Borough Park, NY – In a clapboard building at 45th Street and 12th Avenue, the inheritors of the world’s most ancient branch of Yemenites struggle to keep their community and rite alive.
Congregation Ohel Shalom, also known as the Yemenite Jewish Center of America, numbers no more than 700 families in the entire New York metropolitan area.
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But the Yemenite Jews of America are not ultra-Orthodox, and have very little contact with their Chasidic neighbors.
The congregation’s president, Avinoam Butel, is at pains to distinguish the Yemenite Jewish tradition from its European and Mediterranean counterparts.
We are a poor community. Furthermore, we are not like the Syrian Jews — we marry Ashkenazim and Sephardim. So our tradition is under threat.
“Yemenites are the unrecognized Jews,” Butel said. “First of all, the color of our skin is different. But there is much more than this. We are not Ashkenazi — not northern European Jews. We are not Sephardi — we have no historical connection to the Spanish or Ladino-speaking Jews.” Rather, Butel, locates the origins of his community deep in Biblical history.
Butel said, “When the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon in Jerusalem, as a symbol of his friendship with this Queen, Solomon sent thousands of Jews to return to Sheba with the Queen.”
It is unclear if this legend is historically accurate or if it is part of the Yemenite community’s unique lore.
In 1949 Congregation Ohel Shalom purchased a clapboard Christian Science church in Borough Park. This building is the congregation’s home to this day. Yemenite Jewry is among the first branches of Judaism to choose Borough Park as its spiritual capital.
the year 1949 is incorrect. I moved to that block in 1962 and I have clear memories of the church bells ringing. A number of years later it was converted to a shul by the Teimanim.
I went to Mesivta Beer Shmuel which is right next door and it was a church till about 1967 or 68. Then the Yememites came. Definitely not 1949. Maybe they were somewhere else then but not on 45th st and 12 th avenue.
The Temanim are special people. Here in Eretz Hakodesh they set a good example of tznius and gentility and many are ben Torah. The zekenim have most of Tanach bal peh. They are simple, quiet, straightforwards and very refreshing to be around. This article is right about them losing their culture, I’ve seen it happen here. Their gentleness means their children frei out especially with the awful schools and pressure from the disgraceful “medinat Yisrael” yimach shmo. They don’t have enough population to have their own yeshivas and they are usually not comfortable going to charedi or mizrachi yeshivas so they wind up in the Israeli schools nebuch. I think it wouldn’t be a shanda if they advised the young men to find Temaniot for shidduchim and preserve their unique contribution to Yiddishkeit. Assimilation is working against them otherwise and they are Jew(els) we shouldn’t lose.
I also remember when I went to Mesivta Beer Shmuel next door to the Church. The Temanim bought it appx. in 1968 69. The 1949 date is definitely erroneous.
its probably a typo. they meant to say 1969, not 1949.
hi I’m yeminite myself & I grew up in the shul. what was said about us is true we are losing touch of our culture & we need help from anyone that can help we are suffering since 1949 when the yeminites were brought to israel since then it has been hard to stick to the “real deal” as they say but I can say one thing we are still fighting baruch hashem in bnei braq & in america there are many young yeminites who are thirsty to go back to the roots & are learning by our gedolim such as harav shlomo korach, harav itzchak ratzabi, harav shomo machfood…… baruch hashem & thank you for caring. About the fact that we are marriing into other communitys that’s bec there isn’t enough people who are intrested or let’s say want to bring the roots & it makes it harder for people who do want. thanx again