History

The community was very old, and, after the rise of Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 and the expulsion of the Hejazi Jews, the main centers of Jewish population in Arabia in Hadhramaut and in Aden. However, the Jews of Hadhramaut were much more isolated than their counterparts in Aden

Aden

Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...

, and the community only became known to the outside world in the 1940s. The community had distinctive religious traditions. Many of the Hadhrami Jews converted to Islam, but after the founding of the State of Israel, the community made Aliyah

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

, and there are no more Hadhramaut Jews in Yemen today.
The Jews of Hadhramaut lived in Seiyun

Seiyun

Say'un is a town in the Hadhramaut region of Yemen. Postage stamps from the former Aden Protectorate sultanate of Kathiri are sometimes inscribed "Kathiri State of Seiyun." As of 2006 the population was 75,700....

, Tarim

Tarim, Yemen

Tarim is a historic town situated in the Hadhramaut Valley of South Yemen, South Arabia. Tarim is widely acknowledged as the theological, juridical, and academic center of the Hadhramaut Valley. An important locus of Islamic learning, it is estimated to contain the highest concentration of...

, Al-Mukalla and Al-Sheher

Ash Shihr

Ash Shihr is a coastal town in Hadhramaut, southern Yemen. It is located at around . It was a part of the Qu'aiti Sultanate before the unified Yemen was formed.-External Links:*...

. Among the well known Jewish families of the region in Al-Sheher and Mukalla are: Ben Haneen, Ben Haiem, Ben Yaze'a, Ben Zaghio, Ben Ysra'ail and Ben Qatian. All of these families converted to Islam in the time period from 1509 until the 1990s. The Ben Qattian family is famous in Hadhramaut as dagger makers and gold smiths.