nashim inheritance

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WOMEN RESISTING MEN: INHERITANCE AND

DISINHERITANCE IN THE YEMENITE JEWISH

COMMUNITY IN MANDATORY PALESTINE

Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman

Yemenite1

Jewish women immigrated to Palestine mostly from the rural-tribal areas of Yemen, where both Muslim and Jewish women usually did

not inherit property. In Palestine the situation was different, especially

following the British Mandate inheritance regulations of 1923, which

stipulated that females and males had equal inheritance rights. Similarly,

starting in the mid-1930s, the JNF began to sign tenancy contracts in the

agricultural settlements (moshvei ovdim), including the Yemenite moshav

Elyashiv, with both husband and wife. The Yemenite Jewish community

did not easily adapt to these signifcant changes, and women had to

struggle to implement their lawful inheritance and ownership rights.

Analyzing a number of representative cases in which women resistedattempts to disinherit them, this article presents Yemenite Jewish women

as adamant subjects acting to advance their interests by employing various

means. It argues that their initiatives were largely rooted in a tradition of

independent conduct brought with them from Yemen. They negotiated

with the JNF, used the services of lawyers, initiated lawsuits, sought the

help of their political representatives, and engaged male acquaintances to

act on their behalf. Their endeavors to retain property are viewed as an

example of their search for economic independence and an expression

of their adaptation to the social and legal conditions in Jewish Palestine.

The article also expands on the attitudes of the relevantyishuv institutionstoward these women. The study is based mainly on previously unstudied

letters and other documents assembled from different archives.

126 NASHIM: A Journal of Jewish Womens Studies and Gender Issues. 2006

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Women Resisting Men

You should know that I will not let these people achieve their great desire,

even though I am a woman, wrote Miriam bat Saadia Cohen to the Jewish

National Fund in December 1931.2 The desire of these people, male leadersof Shivat Zion, a Yemenite Jewish settlement near Rishon le-Zion, was to see

her out of the house she had inherited from her father and prevent her from

having a share in agricultural land allocated to the settlement by the Jewish

National Fund (JNF). In the period following their immigration to Palestine,

other Yemenite Jewish immigrant women faced similar attempts by male

members of their families or by other men of their community to disinherit

them.

The following discussion will examine the social and legal background

to these actions. It will then present and analyze ve cases in which womenresisted such attempts. I shall present these women as subjects, acting to

advance their interests by employing various means. Their endeavors to retain

their property will be viewed as an example of Yemenite Jewish womens

search for economic independence and as an expression of their adaptation

to the social and legal conditions in Jewish Palestine, especially during the

British Mandate (19201948). The discussion will also touch upon the attitude

of the relevant institutions in theyishuv (the Jewish community in pre-state

Israel) toward these women.

This study is based mainly upon previously unstudied letters and other

documents assembled from various archives. I have chosen those cases for

which the documents sufced to construct a somewhat coherent picture of

the circumstances, participants, and events. If the available documents do

not always apprise us of the nal outcome, they do provide sufcient data

to sustain the main suppositions of this article. In case (1), where I was able

to identify the woman involved, I completed the information offered by the

written documents with personal interviews.

Efforts by Yemenite Jewish men to take over family property in Palestine

corresponded with the traditional practice they brought with them from Yemen.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, Yemens legal system was based onthe Sharia (Muslim religious law). While civil and family matters pertain-

ing to a specic religious community were under the jurisdiction of its own

religious law, dissatised plaintiffs could always appeal to the Muslim court.

In matters of inheritance, Jewish law is unfavorable to women: A daughter

inherits from her father only if he has no sons, and a wife does not inherit from

her husband, though she is entitled to be supported by his estate as long as she

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does not remarry. Though some Jewish communities adopted regulations that

improved womens inheritance rights,3 the Yemenite Jewish community did

not. In contrast, Muslim law is more favorable to women. Generally speaking,it stipulates that female heirs receive a share equal to one half of that of their

male co-heirs.4 As a result of this disagreement between the two legal systems,

Jewish women, mainly in the towns, sometimes appealed to the Muslim court

for a more favorable ruling.5

However, most Yemenite Jews (about 85%) lived among rural Yemenite

Muslim tribes. While ofcially recognizing the central governments sover-

eignty, in practice the tribesmen maintained their independence and customary

laws (urf). These laws often contradicted the Sharia.6 Tribal laws of inheri-

tance (similarly to the biblical laws outlined in Num. 36) were designated tokeep property within the tribe, in order to preserve its economic wealth and

political coherence.7 Thus, in tribal Yemen, at least until the middle of the

twentieth century, inheritance passed in most cases only to adult male relatives.

The exclusion of Jewish women from inheritance and from controlling family

property, out of fear that the property might, with their marriage or remarriage,

be transferred to an alien faction, thus corresponded with the practice of the

communitys Muslim surroundings.

This does not mean that Jewish women were totally dependent on men.

