Paper short abstract:

The paper presents a new reading of two major ethnographic works regarding the Jews of Yemen, by the German Jewish scholar S. D. Goitein. The paper will address questions of Orientalism and Folklore research as they relate to "the most Arab among Jews".

Paper long abstract:

Two major ethnographic works regarding the Jews of Yemen were published in the first half of the 20th century by the renowned German-Jewish scholar S.D. Goitein. One work is Jemenica, a collection of Yemeni proverbs Goitein collected from the Yemeni community in Jerusalem, translated to German. The other work, Travels in Yemen Goitein published several years later. This book is the accounts of a Yemeni Jew who traveled in Yemen and is written in Judeo Arabic, translated to Hebrew. This book has been an important source of information about Yemen and its Jews until today. These two important works, along with many other publications in this field, made Goitein the founder of the field of research on Yemeni Jews.

The paper will interrogate Goitein's ethnographic methodology and his actions and interactions with Yemeni Jews in the process of writing these two works. I will address questions regarding Goitein's preconceptions, as a Zionist and as an Orientalist, regarding Yemeni Jews, and how those affected his research. Finally, reading Goitein's writings about Yemeni Jews, I will address the question of agency regarding the Yemeni informants, and their involvement in what was written about them.