Orphans's Decree
I Am Yemenite Series

This portrait represents the fear experienced by a Yemenite Jewish girl living under the threat of the Orphans’ Decree—a law with no parallel elsewhere in the world. The work reflects both personal vulnerability and the broader psychological impact this edict had on Jewish communities.

Originating in the 1800s, the Orphans’ Decree mandated that Jewish orphans be taken into state custody and forcibly converted to Islam. While originally framed as a form of “protection” for dhimmi Jews, its enforcement varied across regions and rulers. Under Imam Yahya (1918–1948), the law was applied aggressively and became a source of deep trauma and fear. In some cases, even children who had lost only one parent were classified as orphans, and there are records of the decree being enforced beyond childhood.

The cultural impact was profound and lasting. Because a loophole exempted married individuals, families often arranged engagements or marriages for children—sometimes even in infancy—as a protective measure against forced conversion. In more extreme cases, children were hidden or smuggled away, though discovery could result in imprisonment, torture, or death for community members accused of concealment. The decree was not enforced uniformly across Yemen; in some regions, authorities ignored escaped or hidden children, while in others, organized searches were carried out. This inconsistency deepened the climate of fear.

Yemenite Jews continue to speak to this day about the profound and lasting impact the Orphans’ Decree has had on their culture, collective memory, and psychological identity.

This mosaic also incorporates ancient pottery collected by the artist during an archaeological dig outside of Jerusalem. The site, located in caves where ancient Jews hid from Greek oppressors around 140 BCE, revealed an underground settlement where families once lived in concealment. The artist and her family helped to excavate an underground kitchen area, uncovering fragments of daily life from this period of refuge and survival.

The inclusion of this pottery adds another layer of meaning and emotional depth to the work, connecting cycles of displacement, concealment, and endurance across Jewish history. It links ancient acts of survival and concealment beneath the earth to later histories of vulnerability and protection, as well as to the artist’s own lived experience, reinforcing the mosaic’s themes of memory, resilience, and continuity.