Judah ben Shalom
Encyclopedia
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.
, and was evidently an accomplished kabbalist . He announced to the Jews of Yemen in March 1868 that he was in fact the self-same messianic claimant known as Shukr Kuhayl I
, who had been killed and decapitated by Arabs just three years prior, now resurrected by Elijah. The exact manner in which Judah ben Shalom was able to take over the identity of the deceased Shukr Kuhayl, and in so doing to completely erase his own personal history, must remain something of a mystery.
The new (or renewed) Shukr Kuhayl continued to preach the message of repentance that Yemenite Jews were familiar with from prior messiahs, as well as from local religious tradition. To the Jews he proclaimed that he was the Messiah
sent to redeem them, while to the Arabs he announced that he was a Muslim
sent to proclaim the arrival of the Mahdi
. It seems that his repertoire did not include miracle-working, and he addresses this conspicuous failure in some of his letters. The main reason given is that God has not yet permitted him to undertake miracle-working, and that (naturally) God's permission is merely waiting for the moment when the Jews finally unite behind their Messiah .
Unlike Shukr Kuhayl I, who worked mainly in the capacity of itinerant preacher, Judah ben Shalom developed a significant organizational structure which may have included hundreds of functionaries. From his headquarters, which was successively in Tan'im, al-Ṭawīlah, al-Qaranī, and again Tan'im, he coordinated a vast correspondence with the Jewish leaders in other communities of Yemen
, Aden
, Alexandria
, Bombay, Calcutta, Jerusalem, and Safed
, mainly for the purposes of acquiring funds. It is from this correspondence that we have our largest source of information about Judah ben Shalom's activities in this period. In contrast to Shukr Kuhayl I, who during his short messianic career pursued an ascetic life of seclusion and poverty, Shukr Kuhayl II presents the appearance of a con-man artfully manipulating individuals and the community at large for his own advantage.
Beyond Judah ben Shalom's exhortations to repentance (which were characteristic also of his predecessor Shukr Kuhayl I, and of other Yemenite messiahs), his correspondence is distinguished by its encouragement of the paying of a tithe
(ma'aser) to his organization. Various motivations and efficacies for the tithe are given in his correspondence —among them salvation from the "pangs of the Messiah"—and these solicitations appear by all reports to have been hugely successful. According to one report, the Jews of Aden
forwarded to Kuhayl the complete treasury of their synagogue
. He ultimately gained a large following among the Jews of Yemen (as well as many Arabs), who continued to contribute large sums of money to his cause. The utilization of these funds—whether they were distributed to the poor, used to buy protection, or used to finance Kuhayl's own luxurious lifestyle—is a matter of conflicting report.
Shukr Kuhayl II was not without his critics, even within Yemen. He was opposed by individuals who had personally known the first Shukr Kuhayl, and who regarded Shukr Kuhayl II's excessive lifestyle as incompatible with the modesty of the person they had known . quotes some letters that express this resentment. Kuhayl II's greatest antagonist, however, was Jacob Saphir
of Jerusalem, who ultimately played a major role in ending the messiah's career.
in so recent a period as the late 1800s are varied, although in light of even more recent messianic activity—such as that occurring within Lubavitch Hasidism—it is perhaps no longer so difficult to comprehend. However, to a Wissenschaft
-influenced writer like Sassoon, the only plausible explanation is the deficiency of Yemenite intellectual culture:
While Sassoon has the advantage of proximity to events—living almost contemporaneously with the messianic movement he is describing, one can question the fairness of some of these remarks, especially inasmuch as they are not paralleled in Saphir
's accounts . It does seem the case that the Yemenite Jews were indeed given to a certain fascination with messianic paraphernalia, including calculations of redemption, apocalyptic visions, the Lost Tribes, etc. , but this alone does not account for their susceptibility to messianic pretense.
An additional ingredient was the manner in which the Yemenite messiahs took advantage of two unique features of Yemenite Judaism. Firstly, the Yemenite Jewish culture placed great importance on individual and communal repentance (along with the dire consequences of inadequate repentance), and the messiahs took advantage of this by incorporating into their messages pious and emotionally powerful calls for communal repentance in the face of impending dangers. As a result of the hyper-piety of the messiahs' messages, communal leaders found it very difficult to reject the messenger . Secondly, the tradition among Yemenite Jews of memorizing the entire Tanach made it easy for a knowledgeable individual such as Kuhayl II to sound eminently "messianic" by artfully weaving into his writings (and no doubt into his speeches) verses from the Nevi'im
and Ketuvim
. His Yemenite readers would immediately recognize these verses and their prophetic origins, which no doubt lent tremendous authority to the messiah's message, and again made the messenger difficult to reject .
