#Yemeni culture

[folkfashion]

Yemeni woman, Yemen, by Years of Culture

[hindahoney]

Has anyone else noticed the weird appropriation of Yiddish for specifically anti-zionist spaces? It makes me deeply uncomfortable.

[zevranunderstander]

two things that bother me about all zelda gerudo designs so much is that the female designs are just completely oversexualized for no reason (would be so fucking impractical in a desert) and that ganondorf's outfit is based on eastern asian fashion and not... middle eastern fashion?

[jewreallythinkthat]

Jewish food 😂😂 more like stolen land and food

Girl (gn) I hope you've never eaten a bagel in your entire life, you wouldn't want those nasty Jewish cooties we garnish them all with 🥱

[koenji]

Handcrafted Yemenite silver filigree Mezuzot (png) by Chaim Gershon "Gershi" in Bnei Brak. x

Yemenite silversmithing is a historic craft practiced by the Jewish communities of Yemen. It is especially known for its filigree work, which produces intricate designs using fine silver wire. The results are ornate jewelry and other cultural and religious items. The traditional techniques are often passed down through generations.

Yemenite Jews have practiced silversmithing since at least the 1700s at a time when Muslims did not engage in this work, and their products were highly sought after in the southern Arabian Peninsula and beyond.

Following the mass exodus of Yemenite Jews in the mid-20th century, the majority fleeing to Israel, Yemenite silversmiths have continued practicing and passing down their craft. It remains a renowned aspect of Jewish artistic heritage.

[bijoumikhawal]

"Biden is the best choice and he's actually really empathetic and reasonable but also you can't wait for a candidate that won't do genocide and war crimes because to become a presidential candidate you have to be willing to do that" see what you fundamentally don't understand is I'm not waiting for a candidate that won't do war crimes, because I know that. I cannot morally stomach this system, it's a joke to claim its democratic, and AMERICA DELENDA EST. this country is a plague on this Earth

[blue-eyed-giant]

it's so fun to see when people design their spidersona's costume to have their cultural motifs but i think i would laugh so hard if i saw a turkish spiderman wear any item of this costume

[dincercosqun]

SAFRANBOLU YEMENİSİ; Osmanlı devletinin, askerlerin ayakkabı ihtiyacını karşılaması için 1661'de Safranboluda kurduğu Tarihi Yemeniciler Arastası'ndaki son yemeni ustası Erhan usta tarafından üretilmektedir. Yemeninin taban kısmında manda ya da sığır derisi kullanılır. Astarı koyun derisinden yapılır. Çevirmesi ise oğlak derisinden yapılır. #photooftheday #photography #follow #travel #traveller #culture #history #heritage #yemeni #goturkey #onlyintürkiye #objektifimden #kadrajimdan #aniyakala #ayakkabi #kbü #safranbolu (Safranbolu, Karabük, Turkey) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnhoL2QKmfR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[psychotrenny]

And people keep trying to justify Israel's existence on the basis that it is somehow a safe place for the preservation of Jewish people and their culture and not only is that an awful argument for establishing a Settler Colonist Apartheid State but it's not even true. Like the state is politically and economically dominated by Ashkenazi Jews from Northern Europe and their descendants. While not as severely mistreated as Palestinians, there is still a significant disparity between the European and Non-European Jews in terms of income and education. Non-European Jews are still regularly subject to interpersonal bigotry (hell earlier this year there was a news story about a viral video where Ashkenazi girls in a Purim made a skit mocking the Mizrahi) and Israel government policies towards non-Ashkenazi migrants have done severe damage to their social structure and cultural traditions. Not to mention the fact that the whole reason why many Mizrahi migrated in the first place was to escape the violence caused by European Jews committing atrocities in their name, tearing communities apart as neighbours that had peacefully co-existed for centuries found themselves on opposite sides of this new ethno-religious conflict

There have even been attempts in Israeli history at the forceful assimilation or even biological reduction of non-European Jews; the kidnapping and adoption of Yemeni Jewish children in the 1950s is significant example of the former while the forced contraception of Beta Israeli (Ethiopean Jewish migrants) with the explicit intention of reducing their population's birth rate is an example of the latter. There's also very clear favouritism when it comes to recent converts; white Afrikaner converts are given the right of Aliyah while Nigerian Igbos are not. Like the fact of the matter is that Israel's fundamental nature is as a European Settler Colony, incredibly racist not only towards the indigenous Palestinians but the many Non-European Jews it claims to represent. It's an outpost of Western Imperialism, not a haven for the Jewish people. If it was ever meant to be the latter than it has failed miserably

