As documented at the time by Point of No Return, some 20 families from Yemen settled in the ultra-orthodox district of Stamford Hill in London after 2010. Persuaded not to flee to Israel by the anti-Zionist Satmar sect, their integration has been fraught with trouble. As well as the usual difficulties experienced by all immigrants, the Yemenites faced racism and resistance to their integration into the Satmar community. One, Avi Karni, turned to crime. Ben Welch of the Jewish Chronicle has the story:
Avi Karni: convicted of sexual crimes
Sixteen years ago, Avi Karni, then an infant, was brought to the UK by his Jewish Yemenite family, who settled in the Charedi neighbourhood of Stamford Hill, in east London.
They had come from Monsey, New York, where his family had lived among the Chasidic community after being lured from Yemen’s largest city, Sana’a, by Satmar missionaries in 1993. The Karnis were one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Yemenite families who were convinced by Satmar Chasidim to eschew emigration to Israel, where they would have received support from the state as new olim, to instead live among Ashkenazi Charedim in New York and London.
Now 21, Karni — who sometimes goes by his birth name, Abraham Ibrahim — has been sentenced to seven and a half years in jail after being convicted of nine counts of sexual offences against young girls he met through social media.
Karni’s crimes have now cast fresh attention on these Yemenites, many of whom faced great hardships as they struggled to adapt not only to the language and culture of their new countries, but also to the strict and mysterious social mores of the Satmar.
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