Judah Ben Shalom - The Rise of Shukr Kuhayl II

The Rise of Shukr Kuhayl II

Judah ben Shalom was either a potter or a cobbler hailing from San‘a’, Yemen, and was evidently an accomplished kabbalist (Sassoon 1907). 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 (Lenowitz 2000).

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 (Klorman 1989), 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 (Klorman 1989)—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 (Lenowitz 1998, p. 226). Lenowitz (1998) 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.