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Re: Abir-Qesheth
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ehav4ever
I may be able to answer questions on this
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Thu, 30-Jul-15 09:12:18
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I know I am a few years late on this conversaion but I can answer a few of the questions here. I have personally trained in Abir Qesheth under Yehoshua Sofer since 2007. I spent the last 10 years researching Abir and his claims about it. This includes his family and such. I can tell you in short that many of the English articles/debates about Abir really don't do the subject justice. Here is the story in short.
The Aluf Abir - Yehoshua Sofer's father's family are Habbani/Teimani Jews from the Maatuf-Dohh family. His family has a mesorah that the basic fighting techniques found in Abir were passed down starting from the time of the Avoth to the modern era. The basics of the system was the method of striking and kicking and each generation added things here and there. The mesorah, which is described in the interview video that was posted earlier of Mori Awadh bin Sleiman speaking to Yehoshua Sofer, is that a ancestors of the Maatuf-Dohh family were a part of a military unit from Beith David who were sent to Sheba. They were later joined by later Jews who left Eretz Yisrael before the destruction of the 1st Temple and also of an army unit sent by the Romans during the 2nd Temple period. There are a number of accounts of Jewish travelors over the last 1,000 years who ended up in Yemen and met Jewish soldiers or heard stories of earlier Jewish kingdom of Himyar or Chaibar that had an army. Most of them are only found in Hebrew, most of which in libraries here in Israel. I have collected as many of these historical accounts as I find.
Concerning the word "Mori" in Yemenite Jewish culture those who are learned in Torah, whether Rabbis or not, are called (מאורי) which is often written in English as Mori. (סלימן) Sleiman is how (שלמה) in written Yemenite Jewish Arabic and as we know many Jews in the Middle East had names that were a mix of Hebrew and Arabic.
Concerning the video, I am the one who edited it and translated it. There is also another 7 to 8 minutes which I did not include which has a lot more detail. It is important to note that Mori Awadh bin Sleiman is from the Maatuf-Dohh family and was born in Habban, Yemen and made Aliyah in his 20's when the entire community was airlifted to Israel. He mentions in the video in Hebrew that he knew Yehoshua Sofer's father, Awadh bin Brihim, and also that his father, Mori Sleiman bin Hasan Maatuf-Dohh, was related to the Yehoshua Sofer's grandfather Brihim bin Hasan Maatuf-Dohh.
Concerning the Wikipedia ariticle about Yehoshua Sofer it is not accurate. I once edited the first article about Abir that was reduced down to this article. People who claim his name was originally Nigel Winston have also claimed his name was originally Nigel Admor with no informaiton to prove that was the case. Nigel Admor was a stage name Yehoshua Sofer used when he performed music. The originally I worked on was basically discarded by people in Wiki who have personal issues with "various" areas of Jewish history. Also, because the question of whether Abir was a relevent subject came up in terms of whether it deserved an article. I decided to drop the issue of defending it on Wiki since it was not worth the time I spent time in instead filming Abir classes to record it and also putting together an internal book about it in Hebrew.
Yehoshua's family were not originally Breslov. We all know that Breslov has crossed over to other Jewish communities. Here in Israel you can find a number of Mizrahim who are Breslov because they connect to the philosophy. Also, when the Jews of Habban and other parts of Teiman arrived in Israel their was a bit of battle that took place between secular and religious groups to try and pull them to one side. One of the results of this was that Habbani parents hoping to keep their children Torah based sent their kids to Hassidic rabbis and such in the hope that they would not end up secular. This in turn caused a situation where many of the younger generation, after the mass aliyah, and their children became Hassidim or they became in between or they became secular. There has been some efforts try and reconnect with what their parents and grandparents did in Yemen. There are though a number of Habbani who dress, learn etc. from Chabad because that was more available in their youth. This is one of the reasons why the younger generation don't know a lot about the history of the grandparents culture. There weren't a lot of books written in Habban and there has only been one book that was written about their culture. It was a part of a master thesis here in Israel back in the late 70's early 80's by a member of the Maatuf-Dohh family and it is quite short in its treatment.
Concerning the skin color of the Aluf Abir and his family, please be aware that Teimanim do not all share the same skin tone. Even within families. There are some Teimanim who are darker and some who are just as light as any Ashkenazi Jew. Further, part of the Aluf Abir's family was from Northern Teiman and another part was in Hevron in Israel. Also, the below article was a study done on the skin color variations found amongst Habbani Jews.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2323771
Hum Biol.
1990 Feb;62(1):85-100.Generational change in skin color variation among Habbani Yemeni Jews.
Towne B
=0.8461em1,
Hulse FS
. AbstractThe Habbani Yemeni Jews were a religious isolate in Yemen for centuries. Since a bottleneck in the late eighteenth century the population, composed of six partrilineages, has steadily grown. Isonymy analysis of Habbani genealogies reveals a significant increase in lineage endogamy by the early twentieth century, suggesting that microdifferentiation of Habbani population genetic structure along the patrilineages was occurring. We examine reflectance data from a "parental" generation of 159 individuals studied by Hulse in the 1960s and reflectance data from an "offspring" generation of 243 individuals studied by Towne in the 1980s.
A greater amount of interlineage skin color differences is found in the offspring generation than in the parental generation. This finding is consistent with what is known of the evolution of Habbani population genetic structure.
Concernign the letter, this is a letter of Rabbi David Kaduri son of Rabbi Yitzhaq Kaduri z"l. It explains that both he and his father knew Yehoshua Sofer and also it explains about Abir. There are also other letters that I have from members of Yehoshua Sofer's family, Maatuf Dohh, and others about Abir. I have also met in Beer Sheva older Habbani members of the Maatuf-Dohh famiy who confirmed things that Yehoshua Sofer stated. This is also covered in the additional parts of the video that I decided not to include in the one found on YouTube.
So I hope that helps and sorry for not noticing this conversation earlier.
Ehav Eliyahu Ever
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