Ofra Haza November 19 1957 - February 23 2000) was a popular Israeli singer, actress and international recording artist. Of Yemenite Jewish ancestry, Haza was born the youngest of nine children in the poor Tel Aviv neighborhood of Hatikvah. She became an instant local and then national success story, the subject of great pride for many Israelis of Yemenite origin. Her voice has been described as mezzo-soprano, of near-flawless tonal quality, …

Yigal Amir (born May 23, 1970) is the Israeli assassin of the late Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination took place November 4, 1995 at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv. Amir is currently serving a life sentence for murder plus 14 years for conspiracy to murder Yitzhak Rabin on different occasions and for injuring Rabin's bodyguard, Yoram Rubin.

Jacob ben Nathanael ibn al-Fayyumi was a "rosh yeshiva" of the Yemenite Jews in the second half of the twelfth century CE. All that is known of him is that at the suggestion of Solomon ha-Kohen, a pupil of Maimonides, he wrote to the latter asking his advice in regard to a pseudo-Messiah who was leading the Jews of southern Arabia astray. From a passage in Maimonides' "Letter to the Wise Men of the Congregation of Marseilles", …

Yūsuf Dhū Nuwas was the last king of the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen. Some sources state that he was the successor of Rabia ibn Mudhar, a member of the same dynasty; the archeologist Alessandro de Maigret believes he was a usurper. According to a number of medieval historians, who depend on the account of John of Ephesus, Dhū Nuwas, who was a convert to Judaism, …

Kfar Tapuach ("lit." Apple-ville) is an Israeli settlement in the Samaria region of the West Bank, founded in 1978. It is one of the five Jewish villages in the region south of Nablus/Shechem, and sits astride one of the most vital traffic junctions in the West Bank. Kfar Tapuach is one of the most ethnically diverse Israeli settlements. Founded by a core of Yemenite Jews nearly 30 years ago, over the years it has absorbed Russian and American Jews, …

Yihhyah Qafahh (1853-1932) was a prominent Yemenite rabbi of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He founded the Dor Dai movement in Judaism, which was intended to combat the influence of the Lurianic Kabbalah and restore the rational approach of Maimonides and the Jewish law as codified by him. His main work was the "Milhamot Hashem", in which he argues that the Zohar is not authentic and that the beliefs of the Lurianic Kabbalah are idolatrous.

Sar Shalom Sharabi (the Rashash). Also known as Ribbi Shalom Mizraḥi deyedi`a Sharabi. (Shar'ab, Yemen 1720 - Jerusalem 1777 (10 "shevat" 5537)) was a Yemenite Jewish Rabbi who was a master of Kabbalah, as well as Torah and Talmud. He is primarily known as a Kabbalist, but his rulings on Halakha (Jewish law) were and still are considered to have high authority, particularly among Yemenite Jews, but to some extent among Jews world wide.

Shukr ben Salim Kuhayl I or Mari (Master) Shukr Kuhayl I was a Yemenite messianic pretender of the 19th century. He initially revealed himself in San‘a’ in 1861 as a messenger of the Messiah at a time when messianic expectations in Yemen were ripe as a result of political turmoil. Divorcing his wife, he took up the life of an itinerant preacher to live in poverty and exhort the community to repentance.

Dana International (Hebrew: דנה אינטרנשיונל; stage name of Sharon Cohen, born Yaron Cohen in Tel Aviv, Israel on February 2, 1969) is an Israeli transsexual pop singer of Yemenite origin, who won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest for her song "Diva". Next to original songs, Dana International is known for her cover versions of old hits.

Rabbi Yosef Qafih, also spelled Kafich or Qafehh or Gafeh, was one of the foremost leaders of the Yemenite Jewish community, first in Yemen and later in Israel. He was the grandson of Rabbi Yihyeh Qafih, also a prominent Yemenite leader and founder of the Dor Deah (anti-Kabbalah) movement in Judaism. He is principally known for his editions and translations of the works of Maimonides and other early rabbinic authorities, …

Rabbi Shalom ben Yosef Shabbazi, also Shalem Shabbezi or Salim Elshabizi was one of the greatest Jewish poets who lived in 17th century Yemen. Shabbazi was born in 1619 the village of Najd al-Walid close to Ta'izz, but lived most of his life in Sana'a, from which he was expelled, along with other Jews in 1679. He died in 1720. His father, Yosef ben Abijad bin Khalfun was also a Rabbi and a poet.

Daklon is the nickname of an Israeli musical artist. He was born in the mid-1940s as Yosef Levy in Tel Aviv's Kerem Hateimanim (Yemenite) neighborhood. As Daklon explains the source of his nickname: "In those days everyone in the Kerem had a nickname. Your given name was only good for your ID. As a kid I was as skinny as a rake (dak in Hebrew) so they called me 'Daklon'." For many Israelis, Daklon is the epitome of Israeli roots music.

Zohar Argov (July 16 1955 - November 6 1987) (born as Zohar Orkabi) was one of Israel's most popular and beloved singers, and a distinctive voice in the new wave of Israeli Middle-eastern Mizrahi music. The most serious hurdle on the way to stardom was Argov's socio-economic background. He grew up in a poor family, far from the cultural establishment. In those years, singers often began their careers by serving in military entertainment troupes, …

Loolwa Khazzoom is a Mizrahi Jewish writer who writes about Jewish multiculturalism and the cultural traditions and modern struggles of Sephardi, Mizrahi, Yemenite and Ethiopian Jews. She is involved in the Jewish Multicultural Project and in the organization Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA).