While their husbands were away pursuing their occupations as wandering

artisans, small merchants, and peddlers,8 rural women often managed the

affairs of the household. Many of them also extended their independence by

developing their own economic endeavors. They traded in their crafts or in

other goods and even participated in the weekly market. Women in the towns

traded with other women, mainly in needlework.9

All the women discussed in this paper immigrated to Palestine in the early

twentieth century from the rural-tribal areas of Yemen, where neither Muslim

nor Jewish women usually inherited property. In Palestine during the period

under discussion, the situation was different. The 1923 British Mandate inheri-

tance regulations stipulated that females and males had equal inheritancerights; daughters were equal to sons and wives to husbands. After this became

the law of the land, rabbinical courts in Palestine ruled accordingly, whether

or not the result conformed to the requirements of Jewish law.10 The Yemenite

Jewish community did not adapt easily to this signicant change, and women

had to struggle to obtain their lawful inheritance rights.

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Case (1): Miriam Cohen immigrated to Palestine in 1909 with her parents,

Saadia and Hawida, from the Haydan district in northern Yemen. They came

in a group of more than two hundred people, seventy-four of whom settled inthe agricultural colony of Rishon le-Zion (the rest went to Rehovot and Petah

Tikvah).11 After their arrival, the immigrants lived in shacks. They sought the

help of the yishuvs institutions to improve their crowded living conditions

and build their own settlement, but initially they were unsuccessful. In 1919,

they combined their savings with a loan that a number of them had been able

to obtain from their employer, the Rishon le-Zion winery, and purchased a

vineyard from a local farmer. Their settlement, Shivat Zion, was then built

with the help of a loan of 200 pounds per household from the JNF, given on

the condition that ownership of the lots be transferred to the JNF.

12

The localHaydani leadership decided who would be included in the project and how

the lots were to be allocated. During 19211922, sixteen houses were built

in Shivat Zion, among them Saadia Cohens house (three more houses were

added in 1923).13

Meanwhile, Miriam Cohen befriended Awad Mansur, a Yemenite Jew from

the Damt district. Mansur was not liked by the local Haydani Jews, but Miriam

married him in 1923, despite their disapproval. The couple lived in a group

of shacks next to Shivat Zion. In 1926, Saadia Cohen passed away, having

been predeceased by his wife, leaving his daughter Miriam as his sole heir.

Although Jewish law recognized Miriams inheritance rights, the leaders of

Shivat Zion tried, immediately after her fathers death, to take control of his

house. As I was told in interviews held many years later, these leaders would

not accept that Saadias rights should go to his daughter and with her to a

stranger, a Damti Jew.14

On December 24, 1928, two representatives of the Shivat Zion Committee,

Abraham Tabib (at the time also deputy chair of the Yemenite Union in Pal-

estine, founded in 1923 in order to represent the interests of Yemenite Jews)

and Avshalom Afari, sued Miriam Cohen in the rabbinical court of Jaffa,

demanding that her fathers house be transferred to the community of ShivatZion. They rested their claim on the assertion that Saadia Cohen had owed

Shivat Zion the sum of 7 Egyptian pounds, and that the settlement treasury

had spent 4 pounds to renovate his house. The 7 pounds seem to be Saadia

Cohens debt to the community for the purchase of the land, while the reno-

vations probably related to the retting of part of the house for use by the

newly founded Shivat Zion kindergarten, which initially, in 1924, was located

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there.15 The court accepted the claim for the debt, exempting the plaintiffs,

who showed no receipts, from taking an oath, and ruled that within one year

Miriam Cohen should pay Shivat Zion the sum of 11 pounds. It also ruledthat Marat Miriam bat Saadia Cohen be left the estate of her father, provided

that she brings a letter of guarantee for the above-mentioned sums.16

Miriam moved into the house but refused to pay the money. In fact, there

was no conceivable way this poor woman could have paid the money within

one year. Moreover, she demanded that the Shivat Zion Committee pay her 35

pounds in rent for the two years that her fathers house was used by the kinder-

gartenwhich sum, she claimed, had been given to Shivat Zion by the National

Cultural Committee for this very purpose.17 It is not clear why Saadia Cohen,

one of the poorest settlers, was not paid rent. Perhaps he was asked to housethe kindergarten in lieu of his debt to Shivat Zion; or perhaps he was promised

some money when it was received from the Cultural Committee. It is clear,

however, that whatever agreement the Shivat Zion leadership may have reached

with Saadia Cohen, they were not willing to maintain it with his daughter.

As the dispute was not resolved, Shivat Zions leaders proceeded to cut

Miriam off from other rights as her fathers heir. During the 1920s they

invested numerous efforts in persuading the JNF to purchase for them, as it

did for Ashkenazi Jews, agricultural land that would enlarge their settlement

and provide means of support. In 1930 the JNF nalized the purchase of

the Safriya land, 200 dunams (about 50 acres) near Shivat Zion. The land

was to be divided to lots of four dunams each for allocation to the settlers of

Shivat Zion and to the Yemenite Jewish settlers of nearby Neve Zion. The

JNF distributed the land, and Saadia Cohen, who was on the initial list of

recipients, was assigned a lot. When contracts for the tenancy were prepared

for signature, the Shivat Zion leadership petitioned the JNF not to sign Miriam

Cohens contract until she paid the amount due from her. In response, the JNF

delayed signing.

