PERSECUTION AND LONGING OF YEMENITE JEWS IN THE HANDSOME JEW
PERSECUTION AND LONGING OF YEMENITE JEWS IN THE HANDSOME JEW

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to highlight the suffering of the Yemenite Jews as depicted in Ali Al-Muqri’s The Handsome Jew. It argues that Ali Al-Muqri has been able to articulate the suffering experienced by Yemenite Jews for thousands of years and that the novel presents a fair and realistic picture of the Jewish society during a crucial period in the history of Yemenite Jews. In addition, the article examines how and why Yemenite Jews actively took on diasporic consciousness. It argues that this feeling of unbelonging and longing needs to be contextualized according to their specific living conditions in Yemen. It also argues that Jewish excitement during the messianic activity, their longing for Zion, and their dream of return are the outcomes of persecution and discrimination that they received at the hands Zaydi rulers of Yemen.

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