Yemenite silversmithing reputation was a myth contradicting their actual work history

Evidence

In Bezalel, the major role for the Yemenite Jews was in the silver filigree department. This was a prolific department, all of whose workers, except the master craftsman, were Yemenite Jews (fig. 1). The employment of Yemenite Jews in this craft originated from the general belief that the Yemenite Jews were “natural” silversmiths. It was indeed an important Jewish craft in the Yemen and Jewish Yemenite jewelry and silverware have gained a reputation. Until the 1920s Jews in the Yemen had a virtual monopoly on the production of jewelry, which was fashioned mainly in San’a. But it was by no means the only or even the major occupation of Jews in the Yemen. They have worked in a variety of crafts and trades as shoemakers, tailors, weavers, blacksmiths, builders, carpenters, as well as silversmiths, embroiders, potters, and merchants. According to Nitza Druyan, after emigrating to Palestine the Yemenite Jews worked in various forms of unskilled labor; less then 6 percent in 1887 and 7 percent in 1908 worked as silversmiths. When Boris Schatz wrote about Bezalel in his extended report after four years, he admitted that of the fifty Yemenite Jews who worked in the filigree department only a minority had previously worked in metalwork and silver ornaments in the Yemen. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 586

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the chapter’s overall thesis — colonial projects assign ethnic groups craft roles based on invented traditions.
• SEED: Article angle: how craft reputations are manufactured to fit colonial labor needs, using Yemenite filigree as case study.