[rooksamoris]

they did jamil's story so dirty, so im here to do him justice. honestly, a lot of my depictions of him come from various pieces of arabic literature that criticize the caste system/social hierarchy as a whole. a lot of our most romantic literature comes from people who could not be in love with their muses due to social/ethnic hierarchies. as such, a lot of the writing that i have done of jamil is inspired by those conflicts and just arabic poetry in general.

his story is very underdeveloped and the fandom treats him horribly. that isn't controversial, at least i don't think so. there's a lot of orientalism in the work of twisted wonderland when it comes to the scarabia duo, as well as leona kingscholar too, so im just doing my best to rectify that via sharing bits of arab culture and history through him and kalim as well, soon enough. i wanna do with same with leona, hopefully. im not east african, but i am yemeni and it takes like one-two hours in a boat from the coast of aden to get to east africa.

recently, i have been looking into studying swahili. btw, swahili comes from the arabic word meaning "coast" but it is a bantu language. due to their proximity to the coast and the arabian peninsula, the languages and cultures have mixed a lot (look into socotra island). all that rambling aside, i love the scarabia duo and leona. they deserved better from the creators as well as the fandom.

[ed-recoverry]

Shoutout to all Middle Eastern LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Arab LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Egyptian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Iranian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Turk LGBTQ+ folks (if you consider yourself so).

Shoutout to all Persian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Iraqi LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to Kurd LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Assyrian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Maronite LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Yemeni LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Aramean LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Qatari LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Bedouin LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Jordanian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Shabak LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Saudi LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Chaldean LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Kuwaiti LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Palestinian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Bahraini LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Druze LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Cypriot LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Omani LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Lebanese LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Syrian LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Copt LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Emirati LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Turkoman LGBTQ+ folks.

Shoutout to all Pakistani LGBTQ+ folks.

Take pride in it all. Your culture, your identity, it’s all so beautiful. Celebrate where you are from and who you are. It makes you you, and that is something to be proud of.

I’m aware some of those of these ethnicities don’t consider themselves Middle Eastern, so take this with a grain of salt and just an opportunity to celebrate who you are :)

post for Asians, post for Pacific Islanders, post for Oceanic people, post for Hispanics, post for Africans, post for Native Americans, post for Caribbeans

[folkfashion]

Yemeni bride, Yemen, by Ahlam A Ghanim

[nimrochan]

No disrespect, and I want to say that jewish people should absolutely be safe and feel welcome and happy everywhere in the world. But how can you talk positively about moving to Israel, paying taxes to a government, that has been confirmed to have killed 13.000 children? Do you not see an issue with moving to a state that has been determined by the ICJ to be committing a genocide right now?

Thank you for your question. I’ll do my best to answer this as an Israeli-American with a more inside perspective than most people who haven’t been in the area.

Incoming novel.

First off, I encourage you to read my pinned post.

Second, I believe Israel is a tiny country that as being held to an impossible standard. The situation there is very unique and I ask you to not compare it to others.

(I promise I’m going somewhere with this) in the past ten years, half a million Syrians and half a million Yemenis died in civil war in what I think are actual genocides. Millions more are refugees. China forcibly puts its Muslim citizens in “re-education” camps, another form of cruelty and cultural genocide. There are other genocides actually happening in Congo and Darfur and other places. There are humanitarian crises in Arab countries regarding the horrific treatments of women. And in North Korea, the situation has always been dire - it contains a concentration camp the size of Rhodes island.

This leads me to ask- why is the hate for Israel so widespread and deep? I’ve never seen protests addressing these aforementioned issues so passionately. I almost NEVER see them addressed on social media. I have never seen Russian, Chinese, Afghani people etc in places OUTSIDE of their countries being harassed to the extent that Jews and Israelites are. Jews outside of Israel have been harassed and attacked, some have even been murdered. Our synagogues and graveyards have been vandalized. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people openly march for our deaths rather than to condemn terrorism or condemn far more horrible governments. I can only come to the conclusion that it’s antisemitism. It’s not a coincidence that the only Jewish country in the world a) has such a microscope over it, b) is one of the most terrorized countries in the world, and c) has so much widely-accepted misinformation regarding it. Including the whole “white colonizer” narrative - most Israelis are brown.

