Personal Stories

Looking for jewelry that is exotic and artistic? Consider Yemenite filigree.Its origins go back over 3000 years. Perhaps King Solomon’s romance with the Queen of Sheba was the reason that the Jews left Judea and arrived in Yemen by way of Africa. Once they arrived, they remained for centuries as the country’s primary artisans and craftsmen.

60 years ago, the two-year-old state conducted Operation Magic Carpet to bring tens of thousands of Yemenite Jews to Israel. Sara Eden was there.Sara Eden remembers most of her childhood in Yemen fondly.Born sometime in 1927 or 1928 to Yosef and Sa’ida Eden, Sara Eden spent the first five years of her life in a beautiful valley beside Jabal Bani Hajaj, south Yemen.

The last remnants of the Jewish community in Yemen are finally leaving the country, and those who left long ago are ready to welcome them with open arms.The closest that Azri Sharabi has ever gotten to Yemen was when he was in the Israeli Navy over 30 years ago. “We were patrolling in the Red Sea,” he recalls. “Suddenly, there were my roots, just 300 yards away on the shoreline!”