Attempting to salvage her rights, Miriam Cohen applied two methods: force-

ful occupation of her part in the Safriya land, and negotiations with the JNF.Before the rainy season, Shivat Zion settlers set out to plough and sow their

plots. Despite their opposition, Miriam and her husband also sowed her desig-

nated lot. However, the Shivat Zion Committee, with the consent of the JNF,

brought two horses and ploughed over her sowed land. She resisted violently,

but the police, who had been called ahead of time, detained her and brought

her to the police station in Ramla.18

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Miriam Cohen wrote a number of letters to the JNF, in which she tried to

explain her position.19 In two letters, to Menahem Ussishkin, chair of the JNF,

and to Yosef Weitz of the JNF central bureau,20 she pleaded that the unjustactions taken against her, as the legal heir of her father, be stopped. She claimed

that her disagreement with Shivat Zion was an internal communal dispute,

not a national matter that should concern the JNF. She wrote to Weitz:

I am strongly appealing to the JNF to notify the Shivat Zion Committee

not to interfere in matters between me and the JNF, and, similarly, the JNF

should not interfere in the matter between me and the above-mentioned

persons. And as for my obligations to the JNF, I am more than willing to

fulll them.

The JNF consistently denied her appeal:

We have clearly notied you a number of times, in person and in writing, . . .

that as long as you do not comply with the judgment ruled by the Jaffa and

Tel-Aviv rabbinical district court, of 29.1.1929, and you do not settle with

the Shivat Zion Committee the sum of eleven and a half pounds that you

owe the Committee in accordance with the above-mentioned rulingwe

will not sign a tenancy contract on a lot of Safriya land with you, and we

will not deliver to you any portion of this land.21

Though Miriam Cohen defeated Shivat Zions patriarchal leaders regarding

her house, she failed to thwart their great desire to bar her from the Safriya

land. Her assigned lot was leased to Moshe Maimon, a male second-generation

descendant of a Shivat Zion settler.

The remaining four cases relate to women in the Yemenite Jewish community

of Rehovot.

Case (2): This case concerns Esther, daughter of Haim ben Abraham Sharabi,

who arrived in Rehovot in 1912 with other Yemenite Jews from the Sharab

district in southern Yemen. They joined the Yemenite Jewish community in

the Shaarayim district of Rehovot, which had been founded earlier by Hay-

dani Jews. In 1913, the JNF leased to a number of Shaarayim dwellers who

lacked adequate housing, among them Haim Sharabi, lots of one dunam each,

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on which they built shacks or brick houses.22 Haim Sharabi died in the late

1920s. He was survived by his daughter Esther Nagar (the sole heir according

to Jewish law) and by his wife and her son from a previous marriage, Yaakovben Zekharia Sharabi. At rst, at a time when the legal ownership of the prop-

erty was still unregistered, they all lived in Haims shack. Later, the widow

remarried and moved out, and Esther, too, married and moved elsewhere in

Rehovot. Her stepbrother Yaakov remained in the shack, and in 1929, without

asking her consent, built a room on the land. In 1935 the JNF leased Yaakov

ten dunams and a house in nearby Marmurek.23 In August 1935, Esther wrote

to the JNF that in 1933, when her family could not afford to pay rent on their

house (2 pounds monthly), she decided to move back into her fathers shack.

Her stepbrother, however, refused to allow this. Likely motivated by a desireto ensure his mothers rights, he rented out the shack, and he also empowered

an agent to sell the lot, with the shack and the room he had built.

Esther, fearing that her stepbrother would sell the tenancy rights to her

fathers land, wrote the JNF asking to be ofcially recognized as the only

person with a legal right to the lot.24 In addition, Esther petitioned Abraham

Tabib, her representative in the Yemenite Union, to speak to the JNF on her

behalf. Thus, Tabib, who in case (1) had advanced the narrow interests of his

native patriarchal group in Rishon le-Zion against the lawful rights of Miriam

Cohen, was obliged by virtue of his position to act more broadly on behalf of

all Yemenite Jews, men and women, who sought his help. He therefore advised

the JNF to warn Yaakov that his estate in Marmurek would be repossessed if

he proceeded with the sale of Haim Sharabis lot.25 It is not known what steps,

if any, were taken by the JNF, but in August 1935, Esther led suit against

her stepbrother in the rabbinical court of Jaffa. The court ruled: The rights to

the lot, and the shack that her late father erected on it, belong to the plaintiff,

Esther, daughter of Haim Sharabi, in her capacity as the heir of her father.26

The actions Esther took thus conrmed her inheritance rights and kept in her

hands the property that her brother had attempted to capture.

Case (3): This case relates to Esther, daughter of Pinhas Sharabi. Her hus-

band, Aharon ben Shalom Sharabi, had tenancy rights from the JNF to a lot in

Shaarayim. He built a two-room house on it, to which he then added another

story, which he dedicated for use as a synagogue. Aharon and Esther were

childless, and he did not want the property to be left to his wife after his death.

In 1938 he prepared to assign it to his nephew, Zekharia ben Yehuda Sharabi.27

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The matter disrupted the relations between husband and wife. Esther did not

sit still. She petitioned the JNF and sought the help of the Bureau of Social

Help in Rehovot. In February 1939, the Bureau wrote to the JNF:

As you know, the above [Aharon Sharabi] wants to transfer the house and

the piece of land into his nephews name. But his wife of 1012 years is the

one who worked and earned and brought income and paid for the house . . .,

and now he leaves her with no property, especially as it is known to us,

according to JNF rules, that the wife and the husband are both the property

owners, and they both have to sign the [tenancy] contract.