The UN has a history of not accepting Israel as a country and disregarding the years of constant terrorism against it. It has not acknowledged 10/07. The voters of the ICJ include Bashar Al Assad who is the president of Syria. Yes that same Syria that kills its own people. Another voter is from China. Same China with countless human rights violations. Another voter whose name escapes me now made motions to deny humanitarian crises in other Arab countries. So between the UN and the ICJ voters, the parties are extremely biased and ignore far worse issues. So I am not going to take them seriously. I hope you ask yourself what else may have skewed your perspective on the war, if such big international organizations are demonstrably biased.

Genocide is done with intent. In the last 50 years, the Palestinian population has grown FASTER than the world’s Jewish population. I can tell you first hand, as someone with many family members who have served in the IDF, and who knows how strong the Israeli military is - genocide is not, has never been, and will never be the intention of Israel. If it WANTED to commit genocide, I guarantee you that absolutely far more Palestinians would have been slaughtered and I would tear up my passport in that case.

When the LEADERS of a county cross a border into ANOTHER country, unprovoked, and personally slaughter and rape thousands of civilians, that is genocide and that is declaring war. It’s a very small scale genocide, but technically it is. If you read the charter of Gaza, it actually states the goal of killing all Jews. Hamas killed the maximum number of Israelis that was in their power at the time. Including people that my own family were close to.

Growing up in Israel, among some Arabs, I can tell you that no one EVER taught me to hate Arabs. In fact they taught us Arabic in school along with English. All street signs are in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Meanwhile across the border, their government put guns in kids’ hands and teach them that Jews are pigs. And I don’t think they’re considerate enough to put any of their public signs in Hebrew.

You can see pictures online of Hamas dressing up their kids as child soldiers.

I don’t know if you ever saw the footage of Hamas driving around Gaza with dead bodies after the 10/07 attack and many Gazan civilians celebrating and dancing with their kids and handing out candies, mutilating the bodies further. Look up Shani Louk.

While a handful of Israelis are openly racist (just like there are racists everywhere else on the planet), you will NEVER see something this horrific on Israeli streets. NEVER.

Obviously, not all Gazan civilians are this heinous and nobody should be punished for where they were born (and anti-Israelis are lost on the irony of calling all Israelis kid-murdering genocide-lovers who deserved what happened to them including rape and infantacide). But I want you to ask yourself, If this was My country, how would they respond? I don’t think Israel is responding WORSE than America or other strong countries would. Again that leads me to ask why the hate is out of proportion even for their strong response.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that about 30-40K casualties by Israel. Now that organization is run by… Hamas. But okay, I’m willing to believe that number. I’m willing to believe that that number is double. And I’m extremely saddened by innocent Gazans suffering because of the carelessness and evil of their leaders. But let’s look at the number for now.

Israel reports that about 17,000 of the people killed in Gaza are Hamas militants. That leaves a civilian-combatant ratio of 1:1.2 - 1:2. That’s… average for war. For a dense urban area like Gaza? That is LOW. That does not fit the definition of genocide. It is war, and it sucks, but it’s not genocide.

As for children dying - We do not yet know exactly the number of children who are militants. A baby is counted as a child, but so are the 15-17 year old child soldiers that Hamas recruits. So now the line is blurring.

Not to mention, Hamas has been caught altering birth dates on records of dead Gazans to bring their ages down. Some 18-year-olds are falsely reported as being 17 at death to falsely increase the numbers of killed children on paper.

To go a little off topic, Al Jazeera has also been caught numerous times censoring Gazans criticizing Hamas and reporting biased news. Heck they even reported the rape and murder of my people as “a necessary step.” Look up Howidy Hamza, a Palestinian reporter who talks about Hamas. Hamas is unbelievably cruel to their own people. Yet protests in the US and around the world praise them.

Let’s go back to Israel being the most terrorized country in the world behind Somalia. Do you know what’s going on in Somalia? Of course probably not - another crisis largely ignored by the world because it’s not as exciting or interesting.

Again I grew up in Israel. In the 90’s there was a rash of suicide bombings on buses by the PLO, so I remember avoiding buses as a child out of fear. I also remember waiting in line with my family to get free gas masks because Saddam Hussein once threatened biological warfare on us. Fun times.

I went back to visit in 2015 - this time, a trend of Palestinian civilians in Israel randomly stabbing Jews or running over them or throwing rocks at them. Some Palestinian teens threw rocks into traffic and killed a 2-year old.

And in the past 20 years at least, Hamas and OTHER parties have been sending rockets into Israel. Into civilian areas. Do you think that’s normal? Do you think it’s normal to have apps to alert you to rockets and to have so many bomb shelters? Have you ever spoken to a relative overseas and heard rockets in the background while on the phone with them?

Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of us would be dead if it weren’t for the iron dome?

EDITED TO ADD: Israel responds to rocket fire to destroy the source, because the iron dome is not perfect and CONTINUED firing eventually harms Israeli civilians. Yes, Hamas makes sure to fire rockets from Gazan civilian areas. Another note I want to bring up - I don’t know how many Gazans are displaced currently, I have a hard time finding a nonbiased source, but I would guess around 750K - 1.2 million. If they are displaced RATHER then killed, that’s another contradiction to calling this war a genocide.

Do you know why Gaza has received billions of dollars in aid over the years - enough to turn it into a living paradise - only for Hamas to use it to build underground tunnels and rockets for the purpose of attacking a country that has NEVER in its history attacked first or started any wars? (Yes, believe it or not, Israel has never STARTED a war since its inception).

The other problem with Gaza is Hamas intentionally having military targets under densely populated areas. When Israel warns civilians to leave, via leaflets or alerts, many times Hamas threatens them to stay and become martyrs. On top of it, they dress as civilians and recruit children, and fire rockets from refugee camps and apartment buildings and schools and hospitals. This is neither legal nor ethical warfare.

Israel does not, has never put military targets near civilian, nor does the IDF recruit children or dress as civilians. That’s a bare minimum.

I won’t deny that members of the IDF have done shitty things, just like the American army and other armies around the world have probably done, but if I had to choose between the country with the military that wants me dead and Israel… yeah. At least rape and other torture are ILLEGAL for the IDF. Meanwhile Hamas continues to freely rape hostages as I type this. Because they make the laws there.

Yes Israel cares more about its own citizens than foreign citizens like Gaza, but again, that’s no more evil than other normal countries.

To address another stereotype about Israel being a racist and apartheid state - there are two million Arab Israelis living peacefully there. There are Arab countries who hold peace treaties with Israel.

So you tell me in your ask, Jews should be safe and welcomed around the world. The sentiment is appreciated, but this is not the case with reality, sadly. There is NO population of 2 million Jews in any other middle eastern country. Many of us left for Israel due to severe oppression. There are no more Jews in Yemen for example. My grandfather left for Israel from his home in Lebanon because some officials wanted him dead. Why? For committing the crime of smuggling Jews through Lebanon to escape the Holocaust.

My grandparents on my mother’s side escaped post-war Poland because of violent lingering antisemitism.

They would have had NOWHERE to go without Israel.

And we are NOT safe outside of Israel or even in Israel because of the intense hatred. We have been scapegoats for society’s problems for thousands of years and I don’t see it improving any time soon.

How can I talk positively about Israel? It’s the most liberal and progressive country in the Middle East. It’s the only country where it’s legal and safe to be openly gay for example, and it’s the only country there that holds annual pride.

It’s a middle eastern country where I, as a secular woman, can dress how I want, marry who I want, get abortions if I needed, own property, own money, have a prestigious job, and *checks notes* drive.

It’s also the only Jewish country in the world. It’s the place I’ve felt the safest and happiest, surrounded by my own people and family and sometimes I wish my parents and I never left, because I am personally feeling the antisemitism when I march peacefully and get nasty comments, or when I lose long time close friends left and right for being a “genocidal Zionist”, or when I see antisemitic graffiti and signs everywhere I walk.

My taxes in Israel would pay for hospitals that treat people from all around the world including Palestinian children for free. It would pay for the iron dome that keeps my family safe.

My taxes in America have been used to oppress women, and for horrific military actions, etc. and America itself is LITERALLY built on colonial genocide and the backs of slaves. Slightly related, most of North Africa was colonized by Arabs who ran a larger slave trade than the US. I’ve never learned that in school! I’ve never seen anyone talk about that! I’ve never seen Americans or Arabs in other countries get attacked for these things (to be fair, I’m very aware of the racism Arabs and Muslims did feel in the US after 9/11 and I absolutely condemn it).

This same America also lifted sanctions on Iran, allowing it to spare money to give to Hamas to buy weapons and slaughter my people to start this fucking war.

So you ask why I’m saving money to eventually move to Israel from America? I hope I’ve answered as thoroughly as I can. You can go ahead and fact check me through non- biased media. And go ahead and look up “list of terrorist attacks on Israel” while you’re at it too. I’d rather face rockets than continue to live in a country that lets antisemitism (and mass shootings for that matter) run rampant.

[gothhabiba]

loving your falafel research saga and just wanted to ask - something I remember hearing about falafel is that while Israeli culture definitely appropriated it, the concept of serving it in pita bread with salads, tahini etc. is a specifically Israeli twist on the dish. I wonder if you found/know anything about that?

