323:: they were indecisive; they were noncondemnatory; they were swayed by their own longings; they understood and sympathized with their people; and they could not but respect the messiahs for the conduct they preached, even while fearing the outcome of their claims and the threat their movements made to the peaceful, if lowly, life of the Jews of Yemen under Moslem despotism. The local Jewish communities—San'a', in particular—would also play the part outlined for them in the
24:
285:
messiahs took advantage of this by incorporating into their messages pious and emotionally powerful calls for communal repentance in the face of impending dangers. As a result of the hyper-piety of the messiahs' messages, communal leaders found it very difficult to reject the messenger. Secondly, the tradition among
Yemenite Jews of memorizing the entire
181:, mainly for the purposes of acquiring funds. It is from this correspondence that we have our largest source of information about Judah ben Shalom's activities in this period. In contrast to Shukr Kuhayl I, who during his short messianic career pursued an ascetic life of seclusion and poverty, Shukr Kuhayl II presents the appearance of a
205:. He ultimately gained a large following among the Jews of Yemen (as well as many Arabs), who continued to contribute large sums of money to his cause. The utilization of these funds—whether they were distributed to the poor, used to buy protection, or used to finance Kuhayl's own luxurious lifestyle—is a matter of conflicting report.
315:) in the 12th century, in which he expressed his concern about the lax response of Yemenite leadership to an anonymous pseudo-messiah of that earlier period. In regard to the present episode, Lenowitz considers it within the framework of the entire history of Yemenite messianic activity in the following way:
284:
An additional ingredient was the manner in which the
Yemenite messiahs took advantage of two unique features of Yemenite Judaism. Firstly, the Yemenite Jewish culture placed great importance on individual and communal repentance (along with the dire consequences of inadequate repentance), and the
300:
All in all, what seems likely is that the suppuration of messianic activity in Yemen was made possible by weak Jewish leadership in the face of a dismal and chaotic political situation within a community that was largely isolated from the rest of Jewish culture, circumstances which were little
208:
Shukr Kuhayl II was not without his critics, even within Yemen. He was opposed by individuals who had personally known the first Shukr Kuhayl, and who regarded Shukr Kuhayl II's excessive lifestyle as incompatible with the modesty of the person they had known. Lenowitz quotes some letters that
197:) to his organization. Various motivations and efficacies for the tithe are given in his correspondence —among them salvation from the "pangs of the Messiah"—and these solicitations appear by all reports to have been hugely successful. According to one report, the Jews of
140:
Unlike Shukr Kuhayl I, who worked mainly in the capacity of itinerant preacher, Judah ben Shalom developed a significant organizational structure which may have included hundreds of functionaries. From his headquarters, which was successively in
268:
While
Sassoon has the advantage of proximity to events—living almost contemporaneously with the messianic movement he is describing, one can question the fairness of some of these remarks, especially inasmuch as they are not paralleled in
188:
Beyond Judah ben Shalom's exhortations to repentance (which were characteristic also of his predecessor Shukr Kuhayl I, and of other
Yemenite messiahs), his correspondence is distinguished by its encouragement of the paying of a
241:
In all ages there have been pretenders and false messiahs amongst Jews, but in Yemen they have been very numerous, no doubt because the Yemen Jew is credulous and lacks erudition. His studies are principally confined to the
297:. His Yemenite readers would immediately recognize these verses and their prophetic origins, which no doubt lent tremendous authority to the messiah's message, and again made the messenger difficult to reject.
106:. The exact manner in which Judah ben Shalom was able to take over the identity of the deceased Shukr Kuhayl, and in so doing to completely erase his own personal history, must remain something of a mystery.
113:) Shukr Kuhayl continued to preach the message of repentance that Yemenite Jews were familiar with from prior messiahs, as well as from local religious tradition. To the Jews he proclaimed that he was the
327:; the repression and the occasional instability in the society would recur; and Yemen, finally, comes to present a strikingly unified messiah history that spans a period of over 600 years.
289:
made it easy for a knowledgeable individual such as Kuhayl II to sound eminently "messianic" by artfully weaving into his writings (and no doubt into his speeches) verses from the
358:, which led to a deterioration in Kuhayl's stature among the community leaders controlling his cash flow. As the income diminished, he was forced to borrow money from wealthy
362:, and—evidently defaulting on these loans—was finally taken to jail. Released after some time, he was not able to regain his former acclaim, and died in poverty around 1878.
