Who is in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv? Let's make a peace video!

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Permalink Reply by Tim Upham on July 4, 2012 at 7:58am

One thing that might be interesting is going back into the history of Tel-Aviv.  Along the beach at the southern end of the city, is what is known as the Yemenite Torture.  It is basically unknown to the outside world.  But it goes back to the 1880s, when Jews from Yemen settled there.  Both Palestine and Yemen at that time belonged to the Ottoman Empire, but with the lose of land in the Balkan Peninsula, they Turks consolidated their hold on the remaining part of their empire.  This included Yemen.  Turkish soldiers would terrorize Jews to get wine from them.  So the Jews there fled, and went to another part of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine.  This predates the founding of the city in 1909.  So it was not just Jews fleeing Europe, that laid the foundations of the city, but also within the Ottoman Empire itself.  I spent a Shabbat in the Yemenite Torture, and loved it.

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