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Jews in Eritrea can trace their history back to the late 19th century arrival of Yemenite Jews.
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Jews in Eritrea can trace their history back to the late 19th century arrival of Yemenite Jews.
Eritrea once had a small community of Yemenite Jews who arrived in the country after having been attracted by new commercial opportunities driven by Italian colonial expansion in the late 19th century. In 1906, the Asmara Synagogue was completed in Asmara, the capital. It includes a main sanctuary which can seat up to 200 people, classrooms, and a small Jewish cemetery.
In the 1930s, the Jewish community was bolstered when many European Jews emigrated to Eritrea to escape Nazi persecution in Europe.
During British administration, Eritrea was often used as a location of internment for Irgun and Lehi guerrillas fighting for Jewish independence in the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel). [1] Among those imprisoned were future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir [2] and Haim Corfu, a founder of Beitar Jerusalem.
In 1948, after Israel was founded as a Jewish state, many Yemeni Jews residing in Eritrea emigrated to Israel. In the 1950s, 500 Jews still lived in the country. The last Jewish wedding at Asmara Synagogue was celebrated during that decade. The synagogue also served Jews who came from all over Africa to observe the High Holy Days there.
In 1961 the Eritrean War for Independence began after Eritrea was annexed by Ethiopia, and Eritreans began to fight for independence. It was then that Jews began to leave Eritrea. In the early 1970s, Jewish emigration increased because of ensuing violence between Eritrean separatists and Ethiopia. In 1975, the Chief Rabbi and much of the community were evacuated. Many Jews settled in Israel, while others went to Europe or North America. By then, only 150 Jews remained in the country. [3]
Eritrea formally gained its independence in 1993. At the time, there were only a handful of Jews still left in the country. (In 2001 the Cohan family numbered four) [4] All but one have either died or emigrated. There was only one last native Jew left in Eritrea, Samuel Cohen, who ran an import-export business and attends to the Asmara Synagogue. [5] [6] [7]
Judaism is not one of the four religions recognized by the Eritrean government. Despite this, the government never restricted Jewish freedom to worship, and the country has no history of any persecution of Jews. [8]
Yitzhak Shamir was an Israeli politician and the seventh prime minister of Israel, serving two terms. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Shamir was a leader of the Zionist militant group Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang.
Yemenite Jews, also known as Yemeni Jews or Teimanim, are Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of the country's Jewish population emigrated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. After several waves of persecution, the vast majority of Yemenite Jews now live in Israel, while smaller communities live in the United States and elsewhere. As of 2024, only five Jews remained in Yemen, with one of them being Levi Marhabi.
Maghrebi Jews, are a Jewish diaspora group with a long history in the Maghreb region of North Africa, which includes present-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. These communities were established long before the Arab conquest, and continued to develop under Muslim rule during the Middle Ages. Maghrebi Jews represent the second-largest Jewish diaspora group, with their descendants forming a major part of the global Jewish population.
The history of the Jews in Tajikistan is long and varied. Many of the Tajik Jews were originally Bukharan Jews.
Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews are historic terms for the former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
Operation Solomon was a covert Israeli military operation from May 24 to 25, 1991, to airlift Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Non-stop flights of 35 Israeli aircraft, including Israeli Air Force C-130s and El Al Boeing 747s, transported 14,325 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 36 hours. One of the aircraft, an El Al 747, carried at least 1,088 people, including two babies who were born on the flight, and holds the world record for the most passengers on an aircraft. Eight children were born during the airlift process.
Operation Magic Carpet is a widely known nickname for Operation On Wings of Eagles, an operation between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 49,000 Yemenite Jews to the new state of Israel. During its course, the overwhelming majority of Yemenite Jews – some 47,000 from Yemen, 1,500 from Aden, as well as 500 from Djibouti and Eritrea and some 2,000 Jews from Saudi Arabia – were airlifted to Israel. British and American transport planes made some 380 flights from Aden.
The First Aliyah, also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (aliyah) to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen, stimulated by pogroms and violence against the Jewish communities in those areas. An estimated 25,000 Jews immigrated. Many of the European Jewish immigrants during the late 19th-early 20th century period gave up after a few months and went back to their country of origin, often suffering from hunger and disease.
The history of the Jews in Venezuela dates to the middle of the 17th century, when records suggest that groups of marranos lived in Tucacas, Caracas and Maracaibo. The Jewish community, however, did not become established in Venezuela until the middle of the 19th century. Since Hugo Chávez took power in 1999, tension has existed between the government and Jewish population, which has seen large numbers emigrating. Today, the majority of Venezuelan Jews live in Israel, while modern-day Venezuela continues to host a modest Jewish population.
Adeni Jews, 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 Persia 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.
The Asmara Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Asmara, Eritrea. Completed in 1906, the synagogue in the only surviving remnant of the Jewish community in Eritrea.
The history of the Jews in Ethiopia dates back millennia. The largest Jewish group in Ethiopia is the Beta Israel. Offshoots of the Beta Israel include the Beta Abraham and the Falash Mura, Ethiopian Jews who were converted to Christianity, some of whom have reverted to Judaism. Addis Ababa is home to a small community of Adeni Jews. Chabad also maintains a presence in Addis Ababa.
The history of the Jews in Barbados goes back to the 1600s. A Jewish population has been in Barbados almost continually since 1654.
The history of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to Biblical times. The Arabian Peninsula is defined as including the present-day countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen politically and parts of Iraq and Jordan geographically.
From 1944 to 1948, Irgun and Lehi men being held without trial at the Latroun camp were deported by the British Mandate of Palestine authorities to internment camps in Africa, located in Sembel, Carthago, Sudan and Gilgil. The deportees were returned in July 1948, only after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Religion in Eritrea consists of a number of faiths. The two major religions in Eritrea are Christianity and Islam. However, the number of adherents of each faith is subject to debate. Estimates of the Christian share of the population range from 47% and 63%, while estimates of the Muslim share of the population range from 37% to 52%.
The history of the Jews in Zimbabwe reaches back over one century. Present-day Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia and later as Rhodesia.
Antisemitism in Pakistan is the presence of hostility and discrimination against Jews in Pakistan based on prejudices against the Jewish people and/or the religion of Judaism. Alongside the prevalence of general stereotypes, Jews are commonly subjected to negative views, feelings and rhetoric in Pakistan, most of which overlap with and are directly related to the antisemitic views prevalent throughout the Islamic world. Widely regarded as miserly within Pakistani Muslim circles, Jews residing in Pakistan have also faced periodic intolerance by the state, which has intensified since the Islamization period of the 1980s under Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who propelled Pakistan towards the adoption of strict and highly-conservative Islamic practices and laws. The Jewish population of Pakistan has rapidly decreased since the state's founding and separation from neighbouring India in August 1947, and as of 2019 estimates, stands at less than 200 people amidst Pakistan's total population of over 200 million, the majority of whom are Muslims.
In the history of the Jews in Djibouti, the Jews of Djibouti are classified as part of the wider Yemenite Jewish community similar to those in Eritrea and Aden. Originally settling in Obock, and finally Djibouti City, in the wake of the British succession of the Gulf of Tadjoura to the French in 1884. The vast majority of the community made aliyah to Israel in 1949.
The history of the Jews in Tanzania dates back at least to the 1880s, when Yemenite, Ethiopian, and Omani Jews arrived in Tanzania. A later influx of Polish and German Jews settled in Tanzania between the 1930s and the 1950s, fleeing persecution in Nazi Europe.