The First Contact with the Jews of Sana’a

During Hermann Burchardt's travels to Yemen in 1901, he came upon one of the most isolated and forgotten communities of the Jewish people. The photographs he sent home caused a sensation throughout the whole of European Jewry.

Chen Malul | 29.07.17

At the age of 30, Hermann Burchardt decided to leave home and travel around the world to document the most remote communities in existence. During his travels to Yemen in 1901, he came upon one of the most isolated and forgotten communities of the Jewish people. The photographs he sent home caused a sensation throughout the whole of European Jewry.

The search for the “authentic Jew” was a common pursuit among Jewish communities in the 19th century. Many asked themselves the question in one form or another: “Am I really living according to the ways of my ancestors?”

And so, this young German-Jew who had just turned thirty, decided to leave the family business and set off on a journey around the world that would incorporate two of his great passions: photography and the study of ancient and exotic peoples. Hermann Burchadt decided to use his substantial inheritance to rent an apartment in Damascus that would serve as the base for his research expeditions and adventures. He had already studied Arabic and Turkish which he hoped to use to his advantage.

Even before he set off, Burchardt, whose archives are preserved at the National Library of Israel, saw himself as a citizen of the world, a man without limits, able to reach places no European had ever set foot before. On one of his journeys, in 1901, he encountered just such a place. In the middle of the harsh and barren desert he reached the city of Sana’a. On his wanderings around the hilly capital city he was stunned by a group of people he encountered—members of the Sana’a Jewish community, whose ties to other Jewish communities in the world had been almost completely severed for generations.

Together with his large entourage, Burchardt spent almost a year with the community. He got to know them personally, to study and document their customs, listen to their unique life stories, transcribing almost every word in his diary, and for the first time in history, he photographed them.

The article he published in the journal Ost und West included the spectacularly beautiful first-ever photographs of the Yemenite Jewish community. The images were nothing short of a revelation for European Jewry. After a break of thousands of years there was at last a tangible sign of the existence of the Yemenite Jewish community. To some, it seemed as if the world’s most authentic Jews, who had lived completely isolated from any foreign influence, had finally been found. The article so excited the journal’s readership that the photographs were turned into postcards which were sold and circulated by the thousands.

Was this how Jews looked before the Exile? Were these the Jews of the Second Temple? For those who had been overwhelmed by encounters with the Jews living in Ottoman Palestine, the West’s encounter with the isolated and remote community of Sana’a was even more astonishing. They wanted to examine authentic Yemenite siddurs, to analyze the differences between the biblical traditions, and essentially, every tiny scrap of information about their unique customs.

In 1909, while Burchardt was escorting the Italian consul on his way from Sana’a, the adventurous and learned ethnographer convinced the consul to take a route that had never before been traveled by a European. The grand convoy was ambushed and the robbery ended with tragic consequnces: Hermann Burchardt and the Italian consul were killed.

At his funeral, Burchardt was eulogized by an Italian merchant who had befriended him on his last visit to Sana’a. He told of how the Jews of Sana’a now mourned the passing of the famous adventurer, who had placed them in his heart.

The outbreak of World War I in August of 1914 brought with it the drafting of hundreds of thousands of young men for service in the German army. The draft called up any young man who qualified, including the Jewish citizens of Germany, a majority of whom assumed their military duties with the same excitement as the rest of the population. Jewish physicians of the appropriate age were also drafted for service in the medical corps. They worked as military doctors in the many hospitals that were established to keep up with the ever-growing number of wounded soldiers who required care and treatment following the difficult battles of the Great War.

Felix A. Theilhaber (1887-1956) was a young Jewish doctor who had studied medicine in Berlin and Munich. As a student Theilhaber began taking an interest in Zionism and even considered the possibility of emigrating to the Land of Israel. However, the outbreak of the war prevented him from doing so. Instead, he answered the call to duty and served his country as a physician in a number of military hospitals. Felix was stationed mainly in Poland, but it appears he also served on the Western Front in Belgium. Prior to his service in the German military, he had served in a similar role in the Turkish Army in the Balkans.

During World War I, Felix experienced the full brutal intensity of all-out war. This was a result of the sheer number of injured soldiers who came under his care, though an additional aspect of the cruelties of war became apparent to him through the proliferation of anti-Semitic accusations within the German Army. Driven by his deep conviction that Jews were equal citizens of Germany, Theilhaber wrote a book about the experiences of Jewish combat pilots in the newly-formed German Air Force.

The cover of “Jüdische Flieger im Weltkrieg” by Felix A. Theilhaber.

Theilhaber thought that the contribution of Jews to such an elite unit would provide a convincing argument as to the devotion of Jewish fighters to Germany. In his effort to collect data, Theilhaber sought out pilots and fighters who had manned warplanes during the years 1914-1918. The pilots corresponded with Felix through letters in which they wrote about their experiences at war, including photographs to illustrate their stories. One letter was sent by Fritz Beckhardt, who was not only an outstanding combat pilot but had also been awarded the German Army’s highest honor, the House Order of Hohenzollern. Coincidentally, Beckhardt had served in the same squadron as Hermann Goering who went on to become a leading Nazi and Commander of the Luftwaffe during World War II. The squadron insignia was the swastika, and Beckhardt’s plane was decorated with this symbol. This photograph appears on the cover of Felix Theilhaber’s book about Jewish fighter pilots which was published in two editions during the 1920s.