The short answer is: it's not impossible, but I don't think there's any way to tell for sure. The long answer is:

The most prominent claim I've heard of this nature is specifically that Yemeni Jews (who had immigrated to Israel under 'right of return' laws and were Israeli citizens) invented the concept of serving falafel in "pita" bread in the 1930s—perhaps after they (in addition to Jews from Morocco or Syria) had brought falafel over and introduced it to Palestinians in the first place.

"Mizrahim brought falafel to Palestine"

This latter claim, which is purely nonsense (again... no such thing as Moroccan falafel!)—and which Joel Denker (linked above) repeats with no source or evidence—was able to arise because it was often Mizrahim who introduced Israelis to Palestinian food. Mizrahi falafel sellers in the early 20th century might run licensed falafel stands, or carry tins full of hot falafel on their backs and go from door to door selling them (see Shaul Stampfer on a Yemeni man doing this, "Bagel and Falafel: Two Iconic Jewish Foods and One Modern Jewish Identity," in Jews and their Foodways, p. 183; this Arabic source mentions a 1985 Arabic novel in which a falafel seller uses such a tin; Yael Raviv writes that "Running falafel stands had been popular with Yemenite immigrants to Palestine as early as the 1920s and ’30s," "Falafel: A National Icon," Gastronomica 3.3 (2003), p. 22).

On Mizrahi preparation of Palestinian food, Dafna Hirsch writes:

As Sami Zubaida notes, Middle Eastern foodways, while far from homogeneous, are nevertheless describable in a vocabulary and set of idioms that are “often comprehensible, if not familiar, to the socially diverse parties” [...]. Thus, for the Jews who arrived in Palestine from the Middle East, Palestinian Arab foods and foodways were “comprehensible, if not familiar,” even if some of the dishes were previously unknown to most of them. [...] They found nothing extraordinary or exotic in the consumption, preparation, and selling of foods from the Palestinian Arab kitchen. Therefore, it was often Mizrahi Jews who mediated local foods to Ashkenazi consumers, as street food vendors and restaurant owners. ("Urban Food Venues as Contact Zones between Arabs and Jews during the British Mandate Period," in Making Levantine Cuisine: Modern Foodways of the Eastern Mediterranean, p. 101).

Raviv concurs and furnishes a possible mechanism for this borrowing:

Other Mizrahi Jewish vendors sold falafel, which by the late 1930s had become quite prevalent and popular on the streets of Tel Aviv. [...] Tel Aviv had eight licensed Mizrahi falafel vendors by 1941 and others who sold falafel without a license. [FN: The Tel Aviv municipality granted vending license to people who could not make their living in any other way as a form of welfare.] Many of the vendors were of Yemenite origins, although falafel was unknown in Yemen. [FN: Many of the immigrants from Yemen arrived in Palestine via Egypt, so it is possible that they learned to prepare it there and then adjusted the recipe to the Palestinian version, which was made from chickpeas and not from fava beans (ṭaʿmiya). Shmuel Yefet, an Israeli falafel maker, tells about his father, Yosef Ben Aharon Yefet, who arrived in Palestine from Aden [Yemen] in the early 1920s and then traveled to Port Said in 1939. There he became acquainted with ṭaʿmiya, learned to prepare it, and then went back to Palestine and opened a falafel shop in Tel Aviv [youtube video].]*

But why claim that Yemeni Jews invented falafel (or at least that they had introduced it from Yemen), even though its adoption from Palestinian Arabs in the early days of the second Aliya, aka the 1920s (before Mizrahim had begun to immigrate in larger numbers; see Raviv, p. 20) was within living memory at this point (i.e. the 1950s)? Raviv notes that an increasing (I mean, actually she says new, which... lol) negative attitude towards Arabs in the wake of the Nakba (I mean... she says "War of Independence") created a new sense of urgency around de-Arabizing "Israeli" culture (p. 22). Its association with Mizrahi sellers allowed falafel to "be linked to Jewish immigrants who had come from the Middle East and Africa" and thus to "shed its Arab association in favor of an overarching Israeli identification" (p. 21).

