Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Disturbances in Aden in December, 1947.

Located along the Red Sea, the port of Aden (present-day Yemen) had been governed since 1839 as a part of British India. From 1937 it was a British Crown Colony until it was reconstituted as the State of Aden within the new Federation of South Arabia in 1963. The federation in turn became the People’s Republic of South Yemen in 1967, thus marking the end of British rule. Jews had a presence in Aden and Yemen for millennia. Following the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, serious riots broke out in Aden where at least 80 Jews were killed and much of the Jewish Quarter was burned and looted. President of the Aden Jewish community Mr. Selim Benin is quoted (para. 51): “We never expected such things to happen - we all the time living friendly with the Arabs.” In 1949 the State of Israel organized “Operation Magic Carpet” which rescued several thousand Aden and Yemini Jews and brought them to safety to the new Jewish homeland.