The history of the settlement of Jews in Djibouti begins primarily with the development of the port city of Djibouti at the end of the nineteenth century by the French. The first Yemenite Jews to permanently settle in Djibouti came from the Protectorate of Aden, which was a British colony. There were fifty Jewish families in Djibouti in 1901 and 111 in 1921. They had several synagogues, including the grand synagogue in the city center on Rue deRome. The Jewish community in Djibouti had never been large, numbering just a few hundred. It existed for about half a century, disbanding in 1948, just after the founding of the State of Israel.

A community building with a large Magen David evident on its crumbling facade is one of the few visible remnants of the former kehillah. The small Jewish cemetery, fenced off within the Christian cemetery in this predominantly Muslim country, seems to be cared for.

The Jews were neither expelled nor fled from persecution. The several-hundred-strong Adenite community had been raised on the Yemenite tradition of longing for the Land of Israel, and in 1948, when moving to Eretz Yisrael became a real option, the community made aliyah en masse. “One day a plane came from Aden and we all got on.”

After the mass aliyah all the remaining families slowly emigrated. A modest cemetery and the grand synagogue (which was renovated into office spaces in 2012, leaving only the original outside facade) are the only two Jewish structures still standing in the country. Nowadays, the Jews that live in Djibouti are mostly French expatriates with Jewish origins and the native population of just a few isolated, unaffiliated Jews.