The above [Esther Sharabi] is far younger than her husband and after his

death, his heirs, to whom he wants to give the property, will force her out,and she will remain with no means and with no roof over her head. . . . We

ask you to take this information into account, and see to the just demands

of the woman.28

The letter relates to the JNF practice, since the 1930s, of registering both

husband and wife as co-holders of property leased to them. In reply, the JNF

informed the Bureau that in a letter sent to Aharon Sharabis lawyer in January

1939, it had suggested some steps to guarantee that Esther Sharabi would not

be forced out of the house. It recommended that Aharon Sharabi transfer the

ownership of his house to the JNF, on the condition that he and his wife would

retain the right to live in part of the house all their lives rent-free, and that after

his death, the JNF would be obliged to make the house, or part of it, a synagogue.

If his wife should survive him, the JNF would assign a room and a kitchen in the

house for her use without payment for as long as she lived. The letter indicates

that no response had been received from Aharon Sharabi or his lawyer.29

In the course of 1939, Aharon Sharabi passed away. Before his death,

he wrote a will leaving his property in Shaarayim to the synagogue and

appointing his nephews, Zekharia ben Yehuda Sharabi and Nathan ben Yosef

Sharabi, as guardians of the synagogue.30 But Esther, using the services ofMr. Nir, a Tel-Aviv attorney, contested the will. She demanded the two rooms

below the synagogue. She also sought Abraham Tabibs support and took a

certain Haim Badihi, who seems to have had close contacts with the inuential

Mapai party,31 to represent her in negotiations with the JNF and others. Aha-

rons nephews fought back. They claimed that the two rooms were essential

for the functioning of the synagogue. One room, they reported, had been given

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to a beadle (shamash) whose task was to call for a minyan, open and close the

synagogue, and light the candles, while the other was given to a caretaker in

charge of maintaining and cleaning the place. The two strongly denied thatthey had any intention of reaping material gains from the property.

According to Aharons nephews letter to the JNF, Esther had been left a

remarkable inheritance by her late husband: the estate he inherited from his

father in Marmurek, including a lot and a house. The letter suggested that

this property had been given to Esther so that she would not have any claims

on the house in Shaarayim. This seems to have been a central factor in the

nephews opposition to Esther keeping the two rooms below the synagogue.

But Esther Sharabi did not give up easily, if at all. In February 1940, she

rejected a compromise mediated by Zekharia Sharabis lawyer, which wassupported by the JNF and accepted by his client.32 The available documents

do not reveal the nal outcome. It is evident, however, that Esther Sharabi

had a strong legal position, and it is unlikely that she was removed from her

house in Shaarayim.

Case (4): In 1939, Naama Cohens stepson objected to her inheriting the

estate of his father, Yosef Cohen, in Shaarayim. And he went and uprooted

the young trees on the land that her husband had left her. 33 Naama acted

quickly to formalize her position as her husbands legal heir. She asked an

acquaintance, Yisrael Mizrahi, to write to Abraham Tabib to help her in arrang-

ing for the JNF to transfer the land to her name. Naama noted that she was

ready to sign a contract like the other lessees and make all the required pay-

ments. Here too, the available documents do not indicate how the case ended,

but it is reasonable to assume that the legal status spelled out by the British

Mandate regulations and the JNF practice of the time permitted the registration

of the land in Naama Cohens name.

Case (5): This case concerns a dispute between a widow and her husbands

family over reparations that were to be paid after his murder. During the 1936Arab Rebellion, two Yemenite Jewish workers, one of whom was Shalom

Sharabi, were murdered while working in the Rehovot orange groves.34 In

January 1937, Abraham Tabib, urged by the Shaarayim Committee, began to

handle the families demands for compensation, promised by the British Man-

date government. Details about the families and their economic dependence on

the deceased were to be delivered to the Jewish National Committee.35 In July

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1938, the government compensation committee awarded Shalom Sharabis

family the sum of 200 pounds. The Jewish Agency was authorized to distribute

the money among the dependants of the deceased.However, the money was not distributed. Shaloms uncle demanded that

the whole sum be given to him, since he adopted the deceased when he was

two months old and took care of him until recently, and all this uncles future

depended on the deceased. On the other hand, Shaloms widow claimed that

she was and still is dependent on the deceased and that she never abandoned

him, but was forced out by his relatives. She also stated that she had been preg-

nant at the time of the murder (she probably had lost her child), and therefore

she, and no one else, had the right to the compensation.36 The Jewish Agency

asked Tabib to nd a solution to the problem, some kind of a compromise, butin November 1938 the matter still had not been resolved. Shalom Sharabis

uncle rejected any possibility that the widow receive a share of the money,

while she insisted that she be the only beneciary.37 The available documents

leave this disagreement unsolved. But once again, a womans property rights

were fought by her husbands family and not recognized.

