dead Yemenite children

Briefly, in the early days of the State of Israel, it has been claimed, the secular Zionist government was very sympathetic to Jews of Ashkenazy origin and prejudiced to Jews of Sephardic origin.

It has been claimed that the leaders of Israel took advantage of immigrants from Arabic countries, mostly Yemenite Jews, due to their overwhelming naivete and trust of the government. The government was supposedly responsible for a campaign of stealing their babies and "selling" them to Ashkenazy couples, usually childless and willing to pay alot of money.
The natural parents would be told their child had died in childbirth, or shortly after because of a disease or birth defect and had to be buried right away. The parents would be left with nothing to do other than mourn their dead child.
Unbeknowest to them the child was really removed from the hospital and sold to childless Ashkenazy couples for lots of money.

This has never really been verified whether the allegations are true or not, but there is a lot of proof out there. The story almost came to a head a few years ago when a mother and daughter reunited claiming the daughter, Tzilla Levine had supposedly been "dead at childbirth" but was really raised on a kibbutz.
The story died down when the DNA was inconclusive. One DNA test had shown with 99% definity that they were mother daughter, but then a new test had been ordered by the government which contradicted the earlier tests findings and was less conclucive and not a high enough percentage to be considered proof.

There is plenty of information available. The results of a Google search using the words sold Yemenite children can be seen here.

Rabbi Uzi Meshullam gathered evidence and names of over 4500 children but was then arrested. He was let go after a number of years due to health problems, with the condition of his release being that he would not continue the investigations.


Here we have a fascinating story that seems to show the Yemenite community were not the only victims of evil government beaurocrats. In this story a Satmar couple had given birth to twins. One died in childbirth and the second, the parents were told, had died shortly after childbirth due to a fatal disease and had already been buried. The parents had nothing to do other than mourn their babies.

It turns out a young man in Canada, raised as a non-Jew, was told in his will by his dead mother that he had been adopted when he was just a few days old and is really from Bnei Brak in Israel. The young man has gone on to search for the truth and to find his real family and is now in the process of genetic testing.