US officials have been running a clandestine operation to take Jews out of Yemen reports the Wall Street Journal.
The move follows growing violence toward Jewish communities in the midst of power struggles between the government and Al Qaeda extremists.
After fleeing trouble spots, Jews have been living in Raida area, north of Sanaa. For months or even years they have been suffering from their Muslim neighbors. The rescue operation was spurred by the murder last December of Moshe Nahari Hy"d, a 37-year-old father of ten.
The Jews are eligible for refugee assistance in the US, and the government provided them asylum in North Dakota, but Jewish organizations helped arrange to send them to Monsey. The US government paid for the flight, while the Jewish Federation covered subsequent relocating expenses. Some are expected to settle in Eretz Yisroel.
When foreign reporters interviewed Yemenite Jews after the Nahari murder, R' Yechiyei Yaish Ben Yechiyei, who lived in a small village, said he felt like a stranger in his own motherland. "Raida is not what it used to be," he said. "Now it's full of fiends."
In the early 1950s Yemen was home to 50,000 Jews, but most of them left for Eretz Yisroel in Operation Magic Carpet. In general the Muslim hosts have shown tolerance toward Jewish residents, but lately there have been more and more complaints of threats and danger. Ben Yechiyei says he and his friends reported death threats from his Muslim neighbors, but no action was taken. He has had rocks thrown at the windows of his home and many Jews are afraid to walk in the streets, fearing verbal or physical violence.
The operation saved many families from intimidation that made life in Yemen unbearable, notes the Wall Street Journal, but it will almost certainly hasten the end of one of the oldest remaining Jewish communities in the Arab world.
