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The Dardaim[1][2] or Dor Daim[3] (Hebrew: דרדעים), are adherents of the Dor Deah movement in Orthodox Judaism . (דור דעה; Hebrew: "generation of knowledge", an allusion to the Israelites who witnessed the Exodus.) That movement took its name in 1912[4] in Yemen under Rabbi Yiḥyah Qafiḥ, and had its own network of synagogues and schools,[5] although, in actuality, the movement existed long before that name had been coined for it. According to ethnographer and historian, Shelomo Dov Goitein, author and historiographer, Hayyim Habshush had been a member of this movement before it had been given the name Dor Deah, writing, “...He (i.e. Hayyim Habshush) and his friends, partly under European influence, but driven mainly by developments among the Yemenite Jews themselves, formed a group who ardently opposed all those forces of mysticism, superstition and fatalism which were then so prevalent in the country and strove for exact knowledge and independent thought, and the application of both to life.”[6] It was only some years later, when Rabbi Yihya Qafih became the headmaster of the new Jewish school in Sana'a built by the Ottoman Turks and where he wanted to introduce a new curriculum in the school whereby boys would also learn arithmetic and the rudiments of the Arabic and Turkish languages that Rabbi Yihya Yitzhak Halevi gave to Rabbi Qafih's movement the name Daradʻah, a word which is an Arabic broken plural made-up of the Hebrew words Dör Deʻoh, and which means "Generation of Knowledge."[7]
Its objects were:
- to combat the influence of the Zohar and subsequent developments in modern Kabbalah, which were then pervasive in Yemenite Jewish life, and which the Dor Daim believed to be irrational and idolatrous;
- to restore what they believed to be a rational approach to Judaism rooted in authentic sources, including the Talmud, Saadia Gaon and especially Maimonides;
- to safeguard the older (Baladi) tradition of Yemenite Jewish observance, which they believed to be based on this approach.
Today there is no official Dor Dai movement, but the term is used for individuals and synagogues within the Yemenite community (mostly in Israel) who share the original movement's perspectives. There are also some groups, both within and outside the Yemenite community, holding a somewhat similar stance, who describe themselves as talmide ha-Rambam (disciples of Maimonides) rather than Dor Daim.
- ^ David Sutton, Aleppo: city of scholars, 2005: "The Foundation of Belief: Through this treatise, R' Yaakob dispelled, in no uncertain terms, the confusion which had been created by the corrupt theories of the Dardaim community."
- ^ Tudor Parfitt, The road to redemption: the Jews of the Yemen, 1900-1950 (1996), page 47: "Qafih was excommunicated by the Rabbis of Jerusalem, the Dardaim were accused by the traditionalists of heresy". Y. Nini, "From Joseph Halevy to the Ikshim and Dardaim dispute in 1914" (Hebrew) in The Jews of Yemen: Studies and ...
- ^ Charles D. Levy, The Arian Christian Doctrines: The Origins of Christianity (2010) Institute for Metaphysical Studies, page 151: "A similar situation of differing views is seen in modern times among Dor Daim, students of the Rambam, segments of Lithuanian Jewry, and portions of the Modern Orthodox world toward Jewish communities that are more thoroughly influenced ..."
- ^ Shalom 'Uzayri, Galei-Or, Tel-Aviv 1974, p. 15 (Hebrew)
- ^ Louis Jacobs The Jewish religion: a companion (1995) p 226; "... known that the Haskalah literature in Hebrew had an influence on the far-flung Jewish community of the Yemen. ... The Dardaim rejected the predominance of the Kabbalah and encouraged secular studies, even establishing a modern ..."
- ^ Travels in Yemen (חזיון תימן, רויא אלימן), Hayyim Habshush (ed. Shelomo Dov Goitein), Jerusalem 1941, p. 7
- ^ Shalom 'Uzayri, Galei-Or - Historical Chapters, Tel-Aviv 1974, p. 15 (Hebrew)