277:
seem the case that the
Yemenite Jews were indeed given to a certain fascination with messianic paraphernalia, including calculations of redemption, apocalyptic visions, the
137:
him to undertake miracle-working, and that (naturally) God's permission is merely waiting for the moment when the Jews finally unite behind their
Messiah.
500:
Klorman, Bat-Zion Eraqi (1989), "The messiah Shukr Kuḥayl II (1868–75) and his tithe (ma-aser): Ideology and practice as a means to hasten redemption",
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in so recent a period as the late 1800s are varied, although in light of even more recent messianic activity—such as that occurring within
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include miracle-working, and he addresses this conspicuous failure in some of his letters. The main reason given is that God has not yet
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237:-influenced writer like Sassoon, the only plausible explanation is the deficiency of Yemenite intellectual culture:
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The leaders of the
Yemenite Jewish community would continue to play the role in which they appear in the
153:, and again Tan'im, he coordinated a vast correspondence with the Jewish leaders in other communities of
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556:
Lenowitz, Harris (2000), "Shukr Kuhayl II reads the Bible", in L.J. Greenspoon & B.F. LeBeau (ed.),
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250:," סגולות "cabbalistic practices," רפואות "cures," גורלות "casting of lots," and קמיעות "
281:, etc., but this alone does not account for their susceptibility to messianic pretense.
254:." Many of them shut themselves up for days, and imagine that they are speaking to the
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354:), countering the messianic claims of Judah ben Shalom, and signed by the rabbis of
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artfully manipulating individuals and the community at large for his own advantage.
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The Jews of Yemen in the
Nineteenth Century: A Portrait of a Messianic Community
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in March 1868 that he was in fact the self-same messianic claimant known as
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express this resentment. Kuhayl II's greatest antagonist, however, was
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Sassoon, David S. (1907), "An autograph letter of a pseudo-messiah",
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217:, who ultimately played a major role in ending the messiah's career.
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Sacred Text, Secular Times: The Hebrew Bible in the Modern World
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Messianic movements in the second half of the nineteenth century
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The reasons for the profound success of messianic movements in
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Judah ben Shalom was either a potter or a cobbler hailing from
31:(Judah ben Shalom), published in 1907 by David Sassoon in the
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The Jewish
Messiahs: From the Galilee to Crown Heights
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117:sent to redeem them, while to the
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543:Klorman, Bat-Zion Eraqi (1993b),
530:Klorman, Bat-Zion Eraqi (1993a),
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332:The demise of Shukr Kuhayl II
258:and other celestial beings...
16:Not to be confused with the
121:he announced that he was a
78:The rise of Shukr Kuhayl II
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647:19th-century Yemeni people
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582:: Oxford University Press
574:Lenowitz, Harris (1998),
377:List of Messiah claimants
627:Jewish messiah claimants
372:Jewish Messiah claimants
590:Jewish Quarterly Review
503:Jewish Quarterly Review
221:Reasons for his success
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20:named Judah ben Shalom.
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94:. He announced to the
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305:to write his famous
29:Mari Shukr Kuhayl II
536:Leiden, Netherlands
336:Eventually, it was
246:and books on קבלה "
231:Lubavitch Hasidism
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652:People from Sanaa
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56:Shooker Kohail II
50:), also known as
42:(died ca. 1878) (
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551:: E.J. Brill
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27:A letter of
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348:'s earlier
279:Lost Tribes
621:Categories
383:References
303:Maimonides
163:Alexandria
147:al-Ṭawīlah
356:Jerusalem
252:talismans
215:Jerusalem
203:synagogue
175:Jerusalem
151:al-Qaranī
135:permitted
92:kabbalist
70:), was a
54:(Master)
580:New York
366:See also
340:'s 1872
261:—
171:Calcutta
72:Yemenite
611:1451110
524:1454252
351:Epistle
295:Ketuvim
291:Nevi'im
248:Cabbala
195:ma'aser
183:con-man
115:Messiah
111:renewed
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325:Letter
321:Letter
287:Tanakh
271:Saphir
177:, and
167:Bombay
143:Tan'im
123:Muslim
104:Elijah
84:San‘a’
64:Hebrew
44:Hebrew
607:JSTOR
520:JSTOR
360:Arabs
244:Zohar
227:Yemen
191:tithe
179:Safed
155:Yemen
127:Mahdi
119:Arabs
88:Yemen
18:amora
562:ISBN
293:and
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199:Aden
159:Aden
52:Mori
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58:or
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