All in all, what seems likely is that the suppuration of messianic activity in Yemen was made possible by weak Jewish leadership in the face of a dismal and chaotic political situation within a community that was largely isolated from the rest of Jewish culture, circumstances which were little changed from those which prompted Maimonides
to write his famous Letter to Yemen (Igeret Taiman) in the 12th century, in which he expressed his concern about the lax response of Yemenite leadership to an anonymous pseudo-messiah of that earlier period. In regard to the present episode, considers it within the framework of the entire history of Yemenite messianic activity in the following way:
's 1872 Igeret Taiman (consciously borrowing the title of Rambam's earlier Epistle), countering the messianic claims of Judah ben Shalom, and signed by the rabbis of Jerusalem, which lead to a deterioration in Kuhayl's stature among the community leaders controlling his cash flow . As the income diminished, he was forced to borrow money from wealthy Arabs, and—evidently defaulting on these loans—was finally taken to jail. Released after some time, he was not able to regain his former acclaim, and died in poverty around 1878.
The rise of Shukr Kuhayl II
Judah ben Shalom was either a potter or a cobbler hailing from San‘a’, YemenYemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
, and was evidently an accomplished kabbalist . He announced to the Jews of Yemen in March 1868 that he was in fact the self-same messianic claimant known as Shukr Kuhayl I
Shukr Kuhayl I
Shukr ben Salim Kuhayl I , also known as Mari Shukr Kuhayl I , was a Yemenite messianic claimant of the 19th century....
, who had been killed and decapitated by Arabs just three years prior, now resurrected by Elijah. The exact manner in which Judah ben Shalom was able to take over the identity of the deceased Shukr Kuhayl, and in so doing to completely erase his own personal history, must remain something of a mystery.
The new (or renewed) Shukr Kuhayl continued to preach the message of repentance that Yemenite Jews were familiar with from prior messiahs, as well as from local religious tradition. To the Jews he proclaimed that he was the Messiah
Jewish Messiah
Messiah, ; mashiah, moshiah, mashiach, or moshiach, is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe priests and kings, who were traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil as described in Exodus 30:22-25...
sent to redeem them, while to the Arabs he announced that he was a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
sent to proclaim the arrival of the Mahdi
Mahdi
In Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will stay on Earth for seven, nine or nineteen years- before the Day of Judgment and, alongside Jesus, will rid the world of wrongdoing, injustice and tyranny.In Shia Islam, the belief in the Mahdi is a "central religious...
. It seems that his repertoire did not include miracle-working, and he addresses this conspicuous failure in some of his letters. The main reason given is that God has not yet permitted him to undertake miracle-working, and that (naturally) God's permission is merely waiting for the moment when the Jews finally unite behind their Messiah .
Unlike Shukr Kuhayl I, who worked mainly in the capacity of itinerant preacher, Judah ben Shalom developed a significant organizational structure which may have included hundreds of functionaries. From his headquarters, which was successively in Tan'im, al-Ṭawīlah, al-Qaranī, and again Tan'im, he coordinated a vast correspondence with the Jewish leaders in other communities of Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
, Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
, Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Bombay, Calcutta, Jerusalem, and Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
, mainly for the purposes of acquiring funds. It is from this correspondence that we have our largest source of information about Judah ben Shalom's activities in this period. In contrast to Shukr Kuhayl I, who during his short messianic career pursued an ascetic life of seclusion and poverty, Shukr Kuhayl II presents the appearance of a con-man artfully manipulating individuals and the community at large for his own advantage.
Beyond Judah ben Shalom's exhortations to repentance (which were characteristic also of his predecessor Shukr Kuhayl I, and of other Yemenite messiahs), his correspondence is distinguished by its encouragement of the paying of a tithe
Tithe
A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
(ma'aser) to his organization. Various motivations and efficacies for the tithe are given in his correspondence —among them salvation from the "pangs of the Messiah"—and these solicitations appear by all reports to have been hugely successful. According to one report, the Jews of Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
forwarded to Kuhayl the complete treasury of their synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
. He ultimately gained a large following among the Jews of Yemen (as well as many Arabs), who continued to contribute large sums of money to his cause. The utilization of these funds—whether they were distributed to the poor, used to buy protection, or used to finance Kuhayl's own luxurious lifestyle—is a matter of conflicting report.