The above cases reect the controversies that arose when conicting tradi-

tions regarding women, especially in matters of inheritance and control of

property, clashed in Jewish Palestine: Male members of the Yemenite Jewish

community acted to maintain Yemenite patriarchal concepts under different

post-immigration conditions. The two daughters (cases 1 and 2) and three

widows (35) discussed in this paper challenged such actions. In case (1),

the male leaders of Shivat Zion objected to the idea that property gained as a

result of their efforts, and conceived as belonging to members of their com-

munity of origin, would be lost by a womans marriage to an outsider whom

they had not approved. Case (3) demonstrates a man acting in his lifetime to

disown his wife from what she claimed to be joint property. After his death,

his efforts were continued by his nephews. Since he was childless and his wife

was younger, with good prospects to remarry, they did not want the property toremain in her hands and thus risk it being transferred out of the clan. Case (2)

shows a stepbrothers attempt to deny his stepsister her fathers inheritance,

while the son in case (4), apparently seeing himself as the only likely heir,

opposed his stepmother inheriting from his father. In the same way, the uncle

of a murdered worker (5) demanded all the monetary compensation for himself

and denied the widow any right to the money.

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But Yemenite Jewish women were neither submissive nor passive (though

this does not mean that all of them did, or could, stand up rmly for their

rights). As noted earlier, in Yemen many women cultivated their independenceby earning money and managing the household, consolidating their power

within the family when their husbands were away on business. Once in Pal-

estine, they earned money by working, mostly as domestics,38 and proceeded

to expand their freedom as much as they could by taking advantage of the

new venues opened to them and afrming their actual power by legal means.

Thus, for example, Yemenite Jewish women in a moshav insisted in 1936

on being co-signers with their husbands on the tenancy contract.39 Through

their economic activities and their participation in social activities like those

organized by the Irgun Imahot Ovdot (the Working Mothers Organization,a labor movement womens organization, founded in 1930, which started

establishing branches in Yemenite Jewish neighborhoods in 1934),40 they met

men and women of other, more modernized ethnic groups and became well

informed.

Yemenite Jewish women knew of their new legal status in Palestine regard-

ing ownership and inheritance rights and saw that it could be upheld. Acting to

protect these newly acquired rights, one woman in our discussion used forcible

means (1), but most utilized more effective measures. They negotiated with

the JNF, which controlled the registration of land ownership (1, 2, 3, and 4);

used the services of lawyers (3) and initiated lawsuits (2); sought the help of

their political representatives (2, 3, 4); engaged male acquaintances to act on

their behalf (1, 3, 4); and even gained the assistance of the Bureau of Social

Help (3). In short, they were adamant about protecting their rights and retain-

ing what was legally theirs. In two cases (3, 5), where other contesters might

have shown some exibility, they did not yield to the men. They acted in what

might be viewed as a masculine way: They wanted it all.

The institutions of theyishuv were most instrumental in settling which tra-

dition regarding women would have the upper hand, and in determining the

fate of the particular women under discussion. If a woman was the sole heirby Jewish law, the judges ruled in her favor when an inheritance dispute came

before the rabbinical court (1, 2). The attitude of the Jewish national institu-

tions toward women was basically inequitable,41 and so, at the outset, was the

JNFs attitude towards womens property rights. In the mid-1930s, however,

the JNF began demanding that tenancy contracts in the moshavei ovdim (agri-

cultural settlements in which the plots were leased to individual members) be

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signed by both husband and wife. When they set about applying this practice

to the Yemenite Jewish tenants ofmoshav Elyashiv, the male settlers refused

to accept it, and the Jewish Agency, which instrumented the settlement,gavein. Following stubborn objection by that settlements women, however, the

policy was nally extended, from 1939, to Yemenite Jewish settlers.42 When

applied, this principle protected women in the case of disagreements, but when

the shared tenancy rights were not articulated, legal disputes could arise, as

we have seen.

After Miriam Cohen won her house in court (case 1), the JNF, though it

had no claim against her, consistently sided with Shivat Zions male leader-

ship in their claim that she should rst pay her debt to the Committee, and it

consequently refused to sign a tenancy contract with her for the agriculturalland. Similarly, although Esther bat Pinhas Sharabi (3) was the legal heir of

her husband and claimed that she had earned the money that was invested in

the house in Shaarayim, the JNF advanced a compromise according to which

Esther would lose the ownership rights to the house and retain only the right

to use it for her lifetime. The nephews claim that the living quarters below the

synagogue were essential for its function found an attentive ear in the JNF. Its

male leaders seemed to accept the nephews claim that her late husbands other

estate in Marmurek should sufce, even though Esther was the legal heir to this

property as well. A cautious attitude towards a womans claim is represented

by the Jewish Agency in its dealings with Shalom Sharabis compensation. It

did not agree with his uncles demand for the whole sum, nor did it accept the

widows claim to it, but rather decided that a third party, Tabib, should help

the parties reach a compromise.

In comparison to their lives in Yemen, Jewish womens legal inheritance

rights improved dramatically following immigration to Palestine. This change

was often challenged by male members of their family and community. But

women insisted on realizing their rights and actively advanced this goal through

recourse to new legal, political, and institutional venues. Yet, it seems that apart

from the obvious legal provisions, women could attain their rights providedthey did not go too far beyond what the dominant Jewishyishuv establishment

maintained was due to women, or to Yemenite women. A woman, like Esther

Sharabi, who sought to retain property in excess of her basic needs, was

frowned upon and discouraged. In such cases, the establishments inclination

tended toward the male parties to the suit.

