The role of Yemenite Jews in the region of Palestine long predates the foundation of the state of Israel and was originally more to do with establishing a self-sustaining and self-sufficient Jewish community within the Ottoman Empire. To begin with it is worth noting that Zionism was a European centred movement and one which did not have a single ideology - some Zionists were heavily secular and socialist and wanted to found Israel based on these principles, while others were heavily religious and politically conservative in their outlook. In particular, Ashkenazi Jews were the main Jewish demographic that were originally involved in the formation of Zionism. All of what I am going to write can be found in Mark Tessler's 'A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict' and 'Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict' by Gershon Shafir.

The initial mass emigrations to Ottoman Palestine, known as the First and Second Aliyahs, took place between 1881 and 1903, and 1905 and 1913 respectively, and were composed almost entirely of Eastern European Jews. The emigrants of the first Aliyah (about 6000 people) were ill equipped to develop a self-sustaining community in this region - in general they were not good in developing and working agricultural land, and the the land that they lived on was not well suited to agriculture. Consequently many of the emigrants either left the region, or moved to more urban areas where there were existing ancient Jewish communities. Of the emigrants that did manage to establish farms and vineyards, many then employed Arab workers rather than Jewish emigrants due a combination of economics and expertise - the Arab workers were familiar with the land and farming methods, and were also willing to work for considerably less than European Jewish emigrants. This development was seen very negatively by the Zionist organisations who saw it as a colonial venture, rather than the progressive nation that they had envisaged. It also damaged the job market for Jews in the area and discouraged further European emigration.

The second Aliyah, which was substantially larger at around 35000 emigrants, was considerably more organised and coherent than the first. As above, this mostly comprised of Eastern European Jews, many of whom were fleeing both antisemitic and political persecution. This emigration had a more educated population and a substantial political leaning, one which came from a more Socialist background often called Labour Zionism. The ideology was basically that Jewish communities in Ottoman Palestine would be established and follow the guidelines of a socialist system, where labour would be done by the Jewish working class. In particular, the existing arrangement of Arab workers in Jewish communities was not seen as legitimate. Although more organised, this Aliyah faced many of the same problems of the first in relation to agriculture, but the political hue made many of its participants more committed to staying. However, there was still the issue of having sufficiently many Jews to carry out the agricultural jobs, and Labour Zionism meant that Arabs could not take these roles. This is where Yemenite Jews enter the picture.

While Yemenite Jews had been moving to Ottoman Palestine before and during the Aliyahs, there was a concerted effort by Ashkenazi Zionists to bring more Yemenite Jews to the Yishuv to take the jobs that would otherwise have gone to the pre-existing Arab population. An account of how this went about can be found in 'Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict' by Gershon Shafir, which has a whole chapter dedicated to this Yemenite immigration. To cut a long story short, upon their emigration Yemenite Jews were given highly menial and unskilled agricultural jobs, such as hoeing, with none being given technical or skilled roles. Moreover, they were paid the same as the non-Jewish Arab workers, which was, of course, less than Ashkenazi Jews in the Yishuv were being paid for equivalent work (just over half as much), and were also employed in worse agricultural situations than the Ashkenazis. This was obviously distressing to the Yemenites and quickly established a disillusionment with the European employers. The wages were not really enough to live on, and many Yemenites lived in poverty in Yishuv, often with little political representation and desperate for any work they could get - all of it menial. However, the Yemenite jews were paid more than other Arab workers and were often not willing to work subserviently to Ashkenazi Jews, meaning that in many cases they did not take the jobs that were occupied by non-Jewish Arabs.

Beyond the wage disparity there were other issues Yemenites faced, such as poor housing and a high mortality rate. Moreover, they were not supported, unlike the Ashkenazis, by the major Zionist organisations, who, in many ways, viewed them as being less valuable to Zionism and not worthy of financial support. As a cumulation of all this, the Yemenite Jews became an marginalised group within the Yishuv, both economically and socially. The relationship between the employment of Yemenites and Ashkenazis is considered in depth in the Shafir book, but to cut it short it will be said that the place of the Yemenites in the Yishuv was that of Arab-Jews, rather than Jews, which is where the Ashkenazi lay. This basically took a racial tone, with many of the European Zionist organisations taking the view that Yemenites, like other Arabs, could only do menial work and were not capable of the advanced and more intellectual work of the European Jews.

While this was all pre-1914, it had an impact on the role of Yemenites in the nation, and then state, of Israel. While the Ashkenazi Jews were highly organised, both geographically with their Kibbutzim, settlements and arrangements for emigration from Europe, not to mention the favourable wages and job prospects they were offered, the Yemenite Jews stayed as an unorganised underclass. They did not have their own settlement, they remained worse paid, had worse job prospects (including a minimal number at a skilled level) and less access to education and vocational training. Consequently when it came to building the idea of the nation of Israel, the Yemenites did not have the same identity as the Ashkenazis, and therefore did not really fit in with the national identity of Israel. Shafir writes “Without the possibility of joining their interests with the ashkenazi workers and organizing jointly with them, Yemenite Jews had no access to the new Israeli identity - based on political organization, guard organizations, and cooperative settlement, all mechanisms for bypassing the inhospitable labor market - that was forged by the latter. The Yemenite Jews of the moshavot were left either to cultivate their traditional religious distinctiveness or to indulge in petty jealousies and quarrels. Among themselves, they stopped even being just Yemenite Jews and instead, rendering now irrelevant divisions based on their origin in particular regions of Yemen into a foundation of present divisions, became émigrés of Saana, Heidan, Sharab, etc.121 Short of becoming "Israelis," they remained traditional Jews”.

It is worth noting that the distinction between Ashkenazi and Yemenite Jews in this period of history had nothing to do with Ashkenazi workers, and everything to do with Zionist organisations and corporations. There were many Marxist and Socialist Ashkenazis who were very dismayed by the state of the Yemenite Jews in the Yishuv, but since much of this splitting of identities happened early in the nation building of Israel, individuals did not have much power and much was held in the hands of the Zionist organisations, large employers and goods purchasers, which were almost exclusively based in Europe. For instance the wages of Ashkenazis and Yemenites was fixed by these organisations.

Prior to the state of Israel being formed, there remained a political distinction with Ashkenazi Jews on one side and Sephardic and Yemenite Jews on the other - in elections the nation was split across these lines with parties on each side being voted for by the demographics. Once Israel was founded this stopped, but it shows that this distinction remained. As you can see, none of this has anything to do with the Holocaust and many survivors of the holocaust were shamed by Israelis when they moved to Israel after 1945.

Most of the remaining Yemenite Jews in Yemen were airlifted to Israel in 1949 in Operation Magic Carpet. Whatever the success of the operation, Ben-Gurion and Israel used it as a way to bring the remaining Yemenite jews into Israeli society, and to show that Israel was the home for all Jewish people. Upon arrival there was a lot of pressure exerted on the new emigrants to embrace Israeli culture, which at that stage was heavily secular and dominated by a left-leaning Labor government under Ben-Gurion. This included abandoning many Yemenite jewish and cultural traditions, which were integral to the identity of Yemenite Jews. This was not exclusively targeting Yemenites, as there was a general apathy towards diasporic traditions, with a preference for forging a new national identity. However, this did mean that the Israeli state did not accommodate or attempt to understand the cultures of the Yemenites, which they saw as disposable. In particular, the manifestations of Yemenite Jewish culture slowed assimilation into Israel and, in some cases, not abandoning their native culture left Yemenite Jews on the periphery.