Stampfer again:

On the one hand (with regard to immigrants from Eastern Europe), [falafel] underscored the break between immediate past East European Jewish foods and the new “Oriental” world of Eretz Israel.** At the same time, this food could be seen as a link with an (idealized) past. Among the Jewish public in Eretz Israel, Yemenite falafel was regarded as the most original and tastiest version. This is a bit odd, as falafel—whether in or out of a pita—was not a traditional Yemenite food, neither among Muslims nor among Jews. To understand the ascription of falafel to Yemenite Jews, it is necessary to consider their image. Yemenite Jews were widely regarded in the mid-20th century as the most faithful transmitters of a form of Jewish life that was closest to the biblical world—and if not the biblical world, at least the world of the Second Temple, which marked the last period of autonomous Jewish life in Eretz Israel. In this sense, eating “Yemenite” could be regarded as an act of bodily identification with the Zionist claim to the land of Israel. (p. 189)

So, when it's undeniable that a food is "Arab" or "Oriental" in origin, Zionists will often attribute it to Yemen, Syria, Morocco, Turkey, &c.—and especially to Jewish communities within these regions—because it cannot be permitted that Palestinians have a specific culture that differentiates them in any way from other "Arabs." A culinary culture based in the foodstuffs cultivated from this particular area of land would mean a tie and a claim to the land, which Zionist logic cannot allow Palestinians to possess. This is why you'll hear Zionists correct people who say "Palestinians" to say "Arab" instead, or suggest that Palestinians should just scooch over into other "Arab" countries because it would make no difference to them. Raviv's conclusion that the attribution of falafel to Yemeni immigrants is an effort to detach it from its "Arab" origins isn't quite right—it is an attempt to detach it, and thus Palestinians themselves, from Palestinian roots.

"Yemeni Jews first put falafel in 'pita'"

As for this claim, it's often attributed to Gil Marks: "Jews didn’t invent falafel. They didn’t invent hummus. They didn’t invent pita. But what they did invent was the sandwich. Putting it all together.” (Hilariously, the author of the interview follows this up with "With each story, I wanted to ask, but how do you know that?")

Another author (signed "Philologos") speculates (after, by the way, falsely claiming that "falafel" is the plural of the Arabic "filfil" "pepper," and that falafel is always brown, not green, inside?!):

Yet while falafel balls are undoubtedly Arab in origin, too, it may well be that the idea of serving them as a street-corner food in pita bread, to which all kinds of extras can be added, ranging from sour pickles to whole salads, initially was a product of Jewish entrepreneurship.

Shaul Stampfer cites both of these articles as further reading on the "novelty of the combination of pita, falafel balls, and salad" (FN 76, p. 198)—but neither of them cites any evidence! They're both just some guy saying something!

Marks had, however, elaborated a little bit in his 2010 Encyclopedia of Jewish Food:

Falafel was enjoyed in salads as part of a mezze (appetizer assortment) or as a snack by itself. An early Middle Eastern fast food, falafel was commonly sold wrapped in paper, but not served in the familiar pita sandwich until Yemenites in Israel introduced the concept. [...] Yemenite immigrants in Israel, who had made a chickpea version in Yemen, took up falafel making as a business and transformed this ancient treat into the Israeli iconic national food. Most importantly, Israelis wanted a portable fast food and began eating the falafel tucked into a pita topped with the ubiquitous Israeli salad (cucumber-and-tomato salad).

He references one of the pieces that Lillian Cornfeld (columnist for the English-language, Jerusalem-based newspaper Palestine Post) wrote about "filafel":

An article from October 19, 1939 concluded with a description of the common preparation style of the most popular street food, 'There is first half a pita (Arab loaf), slit open and filled with five filafels, a few fried chips and sometimes even a little salad,' the first written record of serving falafel in pita. [Marks doesn't tell you the title or page—it's "Seaside Temptations: Juveniles' Fare at Tel Aviv," p. 4.]

You will first of all notice that Marks gives us the "falafel from Yemen" story. I also notice that he calls Salat al-bundura "Israeli salad" (in its entry he does not claim that European Jewish immigrants invented it, but neither does he attribute it to Palestinian influence: the dish was originally "Turkish coban salatsi"). His encyclopedia also elsewhere contains Zionist claims such as "wild za'atar was declared a protected plant in Israel" "[d]ue to overexploitation" because of how much of the plant "Arab families consume[d]," and that Israeli cultivation of the crop yielded "superior" plants (entry for "Za'atar")—a narrative of "Arab" mismanagement, and Israeli improvement, of land used to justify settler-colonialism. He writes that Palestinians who accuse "the Jews" of theft in claiming falafel are "creat[ing] a controversy" and that "food and culture cannot be stolen," with no reflection on the context of settler-colonialism and literal, physical theft that lies behind said "controversy." This isn't relevant except that it makes me sceptical of Marks's motivations in general.