Shukr Kuhayl II was not without his critics, even within Yemen. He was opposed by individuals who had personally known the first Shukr Kuhayl, and who regarded Shukr Kuhayl II's excessive lifestyle as incompatible with the modesty of the person they had known . quotes some letters that express this resentment. Kuhayl II's greatest antagonist, however, was Jacob Saphir
Jacob Saphir
Jacob Saphir was a Meshulach and traveler of Rumanian descent, born in Oshmyany, government of Wilna.While still a boy he went to Palestine with his parents, who settled at Safed, and at their death in 1836 he moved to Jerusalem...
of Jerusalem, who ultimately played a major role in ending the messiah's career.
Reasons for his success
The reasons for the profound success of messianic movements in YemenYemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
in so recent a period as the late 1800s are varied, although in light of even more recent messianic activity—such as that occurring within Lubavitch Hasidism—it is perhaps no longer so difficult to comprehend. However, to a Wissenschaft
Wissenschaft des Judentums
Wissenschaft des Judentums , refers to a nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, using scientific methods to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions.-The Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden:The ...
-influenced writer like Sassoon, the only plausible explanation is the deficiency of Yemenite intellectual culture:
While Sassoon has the advantage of proximity to events—living almost contemporaneously with the messianic movement he is describing, one can question the fairness of some of these remarks, especially inasmuch as they are not paralleled in Saphir
Jacob Saphir
Jacob Saphir was a Meshulach and traveler of Rumanian descent, born in Oshmyany, government of Wilna.While still a boy he went to Palestine with his parents, who settled at Safed, and at their death in 1836 he moved to Jerusalem...
's accounts . It does seem the case that the Yemenite Jews were indeed given to a certain fascination with messianic paraphernalia, including calculations of redemption, apocalyptic visions, the Lost Tribes, etc. , but this alone does not account for their susceptibility to messianic pretense.
An additional ingredient was the manner in which the Yemenite messiahs took advantage of two unique features of Yemenite Judaism. Firstly, the Yemenite Jewish culture placed great importance on individual and communal repentance (along with the dire consequences of inadequate repentance), and the messiahs took advantage of this by incorporating into their messages pious and emotionally powerful calls for communal repentance in the face of impending dangers. As a result of the hyper-piety of the messiahs' messages, communal leaders found it very difficult to reject the messenger . Secondly, the tradition among Yemenite Jews of memorizing the entire Tanach made it easy for a knowledgeable individual such as Kuhayl II to sound eminently "messianic" by artfully weaving into his writings (and no doubt into his speeches) verses from the Nevi'im
Nevi'im
Nevi'im is the second of the three major sections in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. It falls between the Torah and Ketuvim .Nevi'im is traditionally divided into two parts:...
and Ketuvim
Ketuvim
Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm in actual Biblical Hebrew is the third and final section of the Tanak , after Torah and Nevi'im . In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually entitled "Writings" or "Hagiographa"...
. His Yemenite readers would immediately recognize these verses and their prophetic origins, which no doubt lent tremendous authority to the messiah's message, and again made the messenger difficult to reject .
All in all, what seems likely is that the suppuration of messianic activity in Yemen was made possible by weak Jewish leadership in the face of a dismal and chaotic political situation within a community that was largely isolated from the rest of Jewish culture, circumstances which were little changed from those which prompted Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
to write his famous Letter to Yemen (Igeret Taiman) in the 12th century, in which he expressed his concern about the lax response of Yemenite leadership to an anonymous pseudo-messiah of that earlier period. In regard to the present episode, considers it within the framework of the entire history of Yemenite messianic activity in the following way:
The demise of Shukr Kuhayl II
Eventually, it was Jacob SaphirJacob Saphir
Jacob Saphir was a Meshulach and traveler of Rumanian descent, born in Oshmyany, government of Wilna.While still a boy he went to Palestine with his parents, who settled at Safed, and at their death in 1836 he moved to Jerusalem...
's 1872 Igeret Taiman (consciously borrowing the title of Rambam's earlier Epistle), countering the messianic claims of Judah ben Shalom, and signed by the rabbis of Jerusalem, which lead to a deterioration in Kuhayl's stature among the community leaders controlling his cash flow . As the income diminished, he was forced to borrow money from wealthy Arabs, and—evidently defaulting on these loans—was finally taken to jail. Released after some time, he was not able to regain his former acclaim, and died in poverty around 1878.