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Notes

1. I generally prefer to use the term Yemeni to refer to both Jews and Muslims fromYemen. The present article follows the guidelines set by the editors of this issue.

2. Miriam bat Saadia Cohen to Yosef Weitz of the JNF, December 30, 1931, CZAMiriam bat Saadia Cohen to Yosef Weitz of the JNF, December 30, 1931, CZA

KKL5 5925.

3. Mainly in some Moroccan and Sephardic communities since the fourteenth cen-

tury; see Menachem Elon, The Status of Women: Law and Judging, Tradition and

ChangeThe Values of a Jewish Democratic State (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad,

2005), pp. 262264, 267, 275277 (Hebrew); and cf. Ruth Lamdan, A Separate People:

Jewish Women in Palestine, Egypt, and Syria in the Sixteenth Century (Hebrew;

Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv UniversityBitan, 1996), pp. 181188, 192194.

4. John L. Esposito,John L. Esposito,John L. Esposito, Women in Muslim Family Law (Syracuse: Syracuse UniversityPress, 1982), p. 39. For specic Islamic heirs, male and female, agnatic and uterine,

and their inheritance rights, see pp. 4044; for more on Muslim inheritance law, see

Noel Coulson, Succession in the Muslim Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1971), especially pp. 4042.

5. See, e.g., Yehuda Ratzaby, Judgments in the Rabbinical Court of Sana in the 18th

century: A Collection of Documents from the Proceedings of the Court, Mimizra

umimaarav, 4 (1984), pp. 79109 (Hebrew); idem, Jews in Yemen in Gentile Courts:

11 New Documents,Mimizrah umimaarav, 6 (1995), pp. 97130 (Hebrew); Yosef

Tobi, Womens Inheritance in Jewish and Muslim Society, in S. Seri (ed.),Daughter

of Yemen (Tel-Aviv: Eeleh Betamar, 1993), pp. 3841 (Hebrew).6. For customary law in Yemen, see Eduard Glaser,For customary law in Yemen, see Eduard Glaser,For customary law in Yemen, see Eduard Glaser,My Journey through Arhab and

Hashid(English transl. by David Warburton, introduction by Daniel M. Varisco; New

York: The American Institute for Yemenite Studies, 1993), pp. 56; Paul Dresch,

Tribes, Government and History in Yemen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 59

60, 107108, 181188; R.B. Serjeant and Husayn al-Amri, Administrative Organi-

zation, in R.B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock (eds.), Sana: An Arabian Islamic City

(London: World of Islam Festival Trust, 1983), pp. 145146; Brinkley Messick, The

Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley,

CA: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 182186.

7. Esposito,Esposito,Esposito, Women (above, note 4), p. 39; for womens difculties in retrieving theirlawful share of inheritance even in the 1970s, see Martha Mundy,Domestic Govern-

ment: Kinship, Community and Polity in North Yemen (LondonNew York: I.B. Tauris,

1995), pp. 155160.

8. For Jews in the economy ofYemen, see Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, Yemen, in R. S.For Jews in the economy ofYemen, see Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, Yemen, in R. S.For Jews in the economy of Yemen, see Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman, Yemen, in R. S.

Simon, M.M. Laskier and S. Reguer (eds.), The Jews of the Middle East and North

Africa in Modern Times (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 393396.

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9. For the important contribution of womens labor to the familys income, see, e.g.,For the important contribution of womens labor to the familys income, see, e.g.,For the important contribution of womens labor to the familys income, see, e.g.,

Nissim Binyamin Gamlieli, Yemen from Within (Hebrew; Ramle: self-published,

1983), pp. 185191; for the growing participation of women in the labor force, espe-cially from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, see Carmela Abdar, The Occu-

pational Structure of the Residents of Surm al-Awd as an Expression of its Status

and the Processes that Took Place in It, in Y. Tobi (ed.), Lerosh Yosef(Jerusalem:

Aqim, 1995), pp. 497501. Compare this with the growing importance of womens

labor in Eastern Europe since the late nineteenth century; see Gur Alroey, Women

Pioneers Who Were Not Laborers: The Immigration of Women to Eretz Israel in the

Early Twentieth Century, Cathedra, 118 (2006), pp. 7274.

10. This was later formulated in the 1943 Judgment Regulations of the rabbinicalThis was later formulated in the 1943 Judgment Regulations of the rabbinicalThis was later formulated in the 1943 Judgment Regulations of the rabbinical

courts in Palestine; see Elon,Maamad(above, note 3), pp. 265, 293.

11. The rest went to Rehovot and Petah Tikva. For a list of the immigrants from north-ern Yemen, see Aharon Eraqi,Zikhronot Aharon: Childhood, Youth, and Adulthood in

Rishon le-Zion (Hebrew; Rishon le-Zion: self-published, 2001), pp. 103104.

12. On these Yemenite Jews and their struggle for a settlement of their own, see Bat-

Zion Eraqi Klorman, Setttlement by Yemenite and Ashkenazi Laborers: From Rishon

le-Zion to Naalat Yehuda and Back, Cathedra, 84 (1997), pp. 85106 (Hebrew); for

the transfer of the lots to the JNF, see, for example, a letter by 13 landowners to David

Stern, December 5, 1922, CZA KKL3 154; Y. Arikha, The Lots of the Yemenites in

Rishon le-Zion, June 26, 1922, CZA KKL3 154.

