Jews have been present in Yemen since the 5th century BCE and form part of the historic Jewish diasporas. In Sanaʽa, Jews had initially settled within the enclosed citadel, known as ''al-Qaṣr'', near the ruins of the old tower known as Ghumdan Palace, but were evicted from there in the late 6th century by the ruling monarch, and moved to a different section of the city, known as ''al-Marbaki'' (also called the Falayhi Quarter). From there, they again uprooted and were made to settle in the section of the city known as ''al-Quzali'', and eventually moved and settled in the neighborhood of ''al-Sa'ilah''. In 1679, during the Mawza Exile, they were once again evicted from their place of residence. Upon returning to the city in 1680, they were given a plot of land outside of the city walls, where they built the new Jewish Quarter, ''al-Qāʻ'' (now ''Qāʻ al-ʻUlufi''), and where they remained until the community's demise in the mid-20th century. In 1839 the Reverend Joseph Wolff, who later went to Bukhara to attempt to save Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly, found in Yemen, near Sana'a, a tribe claiming to be descendants of Jehonadab. After the creation of the political State of Israel in 1948, about 49,000 (of an estimated 51,000) of Yemenite Jews were airlifted to Israel, almost 10,000 of whom were from Sanaʽa (see the English-language book ''Jews and Muslims in lower Yemen: a study in protection and restraint, 1918–1949''). There was then essentially no Jewish population in Sanaʽa until the Shia insurgency broke out in northern Yemen in 2004. The Houthis directly threatened the Jewish community in 2007, prompting the government of President Saleh to offer them refuge in Sanaʽa. , around 700 Jews were living in the capital under government protection. In April 2017, it was reported that 40 of the last 50 Jews were in an enclave next to the American Embassy in Sana'a, and they were subject to threats of ethnic cleansing by the Houthis.