Talk:History of the Jews in Saudi Arabia

Solution to Arabia vs Saudi Arabia vs Arabian Peninsula
Please see the following articles that should now solve the problems we have been discussing:


 * The History of the Jews in Arabia page is now the History of the Jews in Arabia (disambiguation) page (see it to understand the comprehensive nature of the solution and why it is necessary.
 * A new main article is now History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula that summarizes the Jewish histories within and connected to the areas of all the present countries in the Arabian Peninsula.
 * The History of the Jews in Saudi Arabia is now part of a set of nine articles that relate to the nine countries in the present day Arabian Peninsula, as follows:
 * History of the Jews in Iraq
 * History of the Jews in Jordan
 * History of the Jews in Bahrain
 * History of the Jews in Kuwait
 * History of the Jews in Oman
 * History of the Jews in Qatar
 * History of the Jews in Saudi Arabia
 * History of the Jews in the United Arab Emirates
 * Yemenite Jews


 * The main category for all the above is now the new Category:History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula which is itself a sub-category of: Category:History of the Arabian peninsula, Category:Jewish history by region, Category:Jews and Judaism in Southwest Asia, Category:Judeo-Islamic topics

This took me a while to write, research and organize, but it was well worth the time and efforts I put into it to create clarity and avoid confusion from now on. Thank you very much, IZAK (talk) 13:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

"Saudi" Hebrew
Are there any insights on the possible dialects that disappear there.

Cause for Concern
I used to be a Muslim, and as a such I had a lot of Arab friends; a point of contention I want to mention is how the Arabs generally make clear distinctions between actual blood descent, and religion, whereas Judaism does not seem to. To "Jews" in the U.S., to be classified as a "Jew" means to be ethnically and religoiusly a part of that group. To the Arabs, on the other hand, there are the descendants of Isaac, and then there are the descendants of Ishmael, and generally that is how distinctions are made. In other words, you can not legally call someone who descends from Ishmael an "Arab Jew," assuming a person who descends from Ishmael, who is Jewish, even exists. To the Arabs, there are people who are Hebrew, that is descendants of Isaac, but who are not Jewish, then there are people who are European who follow the Jewish religion, or people who are Hebrew who also follow the Jewish religion.

Another point of contention, is that Arabs are tribal; they know who family is, let me put it that way, and they more readily kill, people they do not consider close family, that means, Iraqi Jews, are not Arabs. To an Arab, an Iraqi Jew is semitic, perhaps, but not an Arab. I find it a bit disturbing how most articles discussed here do not deal with that issue; there is a clear distinction between religion, and blood descent, as the two do not always interconnect. However to European Jews they seem to be one and the same, deliberately so, to rob middle eastern Jews of their Hebrew identity. The stricter the policy that a person is automatically born into a religion, the less Jewish that makes a person who comes from a culture that places a premium on ancestry, which according to the ashkenazi can never be proven, as opposed to religious rules. A clever, if devious word trick on the part of the ashkenazi, to confuse the issue regarding Hebrew identity.

Regarding Judaism I have encountered a lot of things here, but precious few resources as to the fate of the Hebrew people of the bible. I do not care for religion; I wish to know what happened to the Hebrews before their blood was watered down by European. Where is the material on that? Why is there so much silence on both sides, Arab and ashkenazi what the hell are they hiding?

The descendants of Ishmael, are a fiercely proud people, who prior to this generation, did not mix with other peoples not even other semites. I have known enough Arabs to safely tell anybody that; they did not mix, even with Assyrians and ancient Phoenicians, who were semitic, odds are, they did not mix with the Jewish communities of the middle east either. Likewise, people of Hebrew ancestry living in what ultimately became Arab lands, no doubt had the same attitude.

Moreover, there is nothing regarding the fate of the Jewish communities who chose to convert to Islam; a Saudi friend of mine told me once, that one of Muhamad's wives was a convert to Islam. In fact, the prophet of Islam in fact had two wives that were Jewish, one was loyal, the other tried to poison him. Equally divided were the Jewish communities; some converted to the new religion to survive, the ones who refused were put to the sword. In Islam there is a rule regarding Jewish converts, similar to the rule Judaism has regarding people who convert into Judaism, that a Jew who converts to Islam, must never be reminded that they were Jewish, or be treated as if they were, that as far as the rest of the Muslim community is concerned, they are Muslims. Because in effect, to convert to Islam erases Jewish identity, because it is Islamic law, that in effect erases any Jewish pressence in Saudi Arabia, for example.

There are Hebrews, descendants of Isaac, and Jacob, not Ishmael, living in Saudi Arabia. And god damn it, middle eastern Jews are not Arabs!

67.148.120.65 (talk)stardingo747 —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC).