13. Abraham Tabib, On the History of a Settlement, in Y. Yeshayahu and A.Abraham Tabib, On the History of a Settlement, in Y. Yeshayahu and A.Abraham Tabib, On the History of a Settlement, in Y. Yeshayahu and A.

Tzadok (eds.), The Return from Yemen (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: MiTeman LeTzion, 1945),p. 7071.

14. This notion recalls the biblical response to the claim of Zelophehads daugh-This notion recalls the biblical response to the claim of Zelophehads daugh-This notion recalls the biblical response to the claim of Zelophehads daugh-

ters: Since their father had no sons, they were recognized as his heirs, but they were

instructed that every daughter among the Israelite tribes who inherits a share must

marry someone from a clan of her fathers tribe, in order that every Israelite may keep

his ancestral share (Num., 36:8). I was told of the attitudes toward Awad Mansur

in Shivat Zion by Brakha Tabib-Cohen (no relation to Miriam Cohen), who was born

in Rishon le-Tzion in 1914 and grew up there (interview, September 2003), and by

Miriam and Awads son, Zekharia Mansur (interview, August 2005).

15. Interviews with Brakha Tabib-Cohen and Zekharia Mansur (above, note 14).Interviews with Brakha Tabib-Cohen and Zekharia Mansur (above, note 14).Interviews with Brakha Tabib-Cohen and Zekharia Mansur (above, note 14).16. Jaffa Chief Rabbinate, judgment of the rabbinical court, CZA KKL5 45921.Jaffa Chief Rabbinate, judgment of the rabbinical court, CZA KKL5 45921.Jaffa Chief Rabbinate, judgment of the rabbinical court, CZA KKL5 45921.

17. Miriam bat Saadia Cohen to the Central Bureau of the JNF, August 25, 1931.Miriam bat Saadia Cohen to the Central Bureau of the JNF, August 25, 1931.Miriam bat Saadia Cohen to the Central Bureau of the JNF, August 25, 1931.

18. Miriam Cohen to Menahem Ussishkin, December 29, 1931, CZA KKL5 5925;

Miriam Cohen to Yosef Weitz, December 30, 1931.

19. Miriam Cohen was illiterate.As I was told by Zekharia Mansur (interview, above,Miriam Cohen was illiterate.As I was told by Zekharia Mansur (interview, above,Miriam Cohen was illiterate. As I was told by Zekharia Mansur (interview, above,

note 14), her letters were probably written by a friend of her husbands in Rehovot,

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as no one in Shivat Zion would assist her in this matter. The texts of her letters refer

to quite a few letters that she sent to the JNF.

20. Miriam Cohen to Menahem Ussishkin; Miriam Cohen toYosef Weitz (both above,Miriam Cohen to Menahem Ussishkin; Miriam Cohen to Yosef Weitz (both above,Miriam Cohen to Menahem Ussishkin; Miriam Cohen to Yosef Weitz (both above,note 18).

21. Yosef Weitz to Miriam Cohen, January 3, 1932, CZA KKL5 5925. The letter was

also written in the name of Menahem Ussishkin.

22. Danny Bar-Maoz, From the Yemenite Diaspora to Khirbet Duran (Hebrew; Tel-

Aviv: Eeleh Betamar, 2003), pp. 5960; for immigration from Sharab to Rehovot,

see pp. 181182.

23. Dina Greitzer, From Insularity to Integration: The Settlement of YemeniteDina Greitzer, From Insularity to Integration: The Settlement of YemeniteDina Greitzer, From Insularity to Integration: The Settlement of Yemenite

Immigrants in Kefar Marmurek, Cathedra, 14 (1980), p. 150151 (Hebrew).

24. Esther Sharabi to the JNF, August 4, 1935,Abraham Tabib Archives (henceforth:Esther Sharabi to the JNF, August 4, 1935,Abraham Tabib Archives (henceforth:Esther Sharabi to the JNF, August 4, 1935, Abraham Tabib Archives (henceforth:

ATA).25. A. Tabib to Y. Arikha of the JNF Central Bureau, August 7, 1935, ATA.A. Tabib to Y. Arikha of the JNF Central Bureau, August 7, 1935, ATA.A. Tabib to Y. Arikha of the JNF Central Bureau, August 7, 1935, ATA.

26. The Chief Rabbinate of Jaffa and Tel-Aviv District, judgment of the rabbinicalThe Chief Rabbinate of Jaffa and Tel-Aviv District, judgment of the rabbinicalThe Chief Rabbinate of Jaffa and Tel-Aviv District, judgment of the rabbinical

court, 75795, October 28, 1935, ATA. Esthers mothers rights in the inheritance of

her late husband are not mentioned.

27. Y. Arikha to Haim Badihi, February 3, 1940, copy, ATA.Y. Arikha to Haim Badihi, February 3, 1940, copy, ATA.Y. Arikha to Haim Badihi, February 3, 1940, copy, ATA.

