From David Shuker, last Jew from Saudi Arabia’s Najran community, dies at 82
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David Shuker, an Israeli who claimed to be the last survivor of the the Najran Jewish community in Saudi Arabia, has passed away, sources report. He was about 82 years old.
In October 2022, Shuker made several public appeals to the kingdom’s rulers to allow him to visit the place of his birth before he dies, including in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“I’m asking Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his father King Salman to go to the city of my birth, Najran, while I am still standing on my feet… to see where my grandparents are buried,” Shuker, a former mayor of the town of Bnei Ayish, near Ashdod, told Channel 13 at the time.
The request was never granted.
Shuker was born in Najran, in the Saudi southwest, in 1944. Once considered part of Yemen, the city was taken over by Saudi Arabia when the kingdom was formed in 1934. It is known to have had a small Jewish community, but rising persecution by the establishment caused most to flee to Yemen and from there to Israel.
Shuker recalled that some 60 Jewish families lived in Najran and the surrounding villages when he was a young child. When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, the king forced them to leave toward the Yemeni border. From there, his family came to Israel in 1951.
Heartbreaking news this morning: David Shuker, known as the "last Jew from Saudi Arabia," has passed away.
He died without ever being allowed to return to the land where he was born. The land he loved. The land he longed to see one last time.
He was barred from reentering Saudi…— Amjad Taha أمجد طه (@amjadt25) February 24, 2026
In a post announcing his passing, the Yemenite Jewish and Israeli Communities Heritage Center calls Shuker “a multifaceted public character whose image is woven into the story of the Jews of Yemen in general and the Najran community in particular.”
“His life story is that of the Yemenite Jews — tradition, faith, labor and preservation of identity from generation to generation,” the organization adds.
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