Rare Inside Look At Yemenite Jewish Community

A dwindling, tiny Jewish community in the northwestern Yemeni province of Ammran is threatened with extinction amid continued immigration of its members due to increasing harassment and persecution against them and a lack of security.

Of the hundreds of families who used to live in Ammran province, some 37 miles northwest of the Yemeni capital Sana'a, only three families remain. While some members of these families are already living outside the country, mainly in the United States or Israel, many of those who remain are considering immigration.

Yemeni Jews trace their origin to the time of King Solomon. The majority of what was Yemen's 50,000-strong Jewish community immigrated to Israel upon the declaration of the Jewish state in 1948.

Yahya, wearing traditional Yemeni clothes including a thawb (long white robe), coat and a shawl around his head, can only be identified as a Jew by his curly earlocks. Yahya’s two-floor house, where his 80-years-old father-- who was a blacksmith--also lives, is surrounded by his brothers' houses.

Sky News Arabic Reports