According to the tradition of the Jews of Yemen, their forefathers left Jerusalem and settled in that country around the time of the destruction of the First Temple (586 B.C.E.). This tradition is supported by recent epigraphic findings (Lemaire and Bron 2009; Lemaire 2010; Lemaire and Bron forthcoming) as well as the close relationship between the pronunciation of ḥolem and ṣere in the linguistic tradition of the Jews of Yemen, a feature attested in some Hebrew dialects in the land of biblical Judea (Morag 1959; Tobi 1967). An affinity was also found be…