Officially known as Ansar Allah, the Houthis’ worldview is starkly epitomised in their battle cry, ‘Allah is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.’ This slogan encapsulates not only their broader ideological commitment to the destruction of ‘the West,’ but also their vehement antisemitism. As Hussein Al-Houthi, one of the group’s founders, expressed in his fascicles, ‘Arab countries and all Islamic countries will not be safe from Jews except through their eradication and the elimination of their entity.’

This ideology is perhaps key to understanding the Houthis’ treatment of the last Jews of Yemen and the harrowing ordeal of Levi Marhabi  –Yemen’s last remaining Jew  – whom the Iran-backed militia has subjected to torture and captivity since 2018.

In the decade preceding the Houthis’ seizure of power in the September 21 Revolution, Yemen’s Jewish community could look back on a rich tapestry of history marked by scholarship and a vibrant culture, which had flourished since their arrival nearly two millennia before the arrival of Islam. Later, the Zaydi rulers, adhering to Islamic customs, extended a degree of religious freedom to the Jews, recognising them as ‘People of the Book’. This status was secured through the payment of the jizya, a poll tax levied under Islamic law, intended to affirm their protection by the state.

Nevertheless, this security came with stringent social rules aimed at ensuring their visible separation from the Muslim populace. Among the many conditions, Jews were required to walk on the left side of Muslims, forbidden from constructing homes taller than those of their Muslim neighbours, and barred from riding camels or horses. Instead, they were limited to mules and donkeys, which they initially rode sidesaddle. Over time, even this modest privilege was rescinded, relegating them to making their journeys on foot.

Despite these restrictions, the Jewish community in Yemen managed to attain economic prosperity, thriving as merchants, artisans, and peddlers. Historian Professor Norman Stillman notes that, ‘The treatment of Jews in Yemen, overall, was the harshest enforcement of the laws concerning non-Muslims, but one of the things that’s interesting is that Jews always did best and worst under sectarian Muslims.’

Starting in 1881 and continuing until 1914, a significant exodus unfolded as around 10 per cent of Yemen’s Jewish population migrated to the then-Ottoman territory of Palestine. This movement, which was facilitated by the relative freedom of travel under the Ottoman regime and the newly built Suez Canal, was seen by many as a divine signal urging a return to their ancestral homeland. The horrors of the Aden pogrom, combined with escalating regional dangers following the 1947 UN partition of Palestine, further catalysed a mass exodus, the most notable being the large-scale organised evacuation known as Operation Magic Carpet which successfully airlifted over 50,000 Jews to Israel, with the assistance of American and British airliners. This was followed by smaller, continuous waves of emigration until the onset of the civil war in 1994.

In the capital, Sana’a, there was virtually no Jewish presence until the Shia insurgency led by the Houthis erupted in northern Yemen in 2004.

The situation took a dire turn in 2007 when the Houthis issued direct threats against the Jewish community. In response, the Yemeni government under President Saleh, recognised for its approach to reconciliation and tolerance, extended refuge to the Jews in the capital. By 2010, around 100 Jews were living under government protection in Sanaʽa.

As the Houthis gained control of the capital, anti-Jewish stabbings and violence surged. Simultaneously, Saleh was ousted from power, after which the Iran-backed militia gained full control of Sana’a. ‘Under the Houthis, Jews faced intensified persecution and were ultimately expelled,’ said Jason Guberman, the executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, in a conversation with this author earlier this year, ‘Most of the last Jews in Yemen were expelled by the Houthis during Passover 2021, ironically to Egypt.’ This dramatic migration effectively concluded the millennia-long presence of Jews in Yemen, except for the few Yemenite Jews who chose to remain, among them Levi Marhabi.

Houthi forces detained Marhabi in March 2016, after they implicated him in the escape of the Dahari family, a Jewish family who managed to leave Yemen and reach Israel, taking with them an 800-year-old Torah scroll belonging to Yemen’s Jewish community. A photograph had been taken of them with the scroll, meeting Prime Minister Netanyahu, shortly after their arrival in the country.

