Concept

Dor Daim

Overview

The Dardaim, or Dor Daim (Hebrew: דרדעים), were adherents of the Dor Deah (דור דעה, 'generation of knowledge'). Dor Deah is an allusion to the Israelites during the Exodus as recounted by the Hebrew Bible.

The movement was formally formed in Yemen by Yiḥyah Qafiḥ in 1912 and had its own network of synagogues and schools.

The movement may have existed long before its 1912 formalization. According to ethnographer and historian Shelomo Dov Goitein, author and historiographer Hayyim Habshush had been a member of the 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." Years later, Qafih became the headmaster of a new Jewish school in Sana'a established by the Ottoman Turks, introducing a curriculum that included arithmetic and basics of Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. Yihya Yitzhak Halevi named Qafiḥ's movement Darad'ah, derived from an Arabic broken plural and based on the Hebrew Dor De'ah.

Its objectives 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 textual sources, including the Talmud, Saadia Gaon, and especially Maimonides (also known as Rambam, רמב״ם).

To safeguard Baladi-rite prayer, which they believed to be based on their approach.

In the 21st century, there is no official Dor Dai movement. Still, the term is applied to individuals and synagogues within the Yemenite Jewish community, mostly in Israel, who share the original movement's perspectives. Some groups within and outside the Yemenite community hold a somewhat similar stance, describing themselves as talmide ha-Rambam (תלמידי רמב״ם, 'students of the Rambam') rather than Dor Daim.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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These are the chief causes of revolutions and dissensions in governments.
Aristotle, Politics
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7), light being an accident; yoẓer harim, “That formeth the mountains” (Amos iv. 13), i.e., that gave them their shape. In the same sense the verb is used in the passage, “And the Lord God formed (va-yiẓer) all the beasts,” etc. (Gen. ii. 7).
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
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The Assembly also elects two trainers, with subordinate instructors, who teach them to fight in heavy armour, to use the bow and javelin, and to discharge a catapult. The guardians receive from the state a drachma apiece for their keep, and the youths four obols apiece. Each guardian receives the allowance for all the members of his tribe and buys the necessary provisions for the common stock (they mess together by…
Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution
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Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Yemenite Jews

Place in the tradition

Part of Jewish philosophy.

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