28. Yokheved Notkin of the Rehovot Bureau of Social Help, to the JNF CentralYokheved Notkin of the Rehovot Bureau of Social Help, to the JNF CentralYokheved Notkin of the Rehovot Bureau of Social Help, to the JNF Central

Bureau, February 1, 1939, copy, ATA.

29. Y. Weitz and Y. Arikha of the JNF to the Bureau of Social Help, Rehovot,

February 14, 1939, copy, ATA.

30. Zekharia ben Yehuda Sharabi and Nathan ben Yosef Sharabi described the devel-opments that followed Aharon Sharabis death in a letter to the JNF Central Bureau,

November 3, 1939, copy, ATA; further details appear in letters of Y. Arikha to Abraham

Tabib, December 7, 1939, ATA; Y. Arikha to Abraham Tabib, April 3, 1940, ATA; and

Y. Arikha to Haim Badihi, February 3, 1940, copy, ATA.

31. Badihis letters were sent to the address of Israel Yeshayahu, a leading Yemenite

Jewish activist and a member of the Mapai party. Badihi may have been a relative of

Esther Sharabi.

32. Y. Arikha to Haim Badihi (above, note 30). The compromise probably resembledY. Arikha to Haim Badihi (above, note 30). The compromise probably resembledY. Arikha to Haim Badihi (above, note 30). The compromise probably resembled

the suggestion made by the JNF in January 1939.

33. Israel Mizrahi to the Yemenite Union (Abraham Tabib), December 4, 1939,Israel Mizrahi to the Yemenite Union (Abraham Tabib), December 4, 1939,Israel Mizrahi to the Yemenite Union (Abraham Tabib), December 4, 1939,ATA.

34. For the 19361939 Arab Rebellion, see Rashid Khalidi,For the 19361939 Arab Rebellion, see Rashid Khalidi,For the 19361939 Arab Rebellion, see Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity:

The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia Univer-

sity Press, 1997, pp. 189190; N. Katzburg, The Second Decade of the Mandatory

Regime in Eretz Israel, 19311939, in Moshe Lissak (ed.), The History of the Jewish

Community in Eretz-Israel since 1882, II: The Period of the British Mandate, Part

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One (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesBialik Institute, 1993),

pp. 367375 (Hebrew).

35. Abraham Tabib to Kapara ben David and Israel Ovadia, January 6, 1937, ATA;S. Sibahi to Abraham Tabib, January 18, 1937; Abraham Tabib to the Shaarayim

Committee, Mr. Kapara or Mr. Ovadia, March 24, 1937, both in ATA.

36. A. Berlin, treasurer of Mifal hayishuv leezrah ulebitzaron, to A. Tabib, July 28,A. Berlin, treasurer of Mifal hayishuv leezrah ulebitzaron, to A. Tabib, July 28,A. Berlin, treasurer of Mifal hayishuv leezrah ulebitzaron, to A. Tabib, July 28,Mifal hayishuv leezrah ulebitzaron, to A. Tabib, July 28,

1938, ATA.

37. A. Berlin to A. Tabib, November 12, 1938, ATA.A. Berlin to A. Tabib, November 12, 1938, ATA.A. Berlin to A. Tabib, November 12, 1938, ATA.

38. Nitza Druyan, Yemenite Jewish Women: Between Tradition and Change, inNitza Druyan, Yemenite Jewish Women: Between Tradition and Change, inNitza Druyan, Yemenite Jewish Women: Between Tradition and Change, in

Deborah S. Bernstein (ed.), Pioneers and Homemakers: Jewish Women in Pre-State

Israel(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 83. For the important

contribution of Yemenite Jewish women to the family income from their work as

domestics after the mass immigration to Israel in 19491950, see Lisa Gilad, Gingerand Salt: Yemenite Jewish Women in an Israeli Town (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989),

pp. 6871.

39. Rachel Sharabi,Rachel Sharabi,Rachel Sharabi, Syncretism and Adaptation: The Encounter between a Traditional

Community and a Socialist Society (Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Cherikover, 2000), p. 132;

idem, Looking Forward and Backward: Modern and Traditional Gender Patterns

among Yemenite Immigrant Women in a Moshav,Nashim, 8 (2004), p. 34; see also

Gilad, Ginger and Salt(above, note 38), p. 72.

40. See Deborah S. Bernstein, The Status and Organization of Working Women in

Urban Jewish Settlements in the 1920s and 1930s,Cathedra, 34 (1985), pp. 140144

(Hebrew).41. On the inequitable attitude towards women of the Jewish national institutions see,On the inequitable attitude towards women of the Jewish national institutions see,the inequitable attitude towards women of the Jewish national institutions see,

for example, Dafna N. Izraeli, The Women Workers Movement: First Wave Femi-

nism in Pre-State Israel, in Bernstein, Pioneers and Homemakers (above, note 38),

pp. 183209; Henri Nir, Whats Bothering Them? Women in the Labor Settlements in

Pre-State Israel), in M. Shilo, R. Kark, and G. Hasan-Rokem (eds.), The New Hebrew

Women: Women in Pre-State Israel and in the Zionist Movement from a Gender

Perspective (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2001),pp. 162174.

42. Sharabi,Sharabi,Sharabi, Syncretism, pp. 132133; idem, Looking Forward, p. 33 (both above,

note 39).