Shalom Gamliel (Salīm Saʿīd al-Jamal) was born in the city of Sanʿa in Yemen in 1907. By profession he was a merchant selling luxury goods, including perfume and alcohol, to the city’s Muslim elite, but his close ties with Yemen’s ruling family, the house of Ḥamīd al-Dīn, combined with his knowledge of formal Arabic and Yemen’s Islamic legal system, enabled him to act as a mediator in disputes involving Jews and Muslims. In effect, if not in intent, Gamliel was a Jewish lawyer working within the shariʿa system. Like *Sālim Manṣūra (Shalom Mantzura) and Ṣāliḥ *al-Ẓāhirī (Zadok Yit…