One of the Jewish communities in Yemen was exposed to physical abuse by security forces in Sa’awan residential area, Sana’a.
Heron Bin Salem, 22, a member of the Jewish community, was awaiting his cousin in front of al-Mustakbal School when an officer along with four security members approached him, “trying to get rid of his unfamiliar look,” Yahya Yousif, the head of the Jewish community in Sana’a told Yemen Observer.
“The officer looked at my cousin and said, ‘I do not like your look (meaning the long curls) and Heron said ‘I am a Jew from Sa’adah.’ The officer, however, got even more angry and said ‘We do not want Jews here,” Yousif said.
The long curls running down the side of their faces characterize Yemeni Jews.
The police held down Ben Salem and tried to cut off his hair.
“The security grabbed Ben Salem’s arms while the officer, armed with a large stick, grabbed his head. Then some people and I intervened and managed to break it off,” Yousif added.
The officer was identified as Rashad al-Masri, who is working as the deputy director of al-Nasr police station.
Yousif expressed his thanks to the Minister of Interior, Mutahar Rashad al-Masri who, upon reporting the abuse, took the required measures.
The Jewish community in Sana’a city make up about 70 people of the whole group. They fled their homes in Sa’adah province after the first war between the government troops and al-Houthi rebels raged in 2004.
(Source: Yemen Observer)
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5 Responses
Yemen Security Officer Tries To Cut Peyos Off Jewish Man? They must’ve learnt well from the Israeli’s who did the same thing forcibly to Yemenite children when they came in the 50’s.
#1 – Is there something to be gained by bringing up something truly terrible that happened 50 years ago. B”H, despite a lot of serious problems that still exist, and major improvements that still need to be made, THAT kind of thing does NOT occur now.
By the way, – as a point of interest…
Yemenite Jews call their payot “simaneem”.
The reason for the use of this term is that in Yemen, the moslem men also wear “yarmulka”-type skullcups, and also have beards. So… what is the siman (difference in appearance from a moslem)of a Jewish man? His payot, – hence “simaneem”.
I agree with Joseph
2, the same kind of people still exist, and the only reason they don’t do this particular abuse is because they don’t have Yemenite children under their care.
the reason to bring it up – there’s still alot of abuse of the religious Jews done by Jews, in a way that would make any non-Jew who does the very same thing called ‘anti-semite’. We have to open our eyes and stop thinking that anything a ‘Jew’ does is really ‘Jewish’.
To #4 – No the reason this abuse does not occur is NOT because they don’t have yemenite children under their care.
It is because there are MANY more Torah observant Jews in Israel now, many in government and many in the army. As a result, the virulently anti-frum, who DO exist, but are a minority, do not have the power to get away with that kind of garbage.
If we want to make Israel a much holier place, MORE Torah Jews (instead of sitting here and committing the chait of the meraglim) should get up and settle in Israel and improve the ratio of religious to non and anti-religious and change the face of the country to a Torah state.