Welcoming New Jewish Immigrants Home from Yemen to Israel ~ Reut R. Cohen

Ten Jews from Yemen landed in Israel as part of a Jewish Agency's special rescue and aliyah operation. Jews in Yemen are living under heavy persecution. The Jewish state is a beacon of hope for distressed Jews around the world, including the remaining Middle Eastern and North African Jews.

Yemenite Jew Simha Ben-Yisrael, back, and her children arrive at Ben Gurion airport on Thursday.
This story of rescue is extremely touching and the reception of these Jews in Israel has been incredibly heartfelt.

The Jerusalem Post has additional details:

The latest immigrants from the Yemenite community of Raida - a town fraught with tension between its Jewish and Muslim residents in recent months - the Ben-Yisraels, accompanied by another young man from their community, arrived in a special aliya operation, shrouded in secrecy, organized by the Jewish Agency and Yemenite Jewish Federation of America.

As they stepped into the arrivals hall, the Ben-Yisraels looked as if they had walked through a time warp. "Thank God, I'm happy to be here," said family patriarch Said Ben-Yisrael, clad in a felt yarmulke and long black side curls as he stood in front of his wife and seven children.

Greeted by a Yemenite rabbi who lives in Israel, Ben-Yisrael recited the "Sheheheyanu" prayer, which is said upon arriving at a particularly festive or joyous occasion. The crowd of reporters and cameramen who swarmed around the family as they entered the arrival terminal answered "Amen!"

But the transition from old-world Yemen to the modern and fast-paced Israel proved to be daunting for the family, even in their first moments on the ground.

The plane ride had been the family's first, and the shiny marble floors and bright fluorescent lights of the airport were no doubt a stark contrast to their former life in the developing Muslim country.

Ben-Yisrael's wife and young children - the girls clad in traditional Islamic clothing and the boys in suits and ties - milled around, smiling nervously as reporters attempted to speak to them in Arabic.

"We just locked up our house and left," said one of Ben-Yisrael's daughters, Esther, as she marveled at the flashing cameras and jostling news crews in front of her.

Several weeks ago, Islamic extremists threw a hand grenade into the Ben-Yisraels' courtyard, which exploded but caused no injuries. Said hurriedly took his family and went to live in the Yemeni capital city of Sana'a, before departing the country for Israel.

"I don't have much to say," Ben-Yisrael said, smiling. "We're tired, but it's good to finally be here, it's good to be home."

When the family left the airport - bound for Beit Shemesh, accompanied by a Jewish Agency team - the young children sat outside on a bench as their parents loaded luggage into a waiting taxi van.

Passersby, intrigued by the new arrivals, began to inquire about their trip.

"Can you sing a Shabbat song?" David Girafi, a cab driver from Herzliya, asked the children in Arabic. Girafi explained that his parents had immigrated from Yemen before he was born, and after witnessing the scene that unfolded at Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday, Girafi said it brought him back to the photographs that had once hung on the walls of his family's home.

"They remind me of my parents," he said, before breaking into song, as Esther, clad in her black hijab, joined him in a Yemenite rendition of "Ki Eshmarei Shabbat".

"It's very emotional," Girafi said.