remnant of those large Jewish nomadic or semi-nomadic communities, many of them autonomous, which existed throughout Arabia in the time of Mohammed. They have maintained themselves absolutely distinct and orthodox in religion in the Yemen for many centuries, and have acted as metal workers, craftsmen and carpenters for their Arab rulers. In the course of the last twenty years or so a number of these people have been returning to Palestine, which now numbers about 4,000 Yemenite Jews.
In the village of al-Bukeia (Pekiin) in the sub-district of Acre is a small community of Arabized Jews, indistinguishable from their Arab neighbours except by their religion, and claiming a continuous history of many centuries in that place.
The survival in Jerusalem should be chronicled of an infinitesimal number of Qaraites, whose headquarters at present are in the Crimea. The Qaraites separated from the main body of Jews in the eighth century A.D., and reject the Talmud. The small mediaeval semi-underground synagogue of the Qaraites in the old city of Jerusalem is not without interest.
Languages.—While the usual language of the Ashkenazim is Yiddish or 'jargon' (a foundation of Middle High German, to which are added a few common Hebrew words, and then a multitude of foreign words according to the taste and linguistic surroundings of the speaker), and that of the Sephardim either Arabic or, more usually, that mixture of fifteenth century Castilian and Hebrew known as Judezo-Spanish or Ladino, the use of Hebrew as a spoken and written secular language has made enormous strides in recent years, largely owing to the impetus which the Zionist movement has given to its revival. 'The Hebrew Language,' to quote the High Commissioner's Interim Report on Palestine for 1920–21, 'which, except for purposes of ritual, had been dead for many centuries, was revived as a vernacular. A new vocabulary to meet the needs of modern life was welded into it. Hebrew is now the language spoken by almost all the younger generation
