Widow of Slain Yemeni Arrives in Israel
The widow of a Hebrew teacher who was killed in an anti-Semitic attack in Yemen has made aliyah.
Louza al-Nahari, the widow of Moshe al-Nahari, arrived in Israel on Sunday. Upon landing Nahari, a mother of nine, was reunited with five of her children who had made aliyah following the 2008 murder and whom she had not seen for years.
Moshe al-Nahari was a ritual slaughterer and Hebrew teacher in the town of Raydah in the Amran Governorate of northwestern Yemen. In December 2008, at the age of 35, he was shot dead by an Islamist extremist who reportedly had demanded that he convert to Islam. He was buried in Yemen.
After the murder, five of his children made aliyah, while Louza and the other four children stayed behind. The attacker was caught and found guilty of murder, but has never been sentenced.
Following the murder, Yemeni Jews started making aliyah en masse and from 2009 until the present, some 100 people have come to Israel, according to The Jewish Agency, which assisted in their aliyah. The Jewish community of Yemen now numbers some 130, with 50 living in the capital Sana’a in a compound secured by the government, and the remainder in Raydah.
“Moshe al-Nahari was killed solely because he was a Jew,” said Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky. “His infant was only a few months old when his father was murdered in an anti-Semitic attack. Louza’s aliyah and her moving reunion with her children are first and foremost the closing of a personal circle, but they are also the closing of a Zionist circle.”
Attacks on Jews in Yemen by Islamist extremists have increased in recent years, and the Jewish community lives under constant threat, the Jewish Agency said in a statement.
Two months ago, Aaron Joseph Zindani, 46, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Sana’a, was stabbed to death in another anti-Semitic attack. His widow, Afya al-Ashar, and their children made aliyah in June in an operation conducted by The Jewish Agency and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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