Yemeni Jew immigrates to Israel, now only four Jews remain

One of the Jews in Yemen has been imprisoned since 2015 for participating in the smuggling of a Torah scroll to Israel.

By JNS

One of the last Jews in Yemen immigrated to Israel after her husband died a little over a year ago, Hebrew media reported on Wednesday.

Badra Yousef lived in Yemen for years with her partner, Yahya, in the Arhab District north of the capital of Sanaa.

“Badra and her husband were Yemeni Jews who loved their homeland and lived there through both good times and bitter ones,” independent Yemeni journalist Ali Ibrahim Al Moshki wrote on his Facebook page, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan News.

In June, Al Moshki said that the passing of her husband and the many illnesses she is suffering from, alongside encouragement from Yousef’s family that resides outside of Yemen, had culminated in her decision to leave the country.

Now only four Jews remain in the largely Houthi-controlled Yemen, Israeli outlet Ynet reported.

One of these Jews has been imprisoned since 2015 for participating in the smuggling of a Torah scroll to Israel, the report added.

According to an anonymous source in Yemen, Kan News reported, Yousef had traveled with a local individual to Ethiopia, where she met with relatives of hers, and together they continued to the Jewish state.

The couple never had children, according to Ynet.

Following Yahya’s death, a Facebook group of Yemeni Jews posted videos from his funeral, the report read.

One post read that there are not enough Jews in Yemen to carry out a burial ceremony according to Jewish tradition with a Kaddish recital. His Muslim neighbors thus volunteered to bury him as a gesture of a respectful farewell.

“This powerful moment highlights the strength of humanity and compassion that still exists in a few places around the world, transcending religious boundaries—especially in these challenging times,” the post read.

In 2024, the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem received the world’s most extensive collection of Yemenite Jewish manuscripts.

The 60,000 items in the collection include notable pieces such as Judeo-Yemenite renditions of works by Maimonides (1138–1204) and Rabbi Yihya Saleh (1713–1805), known by the acronym Maharitz, who was one of the greatest exponents of Jewish law in Yemen, as well as centuries-old marriage certificates.

The items were endowed to the museum last Thursday by the family of the late Yehuda Levi Nahum (1915-1998), a Yemenite Jew who immigrated to pre-state Israel in 1929 at the age of 14.

Over six decades, Nahum assembled the world’s most extensive collection of Yemenite-Jewish manuscripts, consisting of some 45,000 manuscripts and legible fragments.