More pertinent is the fact that this quote doesn't actually suggest that this falafel vendor was Yemeni (or otherwise) Jewish, nor does it suggest that he was the first one to prepare falafel in pitas with "fried chips," "sometimes even a little salad," and "Tehina, a local mayonnaise made with sesame oil" (Cornfeld, p. 4). I think it likely that this food had been sold for a while before it was described in published writing. The idea that this preparation is "Israeli" in origin must be false, since this was before the state of "Israel" existed—that it was first created by Yemeni Jewish falafel vendors is possible, but again, I've never seen any direct evidence for it, or anyone giving a clear reason for why they believe it to be the case, and the political reasons that people have for believing this narrative make me wary of it. There were Palestinian Arab falafel vendors at this time as well.

"Chickpea falafel is a Jewish invention"

There is also a claim that falafel originated in Egypt, where it was made with fava beans; spread to the Levant, including Palestine, where it was made with a combination of fava beans and chickpeas; but that Jewish immigration to Israel caused the origin of the chickpea-only falafal currently eaten in Palestine, because a lot of Jewish people have G6PD deficiencies or favism (inherited enzymatic deficiencies making fava beans anywhere from unpleasant to dangerous to eat)—or that Jewish populations in Yemen had already been making chickpea-only falafel, and this was the falafel which they brought with them to Palestine.

As far as I can tell, this claim comes from Joan Nathan's 2001 The Foods of Israel:

Zadok explained that at the time of the establishment of the state, falafel—the name of which probably comes from the word pilpel (pepper)—was made in two ways: either as it is in Egypt today, from crushed, soaked fava beans or fava beans combined with chickpeas, spices, and bulgur; or, as Yemenite Jews and the Arabs of Jerusalem did, from chickpeas alone. But favism, an inherited enzymatic deficiency occurring among some Jews—mainly those of Kurdish and Iraqi ancestry, many of whom came to Israel during the mid 1900s—proved potentially lethal, so all falafel makers in Israel ultimately stopped using fava beans, and chickpea falafel became an Israeli dish.

Gil Marks's 2010 Encyclopedia of Jewish Food echoes (but does not cite):

Middle Eastern Jews have been eating falafel for centuries, the pareve fritter being ideal in a kosher diet. However, many Jews inherited G6PD deficiency or its more severe form, favism; these hereditary enzymatic deficiencies are triggered by items like fava beans and can prove fatal. Accordingly, Middle Eastern Jews overwhelmingly favored chickpeas solo in their falafel. (Entry for "Falafel")

The "centuries" thing is consistent with the fact that Marks believes falafel to be of Medieval origin, a claim which most scholars I've read on the subject don't believe (no documentary evidence, + oil was expensive so it seems unlikely that people were deep frying anything). And, again, this claim is speculation with no documentary evidence to support it.

As for the specific modern toppings including the Yemeni hot sauce سَحاوِق / סְחוּג (saHawiq / "zhug"), Baghdadi mango pickle عنبة / עמבה ('anba), and Moroccan هريسة / חריסה ("harissa"), it seems likely that these were introduced by Mizrahim given their place of origin.

*You might be interested to know that, despite their Jewishness mediating this borrowing, Mizrahim were during the Mandate years largely ethnically segregated from Eastern European Zionists, who were pushing to create a "new" European-Israeli Judaism separate from what they viewed as the indolence and ignorance of "Oriental" Jewishness (Hirsch p. 101).

This was evidenced in part by Europeans' attitudes towards the "Oriental" diet. Ari Ariel, summarizing Yael Raviv's Falafel Nation, writes:

Although all immigrants were thought to require culinary education as an aspect of their absorption into the new national culture, Middle Eastern Jews, who began to immigrate in increasing numbers after 1948, provoked greater anxiety on the part of the state than did their Ashkenazi co-religionists. Israeli politicians and ideologues spoke of the dangers of Levantization and stereotyped Jews from the Middle East and North Africa as primitive, lazy, and ignorant. In keeping with this Orientalism, the state pressured Middle Easterners to change their foodways and organized cooking demonstrations in transit camps and new housing developments. (Book review, Israel Studies Review 31.2 (2016), p. 169.)

