ABSTRACT
Jean-Jacques Berreby wrote of the situation in 1954 that “70-75 percent of the new immigration is set in a Yemenite milieu. There are at least twenty-two urban Yemenite communities larger than Kiryat Eliahu. Aside from the 18,000 Yemenites in Tel Aviv, the 12,000 in the all-Yemenite town of Rosh Ha’Ayin, and the 10,000 in Petah Tikva, there are five or more cities with more than 5,000 Yemenites: Jerusalem, Rishon LeTsion, Ramat Gan, Holon, Rehovot, and Netanya. Because Kiryat Eliahu is relatively distant from the centers of Yemenite population, which are located in the Tel Aviv conurbation, its Yemenites are not in a position to participate as fully in Yemenite social and cultural life as those near the center. Israel’s Yemenites are heavily concentrated in the center of the country, with 38 percent or more in the greater Tel Aviv area. There is a clear tendency for Yemenites everywhere to cluster in distinctive ethnic enclaves such as that in Kiryat Eliahu.