‘The Houthis reacted very negatively when this picture came out,’ Mr Guberman explained. His organisation, in collaboration with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is leading the campaign to raise public awareness about Marhabi’s condition. ‘They claimed that the Torah scroll was their property and were upset that the family had escaped. Consequently, they arrested Levi along with several Yemeni Muslims they accused of being involved in the operation. As far as we know, there is no evidence implicating Levi and the Yemeni Muslims in this. We don’t know why they were targeted or if they were actually involved, but they were arrested,’ Mr Guberman said.

On 18 March, 2018, the Houthis sentenced Marhabi to three years and six months in prison, while the Muslim men were released after serving shorter sentences. The following year, a Yemeni appeals court ordered his release, but Houthi officials ignored the ruling and continued to detain him.

According to the USCIRF’s database of religious prisoners of conscience, Marhabi is kept in inhumane prison conditions, where his health continues to deteriorate. He allegedly suffers from kidney and lung issues and has lost all his teeth from repeated torture. Other accounts indicate that he may also be partially paralysed. Houthi officials have reportedly deprived him of food, and subjected him to physical beatings, electrical shocks, and lengthy interrogations. According to a 2022 UN report, Marhabi is said to be the last Jew in the country, although other sources suggest there may be three or four Jews still remaining in Yemen.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations have called for Marhabi’s release, emphasising his prolonged imprisonment despite his sentence being served. In November 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke out, citing Marhabi’s imprisonment as a ‘wrongful detention’. The following year, State Department spokesperson Ned Price and UN Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield reiterated the call, condemning the Houthis for human rights abuses.

I asked Mr Guberman why, given the Houthis’ ideology towards Jews, they don’t simply do away with Levi. He stated, ‘We’ve always believed that their objective was to strike some kind of deal.

To get something in return for Levi’s release. There have been various times, and I’ve been in touch with the US special envoy to Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, about this. Different reports last year suggested that Levi might be included in a prisoner exchange with the Houthis. Timothy Lenderking confirmed this, but it turned out not to be the case. We had also heard claims in September [2023] that there was a push to include the Houthis in a coalition government.’

It must be noted that Levi is but one of the countless victims in Yemen’s vast landscape of suffering. Despite the Houthis’ extensive crimes against the Yemeni population, the Iran-backed militia remains relatively obscure in Western consciousness. The Houthis have perpetrated numerous atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities  –  including burning hundreds of Ethiopian migrants alive, and persecuting Bahá’ís, women, and Sunni Muslims. While an overwhelming 80 per cent of Yemen’s population relies on humanitarian aid or protection assistance, with the country precariously balanced on the edge of famine, the Houthis manage to sustain resources for their ongoing ballistic missile attacks on Israel. In the shadows, the struggles of their victims often remain hidden from the world, eclipsed by the broader regional chaos and the limited focus of media attention.

In Levi’s case, Mr Guberman remarked, ‘Yemen is a complicated situation. There hasn’t really been much attention to the Houthis or what they’re doing, and within the broader Jewish community, Yemenis are a very small percentage. Most Yemenite Jews live in Israel. I think those are some of the reasons why they haven’t received much attention.’

He also attributes this to the lack of coverage of Iran’s burgeoning influence in the region, stating, ‘When we think about colonialism, we’re only thinking about the West. We’re not talking about Iran, which is currently occupying four Arab capitals: Sanaʽa, Baghdad, Beirut, and Damascus. They have significant influence in some of the others. According to the Wall Street Journal, 500 Hamas fighters were trained in Iran before October 7th.

Undoubtedly, Iran played an even bigger role. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all part of Iranian neo-colonialism in the region and protectors of Iranian powers. We have to keep making this case.’ he said. ‘We also have to keep drawing attention to antisemitism. We have to be opposed to all forms of antisemitism, regardless of the source. The Houthis and Iran, with Holocaust denial and genocidal antisemitism, are the leading purveyors of these forms.’