Murdered Yemenite Jew’s body brought to Israel

The body of Aaron Joseph Zindani, who was stabbed to death outside the US Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, in May, was transported to Israel Wednesday.

The arrival of the body marked the end of a long and complex operation by the Jewish Agency and the Foreign Ministry that also saw Zindani’s family, including his widow and the couple’s five children, brought to Israel.

Zindani was a Jewish community leader in Yemen. He was 48 years old at the time of his murder.

Zindani’s son, Joseph, said the murderer claimed Zindani had put a spell on him. His father was stabbed in his neck and stomach, Joseph said. The killer was a “well-known person who says my father has ruined and bewitched him,” the son told AFP.

A majority of Yemen’s Jewish community moved to Israel by 1950. Today, Yemen has a few hundred remaining Jewish residents. Israel has offered to resettle them several times.

Attacks against the Jewish community in Yemen, while not common, have been a problem in the past. In 2008, a Jewish teacher was murdered in broad daylight in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Raidah, a town some 40 miles north of Sana’a.

The chief rabbi of Yemen, Yahia Youssef Moussa, recently called on the country’s president, Abdrabu Mansur al-Hadi, to allow the Jewish community and other minority groups to have seats in the country’s parliament, citing the need for the community not to feel discriminated against.

Michal Shmulovich contributed to this report.