History of the Jews in Oman

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History of the Jews in Oman. There was a Jewish presence in Oman for many centuries, however, the Jewish community of the country is no longer existent.

Contents 1 Early Jewish history 2 Ishaq bin Yahuda 3 Benjamin of Tudela visits Muscat 4 Later community 5 Modern antisemitism 6 Modern politics 7 Jews in the Arabian Peninsula 8 See also 9 References 9.1 History and travels of Benjamin of Tudela

[edit] Early Jewish history

Some of the earliest Jewish history in what is now Oman is associated with the Biblical figure Job. The Tomb of Job is located 45 miles from the port city of Salalah.

[edit] Ishaq bin Yahuda

The subsequent, more documented Omani Jewish community was made famous by Ishaq bin Yahuda, a merchant who lived in the 9th century. Bin Yahuda lived in Sohar, and sailed for China between the years of 882 and 912 after an argument with a Jewish colleague, where he made a great fortune. He returned to Shoar and sailed for China again, but his ship was seized and bin Yahuda was murdered at the port of Sumatra.

[edit] Benjamin of Tudela visits Muscat

A historical journey to visit far-flung Jewish communities was undertaken by Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela from 1165 to 1173 that crossed and tracked some of the areas that are today in the geographic area of Oman. His trek began as a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.^[2] He may have hoped to settle there, but there is controversy about the reasons for his travels. It has been suggested he may have had a commercial motive as well as a religious one. On the other hand, he may have intended to catalogue the Jewish communities on the route to the Holy Land so as to provide a guide to where hospitality may have been found for Jews travelling to the Holy Land.^[3] He took the "long road" stopping frequently, meeting people, visiting places, describing occupations and giving a demographic count of Jews in every town and country.

One of the known towns that Benjamin of Tudela reported as having a Jewish community was Muscat ^[4] located in the area of Oman in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

[edit] Later community

In the mid 19th century, the British Lieutenant J.R. Wellsted documented the Jews of Muscat in his memoirs Travels in Arabia, vol. 1. He mentions that there are "a few Jews in Muskat (sic), who mostly arrived there in 1828, being driven from Baghdad . . .by the cruelties and extortions of the Pacha Daud." He also notes that Jews were not discriminated against at all in Oman, which was not the case in other Arab countries (they did not have to live in Ghettos, nor identify themselves as Jews, not walk in the road if a Muslim was walking on the same street, as was the case in Yemen). The Jews of Muscat were employed mostly in the making of silver ornaments, banking, and liquor sale. Despite the lack of persecution in Oman, the community is believed to have disappeared before 1900. During World War II, a Jewish American Army enlisted man, Emanuel Glick, encountered a small community of Omani Jews in Muscat, but this community consisted mostly of recent migrants from Yemen.

[edit] Modern antisemitism

The United States Department of State has noted that regarding "Anti-Semitism in the Near East and North Africa Region":

Anti-Semitism in the media was the most common form of anti-Semitism in the region. Anti-Semitic articles and opinion pieces, usually rhetoric by political columnists, were published, and editorial cartoons depicted demonic images of Jews and Israeli leaders, stereotypical images of Jews along with Jewish symbols, and comparisons of Israeli leaders to Hitler and the Nazis. These expressions occurred in certain publications and were not common, but they did occur without Government response in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. (July 1, 2003 – December 15, 2004, submitted by the Department of State to the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on International Relations in accordance with Section 4 of PL 108-332, December 30, 2004)^[5]

The Anti-Defamation League has given public testimony before the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia on Arabs and antisemitism and noting that in "Recent Themes in Editorial Cartoons":

The November 26, 2007, Annapolis Conference and President George W. Bush's January 2008 visit to the region was the subject of scores of editorial cartoons. Most were critical of Israel and the United States and many featured age-old heinous anti-Semitic stereotypes. In them, Israel was depicted as using the conference to manipulate the Arab world and the international community to further its own belligerent agenda. Many used blatantly anti-Semitic images of Jewish control of the United States and the world and of conniving Jews hoodwinking the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the Arab world and the international community. The caricatures appeared in state-run and opposition newspapers in countries who participated in Annapolis such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Jordan. They also appeared in newspapers in Iran and those controlled by Hamas – both entities which oppose Arab-Israeli reconciliation...Where do these cartoons appear?...For many years, ADL analysts found Egypt to be the leading propagator of these images. That is no longer the case, although anti-Semitic depictions continue to be a feature on Egyptian opinion pages. In the past year or so, it is newspapers in the Gulf States – notably Oman and Qatar – which feature the most heinous images of Jews...In Oman and Qatar, Jews are portrayed as the embodiment of evil in their facial expressions, in traditional Jewish garb (skull cup, long coat), with big noses and marked with the Star of David. (Statement of Kenneth Jacobson, Deputy National Director Anti-Defamation League Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. January 22, 2008.)^[6]

[edit] Modern politics

Like with other smaller Arab states facing a hostile and growing Iranian Islamic fundamentalist common foe on the other side of the Persian Gulf, Omani official have begun to reach out to Jewish American and Israeli leaders. The American Jewish Committee recently hosted a meeting at which: "Israeli and Omani leaders gathered at AJC to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Middle East Desalination Research Center, one of the success stories of efforts to deepen Arab-Israeli cooperation. Speakers include Sayyid Badr, secretary-general of the Foreign Ministry of Oman; Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni; and Charles Lawson of the U.S. State Department. (Video: Israeli, Omani Leaders Celebrate.)^[7]

[edit] Jews in the Arabian Peninsula

Main articles: Arabian Peninsula and History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula

• History of the Jews in Arabia (disambiguation)
• History of the Jews in Iraq
• History of the Jews in Jordan
• History of the Jews in Bahrain
• History of the Jews in Kuwait
• History of the Jews in Oman
• History of the Jews in Qatar
• History of the Jews in Saudi Arabia
• History of the Jews in the United Arab Emirates
• Yemenite Jews

[edit] See also

• Abrahamic religion
• Arab Jews
• Arab states of the Persian Gulf
• Babylonian captivity
• History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula
• History of the Jews under Muslim rule
• Islam and antisemitism
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• Jews outside Europe under Nazi occupation
• Judaism and Islam
• List of Jews from the Arab World
• Mizrahi Jews

[edit] References

• Tomb of Job
• Oman's Jews (jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

[edit] History and travels of Benjamin of Tudela

• Benjamin of Tudela. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages. trans. Joseph Simon. Pangloss Press, 1993. ISBN 0-934710-07-4
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela. trans. Marcus Nathan Adler. 1907: includes map of route (p. 2) and commentary.
• Works by Benjamin of Tudela at Project Gutenberg
• Shatzmiller, Joseph. "Jews, Pilgrimage, and the Christian Cult of Saints: Benjamin of Tudela and His Contemporaries." After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1998.
• Jewish Virtual Library: Benjamin of Tudela.

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