Shoshana Damari (1923 - February 14 2006) was an Israeli singer and actress. Damari was born in Dhamar and emigrated from Yemen to Rishon LeZion in the British Mandate of Palestine with her parents in 1924. At a very young age she performed with her mother, and when she was 14 she had her first songs broadcast on the radio. She studied singing and acting at the Shulamit Studio in Tel Aviv, where she met Shlomo Busami, the studio manager who became her personal manager.

Known in Israel by her given name Achinoam Nini, Noa is Israel's leading international concert and recording artist. Born in Tel Aviv in 1969 Noa lived in New York City from age 2 until her return to Israel alone at the age of 17. Her family is originally from Yemen. After serving the mandatory two years in the Israeli Army in a military entertainment unit, Noa studied music at the Rimon School where she met her long-time partner and collaborator Gil Dor.

Eyal Golan, (born 12 April, 1971 as Eyal Biton), is an Israeli singer who sings in the Mizrahi style. He was born 'Eyal Biton' from Marmorek in Rehovot, Israel on April 12th, 1971. Golan started performing in nightclubs at the age of 16. His first album, "Whisper in the Night" was released in 1993.

Joseph ben Gorion (in Hebrew, "Yosef ben Gorion") was a medieval Jewish historian best known as the author of the "Sefer Yosippon", a history of the Jews from the time of the Creation to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, with historical accounts of Babylonia, Greece, Rome, and other countries. In the current text the author professes to be the old Greek historian Flavius Josephus, …

Zion Golan, is an Israeli singer of Yemeni origin.

Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, is a well-known Orthodox Haredi Israeli rabbi of Yemenite origin. Rabbi Yitzhak is widely involved in "kiruv" ("bringing [secular Jews] closer [to Orthodox Judaism]"). He is the head of the 'Shofar' organization, which, among other activities, distributes his lectures on audio and video cassettes around the globe. Although he does not issue halakhic opinions, these activities made Yithzak a prominent Israeli rabbi since the early 1990s.

Judah ben Shalom (Hebrew: יהודה בן שלום), also known as Mori (Master) Shooker Kohail II or Shukr Kuhayl II (Hebrew: מרי שכר כחיל), was a Yemenite messianic pretender of the mid-19th century.

Hagai Amir is the brother and complice of Yigal Amir, who is the convicted murderer of Yitzhak Rabin. Hagai Amir was convicted for planning the murder of Yitzhak Rabin and planning attacks against Palestinians, as well as for various weapons charges. He is currently serving his sentence, 16 years in prison. On April 27, 2006, he was sentenced to another year in prison for threatening to have then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon killed.

Rabbi Yihhyah Salahh, known as the "Maharitz" (from the initials Mori Rabbi Yihhyah Tzalahh), was an 18th century Yemenite rabbi. He was the author of a prayer book in which he attempted to preserve as much as possible of the traditional Yemenite rite, while making some concessions to the needs of those who followed the Kabbalah as taught by Isaac Luria and his school. This prayer book is the basis of the present day "Baladi" rite among Yemenite Jews.

Kiryat Netafim is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank region of Samaria, about 30 km east of Tel Aviv, and under the administrative municipal government of the Shomron Regional Council. The yishuv was founded in June 1984 by a group of Orthodox Yemenite Jews as another link in a chain of settlements built along the Trans-Samaria Highway and adjacent to the Barkan Industrial Park in which Israelis and Palestinians work side by side in dozens of factories.

Solomon ben Joshua Adeni was an Arabian author and Talmudist, who lived during the first half of the 17th century at Sanaa and Aden in southern Arabia, from which town he received the name "Adeni" or "the Adenite." He was a pupil of the Talmudist Bezalel Ashkenazi and of the kabbalist Hayyim Vital. In 1624, or, according to other authorities, in 1622, he wrote a commentary on the Mishnah, entitled "Meleket Shelomoh" (The Work of Solomon).

Boaz Sharabi (Hebrew: בעז שרעבי is an iconic Israeli singer, orator, composer, producer, poet, writer, film scoreist, guitarist, actor, musician, pianist, singer-songwriter, DJ, Darboukaist, music arranger, flutist, performer, entertainer, impresario, chazan, tenor and is well-known for the songs "Latet", "Halavai", "At Li Laila", "Pamela", "Lashir Itach", "Mi Yada Shecha Yiyeh", "Kesheat Nogaat Bi", …

Moshe Dwek (born in 1931), was a Yemenite Jewish immigrant who threw a hand grenade in the Israeli parliament while it was in session on October 29, 1957. The grenade was meant for Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and Minister Golda Meir but ended up seriously wounding Minister of Torah and Spirituality Rabbi Moshe Chaim Shapiro of Mizrachi (NRP).

Brigadier-General (Tat Aluf), Avigdor Kahalani was an Israeli soldier and politician.

Nethanel ben Isaiah (in Hebrew, Netaniel ben Yeshaiahu was a Yemenite Jewish rabbi, Biblical commentator and poet of the fourteenth century. He is best known as the author of a homiletic commentary on the Torah entitled "Nur al-Zulm wa-Mashbah al-Hikm." The first notice of this work was given by Jacob Saphir, who saw a manuscript of it at Hirbah, a small town in Yemen, in 1863. But the beginning of the manuscript was missing, …