the months of long hot sunny days, followed by a few weeks of cold and rains in Saada. Equally confusing was the strange language spoken by the other boys he met, Yiddish. He was certain he would never understand it, but within weeks he began picking up words and phrases. Now, Moshe says with a broad smile that betrays a large gap in his front teeth, "Ich ferstein Yiddish aber my futter und mutter redden nor Arabish und Hebraish" (I understand Yiddish but my father and mother speak only Arabic and Hebrew). English remains a foreign language. Was it true, as some Jewish community leaders allege, that he and his two brothers and three sisters had forgotten Hebrew and Arabic as they learned Yiddish in the heder to which they'd been sent, and were unable to converse with their parents? "Nein, nein," Moshe declares. "Ich ret mit mein futter und mutter in Arabish und Hebraish" (No, no, I speak in Arabic and Hebrew to my father and mother).
Moshe's is one of 30 to 40 families that have arrived in London in recent months from Saada and Rayda, the last two localities in Yemen with small Jewish communities. Before the establishment of Israel, there were over 60,000 Jews in Yemen - according to legend, descendants of the union between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. After Israel's Operation Magic Carpet airlift in 1949-50, only 1,500 Jews remained. Sana'a lost its famous large community of several thousand. Now Jews, distinguished by their payot, can be seen only rarely on the streets of the capital, bringing their intricately worked silver necklaces, bracelets and goblets to the Bab al-Yemen suk. In London, Moshe has begun fitting in among the noisy local white-skinned Ashkenazi boys who attend the heder, despite his appearance. He is accustomed to the sing-song Ashkenazi way of praying and reading the Bible; his past is becoming a blur. On weekdays, his family prays in a Satmar synagogue, though the Yemenites still meet for their own prayers on Shabbat in a room where they live. Older Yemenites brought to London by the Satmar acknowledge that it was hard for them to settle in the British capital, where they hold only temporary visas and can't take regular jobs. Often hawking trinkets or depending on charity, they are hardly better off than they were in Saada and Rayda and some are beginning to think that perhaps they have made a mistake. A few have actually relocated to New York; in December, one family slipped away to Israel. Rahmiel, a 30-year-old father of five who peddles necklaces, tries to explain why he brought his family to London rather than Israel, where the state, and relatives, could have helped them resettle: "A few of the families that went to Israel from Yemen, including my brother and uncles, lost their Jewish faith. They are met there by people who are anti-Jewish and are made to do disgusting things. The men are made to have their payot cut off and the women have to wear indecent clothes." Rahmiel, speaking freely in Hebrew, admits he has been primed by the Satmars, but he accepts the information as reliable. Rahmiel says he wanted his children to remain strictly Jewish, according to Yemenite customs, and was prepared for any sacrifices, including living in a bad climate in near poverty and being separated from relatives. Going to Israel is dangerous for anyone who wants to keep true to Jewish traditions, he argues. He admits that, of course, not every Yemenite Jew has lost his Jewish faith in Israel. A few have managed to survive as true Jews, but they are the exceptions, he says. Rahmiel's family, like other Yemenites in London, have held on not only to religious law but also to at least some of their customs. Men still wear long, shirt-like outer garments and tall turbans; women retain their heavy hair coverings. Ya'akov, a married man in his 30s who sells watches for a living, says that taking his family to Israel would frighten him. "I am sure we would all lose our Jewish faith," he says. The Satmar hasidim have poured cash into their campaign to prevent Yemenite Jews from settling in Israel. As sympathizers explain, they see it as an urgent, inescapable duty to "save" them from contamination and the loss of their faith in the "Zionist anti-God state of Israel." Jewish communal officials and leaders like Labor MP Greville Janner - a former head of the Jewish Board of Deputies - and Sir Trevor Chinn, head of the Joint Israel Appeal, accuse the Satmar of providing anti-Israel stories to the Arab press in Yemen and elsewhere to help it vilify Israel and thereby stop aliyah. They also say that young Yemenites are brought to London and New York for study and then virtually held hostage till more family members come. The Satmar reject the accusations. They spend thousands of pounds a week to keep the Yemenite London transplants happy, or at least satisfied. Free accommodation is provided in the Satmar apartments, and the men are supplied with goods to peddle. But the experiences of the older community of Yemenite emigres - those who came without Satmar prompting, like the Jews of Aden - show that assimilation can happen in London, too. They have cut off their payot, and the women no longer cover their hair. "They look now like English gentlemen and women," said one Satmar hasid. Estimates of the number of Jews left in Yemen range from 300 to 2,000. And the Satmar believe that it is well worth spending large sums of money on saving them from "Zionist contamination" or "catastrophe." For them, the remaining Jews in Yemen represent a unique portion of the Jewish people who must be preserved - and that this is possible only in their native environment or by living with the hasidic sect. These Jews are seen as the only authentic group dating back to the Temple times and thus a particularly holy people. Unlike other Jewish communities they did not allow any marriage with non-Jews and have remained "pure." And in Yemen, Jews are not totally safe despite assurances by the authorities. Yemeni leaders claim that there is no longer the animosity against Jews that led to the massacre of many Jews in the past, particularly just before the establishment of Israel. But the Jews are still discriminated against. There are demeaning restrictions dating back hundreds of years. Apart from a few individuals, the Jews live in abject poverty.
The Satmar Synagogue in Clapton was packed for the early-January bar mitzvah of Yitzhak Salal Kuboni. On one side sat the Satmar hasidim, in their dark clothing and hats. On the other sat the Yemenites, in their traditional attire. Yitzhak wore a hasidic suit. His payot were no longer plaited but straight and ran down to his waist - a sharp contrast with his father, sitting next to him. All eyes were on the boy as, excited but poised, he began his speech - in flawless Yiddish. His father smiled proudly. Later, though, he admitted he'd understood little of his son's learned discourse.
1997
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