See also Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, "Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s," in Jews and their Foodways:

[...] [T]he Israeli establishment was set on “educating” the new immigrants not only in matters of health and hygiene, [77] but also in the realm of nutrition. A concerted propaganda effort was launched by well-baby clinics, kindergartens, schools, health clinics, and various organizations such as the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) and the Organization of Working Mothers in order to promote the consumption of milk and dairy products, in particular. [78] (These had a marginal place in Iraqi cuisine, consumed mainly by children.) Arab and North African cuisines were criticized for being not sufficiently nutritious, whereas the Israeli diet was touted as ideal, as it was western and modern. […] [T]he assault on traditional Middle Eastern cuisines reflected cultural arrogance yet another attempt to transform immigrants into “new Jews” in accordance with the Zionist ethos. Thus, European table manners were presented as the norm. Eating with the hands was equated with primitive behavior, and use of a fork and knife became the hallmark of modernity and progress. (pp. 100-101)

[77. On health matters, see Davidovich and Shvarts, “Health and Hegemony,” 150–179; Sahlav Stoller-Liss, “ ‘Mothers Birth the Nation’: The Social Construction of Zionist Motherhood in Wartime in Israeli Parents’ Manuals,” Nashim 6 (Fall 2003), 104–118.]

[78. On propaganda for drinking milk and eating dairy products, see Mor Dvorkin, “Mif’alei hahazanah haḥinukhit bishnot ha’aliyah hagedolah: mekorot umeafyenim” (seminar paper, Ben-Gurion University, 2010).]

**On the desire to shed "old, European" "Jewish" identity and take on a "new, Oriental" "Hebrew" one, and the contradictory impulses to use Palestinian Arabs as models in this endeavour and to claim that they needed to be "corrected," see:

Itamar Even-Zohar, "The Emergence of a Native Hebrew Culture in Palestine, 1882—1948"

Dafna Hirsch, "We Are Here to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves": Zionist Occidentalism and the Discourse of Hygiene in Mandate Palestine"

Ofra Tene, "'The New Immigrant Must Not Only Learn, He Must Also Forget': The Making of Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi Cuisine."

[koenji]

Yemenite silversmiths in the Bezalel School of Art (בצלאל pron. "Betzalel" after the biblical figure) in Jerusalem, 1909, courtesy of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage Center.

Silversmithing is a historic and renowned tradition among Yemenite Jews, often passed down through generations.

[hero-israel]

just seen a palestinian auntie post about her niece being born w red hair and she constantly fans over it and goes on about how it’s a blessing and the comments are other palestinians and arabs fanning over the white pale skin and blue eyes and blonde/red hair of some of their relatives. even going on to call those relatives swedish/russian/white as nicknames.

but when jews esp israeli jews talk about their natural fair skin, or blue eyes/light hair (which is a minority in the jewish world, majority of jews do not have light features the same as arabs) in the slightest, they are called hitler 2.0 and it’s used as ‘proof’ that we as a whole can’t possibly be indigenous. like these features have always existed in the levant. they weren’t as prevalent in the levant as some ppl think, but they were there.

i see the same happen w black jews. despite black ppl being in the levant for a very long time, pre-enslavement and after, due to migration, pilgrimage, intermarriage etc etc etc, they are told they can’t possibly be native. while some afro-palestinians who came just a few decades before are native? and i’m not talking about those that are the descendants of enslaved people, if you are trafficked from you land and assimilated/forced into a new ethnicity due to that you have every right to consider yourself a native bc you were literally forced to be one. i’m talking about those that are the descendants of migrants and pilgrims, who set up shop in jerusalem during the ottoman empire and are now supposedly more native than black jews who in most cases are there bc their ancestors were expelled or had to flee and bc they have an actual cultural, genetic and historical link to the land even before that.

Don't be shy about citing this:

My grandfather, born on an actual shtetl in Poland, was the spitting-image lookalike for Hafez Assad. Speaking of Syrians, here's pro wrestler Sami Zayn. Hajj Amin al-Husseini famously had blue eyes and red hair, which might have helped him befriend Hitler. As bad as colorism is in any context, it is all the more infuriating from an I/P perspective when so many people just accept from the outset that people like you, people who look like you, have no right to live in certain areas (even though we always have). Read long enough in Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese communities to see their perspectives on Jews and Israel and you can't help but notice the fairly frequent comments about (and I swear I have seen this quote near-verbatim) "We Syrians have such beautiful white skin and beautiful blue eyes, we are not at all like those Saudis or Yemenis, who are as dark as Indians!".

Afro-Palestinians are pretty much always used unfairly and tokenistically by pro-Palestine outsiders; in their daily lives they are regularly called "abeed" (slave) and sometimes even with their neighborhoods known as that. It's not unlike how goyim only ever bring up Ethiopian Jews to spin yarns about "sterilization" while also cheering for groups who want to kill them alongside the rest of Israel.