The Yemeni Jewish community boasts a long history. While the exact origins of this community in Yemen is lost in time, the community’s tradition places the arrival of Jews in Yemen in the 6^th century BCE. Some pre-Islamic rulers of Yemen supported Judaism, and there was a Jewish state in the region. Under Muslim rule, Jews formed a community of dhimmis, or protected subjects. They often faced discriminatory rules, but remained indispensable to Yemen’s economic life, especially due to their craftmanship.

The Jewish quarter of Sanaa, Qāʿ al-Yahūd, the largest Jewish

community in Yemen, was still in place when the Dutch travelers came to the region in the 1930s. Gellius Flieringa was able to visit the quarter and had photographs of it taken. In later years Cornelis Adriaanse, the Dutch charge d’affaires in Jeddah, who played an instrumental role in organizing Flieringa’s visit to Yemen, acquired five manuscripts from this community. Three of those were sold to the university in 1941, and the other two were bought by the University Library after his death at an auction. After the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Jewish community left Yemen. Thus, Flieringa’s photographs remain unique witnesses to a now-lost world.