Yemenite Heritage Center

This afternoon we met briefly with Naftali Simhi, the chairman of the Yemenite Heritage Center in Rosh Haayin. He told us a bit about the history of the museum and the building, and offered to meet with us again in a few weeks to show us some old pictures of the building prior to its renovation.

According to an article in Etrog Magazine from April 2009, the museum was conceived of and founded by Moshe Oved, a local history teacher. In the 1980s he began gathering historical material and oral traditions in the school and established a display which grew in size until it occupied an entire floor. Eventually it was moved to a different location, until in 2006 the museum moved into its present home in a renovated Stonehenge Shed.

In our proposal for our final project, we prepared a plan for a series of satellite museums spread throughout the city that would compliment the Yemenite Heritage House. Although many of these satellites would focus on traditional Yemenite culture, there would also be sites dedicated to other stages in the history of Rosh Ha'ayin. Despite our claims that locals were pushing this agenda, our plan was heavily criticized for being condescending toward the local culture. From one side, we were criticized for Disney-ifying the city, while on the other we were told that this was putting the local culture in a museum, rather than letting it continue on its own.

I want to again emphasize that this is not the case. We look at this less as a museum and more as a living heritage center. In addition, it is very important to understand that this is a plan that locals have long requested, and have long been trying to achieve.

In a 2006 interview with the Jerusalem Post, Simhi is quoted as saying:

"I want visitors to be able to come and be exposed to the folklore. To experience the cooking, the tabun, the malawah, the dance, the Yemenite choir...I want visitors to come and experience four or five hours of Yemenite hospitality, including clothing...I want to turn Rosh Ha'ayin into the center of Yemenite Jewish heritage."

The same article quotes the mayor of city, Moshe Sinai, saying something similar:
"One of the challenges for me as mayor is to preserve the [Yemenite] heritage. They preserved the tradition [in Yemen]. It is my job to protect them, to provide a supportive foundation."

The article in Etrog Magazine quotes local historian Yiska Raveh as saying that:

"The experience of visitors to the place cannot be limited to visiting one building...Rosh Ha'ayin is a community that lives and breaths the Yemenite culture and it in its entirety a historic-ethnic museum."

She also envisions a multi-layered museum with "dress, aromas, song and dance, ethnic workshops" and other branches that tell the local story.

Perhaps most telling is an entry in an Ariel compendium from 1990 which tells of a similar plan, already existing 20 years ago:

"The plan is to establish in Rosh Ha'ayin a center for Yemenite Heritage with workshops alongside the museum: metalworkers, weavers, embroiderers, braiders, etc. The activities will include workshops, song, Yemenite center and also a restaurant for Yemenite cuisine."

Operation Magic Carpet

Along with our ruin research, we're going to be focusing on the history and development of Rosh Ha'ayin. This was bound to lead to a post about the dramatic Operation Magic Carpet, so here goes.

Between June 1949 and September 1950, nearly 50,000 Yemenite Jews were brought to Israel secretly, following pogroms and looting that stemmed from the UN Partition plan of 1947. Famously, many of the Yemenite Jews knew nothing about airplanes, but boarded the DC-4 or C-46 aircrafts when they were reminded of the biblical verses about being returned to Israel "on eagles' wings." Many thousands of these refugees passed through Rosh Ha'ayin between 1949 and 1951, with about 8,000 settling there permanently. The city crest of Rosh Ha'ayin bears a pair of wings and the phrase "on eagles' wings" as a result.

The airline that took part in Magic Carpet was Alaska Airlines, and on their website they proudly tell a number of stories from the operation. One article tells of Warren and Marian Metzger, he an airline captain and she a stewardess, who served on the mission. Warren Metzger explained that:

"I had no idea what I was getting into, absolutely none. It was pretty much seat-of-the-pants flying in those days. Navigation was by dead reckoning and eyesight. Planes were getting shot at. The airport in Tel Aviv was getting bombed all the time. We had to put extra fuel tanks in the planes so we had the range to avoid landing in Arab territory."

Another posting tells of Stanley Epstein, who volunteered as a pilot, and a narrow escape by Bob Maguire, who was forced to land his plane in Egypt but managed to convince the Egyptians to refuel his plane by telling them the passengers had smallpox. Maguire's obituary appeared in the New York Times in 2005. Yet another article tells of James Wooten, then the president of Alaska Airlines, who "was the driver behind Alaska's participation in the airlift, and he played a key role in the logistics of the nearly year-long operation that made the mission successful despite many challenges."