JERUSALEM – Many of Yemen's Jews this weekend fled their homes for a hotel after receiving death threats from Islamic militants accusing the country's tiny Jewish community of serving as agents for "global Zionism."There should be made an appeal on their behalf, and I think that they should all be brought over to Israel for their safety and a better life. In a backwards country like Yemen, there's simply no future to be had there.
The Jews said they feared for their lives. It was disclosed they had been forced to pay special taxes that Islam imposes on Jews and Christians in return for protection and security.
About 45 Jews left their village in Sa'ada county in Yemen after Dawoud Yousuf Mousa, one of the heads of the local Jewish community, was warned Jan. 10 if the Jews don't leave within 10 days they would be exposed to killings, abductions and looting.
Four masked militants approached Mousa and delivered a letter to him warning the Jewish community had been under Islamic surveillance.
"After accurate surveillance over the Jews residing in Al Haid, it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly global Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion," the letter stated.
"Islam calls upon us to fight against the disseminators of decay," the letter said.
The threats have been attributed to disciples of Shiite religious leader Hossein Bader a-Din al-Khouty.
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Most of Yemen's Jews were evacuated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet, a series of semi-secret airlifts between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 45,000 to the Jewish state with the assistance of Britain and the U.S.
A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue until 1962, when a civil war in Yemen put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus. Several thousand Jews remained.