As a personal reminder of the war days, Theilhaber collected photographs, some of which he may have even taken himself. These pictures document daily life at the military hospitals where he worked, but Felix also selected landscapes from the Eastern Front in Poland and Russia, and from the Western Front in Belgium. The pictures from the city of Leuven document the great destruction caused by the German artillery bombardments which were later condemned by many international agencies as disproportional use of force against a country that had declared neutrality.

This album of selected photographs had been in the possession of Felix Theilhaber’s son, Mr. Adin Theilhaber-Talbar, who donated his father’s estate to the National Library in 2013-2014, a number of months before he passed away.

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Felix Theilhaber also authored medical textbooks and demographic studies. His research focused on Germany’s Jewish population and even anticipated its demise due to the low birth rate, intermarriage, and assimilation. The solution that Theilhaber espoused was the establishment of a Jewish State.

Like many others, Felix did not emigrate to the Land of Israel until 1935 after losing his medical license in Germany due to his Jewish heritage. After arriving in the Land of Israel, Theilhaber, along with other doctors of German origin, established the Maccabi Sick Fund (which to this day is one of Israel’s largest HMOs) and promoted awareness regarding the importance of physical activity.

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Abraham Adolf Fraenkel, a doctor of mathematics, served in the German army during the Great War and organized a Passover Seder for his fellow Jewish soldiers.

Stefan Litt | 28.02.17

During the Great War in the early 20th-century young Jewish men all across Europe joined their peers in enlisting in the military to serve their countries, with over 100,000 Jews joining the German army alone. Included in the ranks of these brave men was the Bavarian soldier Abraham Adolf Fraenkel, a doctor of mathematics, who later recounted his experiences as a Jew in World War I in his memoir, “Recollections of a Jewish Mathematician in Germany.”

In his memoirs, Fraenkel describes the difficulties he faced as a traditional Jew in the military “especially regarding food but also concerning prayer, phylacteries, not shaving and many other things.” Though he was able to maintain his kosher diet, he found himself rarely able to maintain the traditions of Shabbat.

abraham a fraenkel — “Recollections of a Jewish Mathematician in Germany,” by Abraham A. Fraenkel. Edited by Jiska Cohen-Mansfield and translated by Allison Brown. Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.

In 1915, Abraham found himself serving as a medical orderly for the army, which included such responsibilities as transcribing autopsy reports from dictation and assisting in minor surgeries. During his two years of service in the field hospitals, Fraenkel was also authorized by the Bavarian Ministry of Culture Affairs to serve as the Jewish chaplain to his peers in the military. While this position did not reduce the responsibilities he had in his day to day service, it did offer him a chance to stay connected to his religion and to assist others in maintaining their traditions as well.

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In 1915, Fraenkel was stationed at the military hospital in the French city of Cambrai. Fraenkel explains in his book that he was responsible for the religious affairs of the Jewish soldiers. He filled the gap between their religious needs, and the availability of the army chaplain rabbis, who were not able to always be where they were needed. Fraenkel took his position seriously, arranging for prayer services in the field and ensuring the religious soldiers could celebrate their holidays as in line with the tradition as possible.

At the end of March 1915, Fraenkel prepared to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover and prepared a list of the local soldiers who were interested in joining the Seder, the traditional meal where the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt is recounted, which was set to take place on the 29^th and 30^th of March.

“Participants are asked to specify if they plan to attend both evening meals or just the first,” read the registration sheet. Participants were advised to request leave for religious reasons so they would be granted a permit to attend the festivities. Registrants were advised that they would only receive their leave on the day of the holiday and it was suggested that if they planned to attend the holiday prayer services, they bring their own prayer books – if they had them of course.

A total of nine soldiers registered for both of the Passover Seder including men serving as medics, logistics officers, combat engineers and one who was serving in the newly formed German air force who did not specify which Seder he planned to attend, perhaps because he knew there was a chance he would be called away at the last minute.

During the second half of World War I, Fraenkel transferred to a weather-forecasting unit, a job that better suited his outstanding talents as a mathematician. At the end of the war, Abraham Frankel returned to Marburg University, and later, went on to serve as a professor of mathematics in the city of Kiel, in northern Germany. In 1926, the mathematician visited the Land of Israel together with his family, and three years later, he moved to the country and was appointed as a professor of mathematics at The Hebrew University. In 1938, he was even chosen to be rector of the university. In Israel, he published mathematical works and devised many mathematical terms for concepts that until that time did not exist in the Hebrew language.

Fraenkel kept the list of Seder participants in 1915 with his personal belongings and preserved it for many decades. The list of Seder participant arrived at the National Library of Israel together with the rest of his personal archive.

Special thanks to Dr. Stefan Litt for his assistance in writing this article.

This post was written as part of Gesher L’Europa, the NLI’s initiative to connect with Europe and make our collections available to diverse audiences in Europe and beyond.

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