 * The above communication is clearly very confused about Jewish identity. A few points: any person who converts to Judaism is regarded halachically (in Rabbinic law and tradition) as a full Jew, and the contributor above is right that it is forbidden in Jewish norms and even in halachah to reproach a person for their non-Jewish antecedents.  But their background is still important at least to them, and conversion does not change ethnicity.  Jews have within their numbers converts absorbed from many different ethnicities, Semitic, Aryan, Ethiopian and African, Turkic-Mongolian (the Khazars and others), Indian (such as the community from Assam called Bene Menasheh), Chinese, etc.  So obviously, Arabs who converted to Judaism, including for example the Yemenite king and a considerable portion of his kingdom back around 500 C.E., are Jewish Arabs, or Arab Jews, and naturally imported into their Jewishness many old Arab ways and values.  Yemeni Jews preserved up to the recent exodus two distinct Yemeni Jewish groups, which differed ethnically reflecting the conversion of some of them from Arab tribes.  There were certainly other Jewish tribes in Arabia, some of convert background, who managed despite constant attempts against them to survive up to the late medieval period.  And Arabs elsewhere also contributed converts to Judaism.  So, while Middle Eastern Jews are not considered "Arabs" by Arabs, they definitely do include Arab ethnic strains.  Another contribution is that of the Berbers, particularly for Moroccan Jews, although we read that it was Tunisian Berber tribes converted to Judaism who fought off the first waves of the Arab-Muslim invasion of the Maghrib (Tunisia) in the seventh century C.E., the stiffest resistance the invaders found anywhere along the Mediterranean.  Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews have a somewhat different ethnic history and profile, but are still strongly linked together and both go back into Biblical Jewry.  Sephardic Jews are at least as diverse, if not more so, than Ashkenazi Jews.  But there is no Ashkenazi conspiracy to deprive Sephardic Jews of their culture, traditions or history; the very idea is ludicrous.  Many of Jewry's most famous medieval sages and rabbis were Sephardic, and they continue to be central to Jewish history even if they are fewer in number than the Ashkenazim.  In Israel, there are two "Chief Rabbis," one for the Sephardim because certain of their customs are specific to them, and one for the Ashkenazim, for whom the same is true.  I hope this helps clarify a few basic things for the above contributor.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.235.121 (talk) 03:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Protestant-B dog tags
This "story" about Protestant-B dog tags is most likely not true, although one article in Hadassah magazine by someone who reported what she had heard from someone else has made the rounds. For one thing, the person telling the story said he was sure there were "boxes" or dog tags with "prot b" on them that no one wanted. The problem is that no dog tags are created with any religion (or any other info) in advance. Each dog tag is created specifically for the individual, who (in modern times) chooses the religion to include, whether Jewish, Protestant, Baptist, Druid, or whatever. (See the article Religious symbolism in the United States military for a history. It is possible that some military personnel were warned that having "Jewish" on the tags might not be a good idea, just as some Jews during WWII who might be captured by the Nazis were given the same warning. But this story about "Prot B" dog tags just reeks of being an urban legend.  Anyway, I added the word "unsubstantiated" to the text rather than deleting it altogether, because it had a reference - but I'm afraid that every time the original story is referenced, it adds credence to what was most likely a myth. By the way, I'm retired from the military after 29 years on active duty.NearTheZoo (talk) 20:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have copied text form that article and tried to integrate it into this one. --Error (talk) 17:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I am author of the book in which Major Neulander's story appeared (This Jewish Life, Stories of Discovery, Connection and Joy.) The story is true. It is not a myth. I interviewed the soldier, Mike Neulander, who served in the Gulf War as a helicopter pilot in the 1st Calvary Division during which he received the Bronze Star Medal for aerial combat actions. He retired as a Major.

I conducted a 2+ hour interview with Mike Neulander about his Gulf War experiences. This is the verbatim quote from our interview that appears in book's Chanukah chapter (page 110.)

"Normally, the dog tags of of Jewish servicemen are imprinted with the word "Jewish." But the Department of Defense, fearing that maintaining this customary marking for Jewish soldiers would put them at further risk should they be captured on Iraqui soil, substituted the classification "Protestant B" on the tags, "B" being a secret code for Jew.I didn't like the whole idea of reclassifying Jews as Protestant anything and decided leave my dog tag alone. I figured if I were captured, it was in God's hands. Changing my tags was tantamount to denying my religion, and I couldn't' swallow that.In September 1990 I went off to defend a country I was prohibited from entering. The "Jewish classification on my dog tag remained, clear and unmistakable as the American star painted on the hood of every Army truck." No urban legend. Not myth. Not unsubstantiated. Truth. From the mouth of the soldier who served.

From the interview, I composed the story using his words directly from our interview. I sent it to it to Maj. Neulander for his approval. As a writer of creative non-fiction, I added the metaphor "clear and unmistakable as the American star planted on the hood of every Army truck." I asked Neulander if that was accurate, if that metaphor reflects the reality of life on the base. He said yes, so I let it stand.

The crux of the challenge above is story's final line, "Somewhere in a military supply depot I'm sure there are boxes and boxes of dog tags, still in their wrappers, all marked "Protestant B." As with my metaphor about American stars painted on the hoods of Army trucks, I ran it by Maj. Neulander and he signed off on it. The sentence is my inference (approved by Maj. Neulander) of what he might have thought in ending the story and sharing his experience. Does this make the story false, "most likely a myth" or "reeking of urban legend?" Not at all. What is unsubstantiated is your criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.117.64.190 (talk) 01:34, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

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 * Rabbi Salomon Halevi and Rebecca Cohen, Paradesi Jews of Madras.jpg

I feel like this should be added
The Christianity in Saudi Arabia page states:

Ancient Arabian Christianity has largely vanished from the region. The main reason for is Prophet Muhammad's direct orders to eliminate Jews and Christians from Arabia.

Sahih Muslim 1767 a

It has been narrated by 'Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim".

Musnad Ahmad 201 Jabir bin ‘Abdullah said:

Umar bin al-Khattab told me that he heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say:

“I shall certainly expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula so that I will not leave anyone but Muslims".

Musnad Ahmad 215

It was narrated that Umar said: "If I live, in sha Allah, I shall certainly expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Saudi_Arabia

I feel this should be also included on this page (switching Christianity with Judaism, of course).

Sarsath3 (talk) 15:38, 18 April 2022 (UTC)