Deposited in the transit camps of the 1950s were thousands of olim from Yemen. And by the time the mud dried, hundreds of their children had disappeared. Since late 1995, ensconced in a nondescript suite adjacent to the Government Press Office in Jerusalem, a State Commission of Investigation, chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Yehuda Cohen, has been exploring the connection, if any, between 830 "mysterious adoption cases" and 80 "Yemenite" children unaccounted for by two previous investigations.

The bleakest theories describe what went on in the early 1950s as a crude exercise in social engineering, meant to remove Yemenite Jewish children to Western homes (as alleged by Mishkan Ohalim, the Rosh Ha'ayin foundation associated with violent convict Uzi Meshulam and his associates) or to subvert the community's Orthodox preferences (as alleged by several haredi politicians). Avigdor Pe'er, an employee of the Welfare Ministry department that dealt with immigrants at the time, muddled the latter contention in 1985 by advising the Knesset Interior Committee that the children had been divided up by party key and that the haredi Agudat Yisrael received its share of the children, too.

David Kapah, Immigrant from Yemen

Iranian-born deputy-prime minister Moshe Katsav, himself a product of the transit camp system, termed the government of that era a mishtar afel -- literally "benighted regime," but a euphemism for Nazi Germany. He traced the motives for the "abductions" -- without demonstrating that they had occurred -- to mean spiritedness and condescension (August 17, 1997). Ami Hovav, an investigator who had looked into the matter for the Bahalul Minkovsky Commission, told the current commission the opposite: "There was no kidnapping, no theft, no sale." The children disappeared because overwhelmed authorities, their job further stressed by the lack of a common language or culture with most of the immigrants, simply proved unable to keep track of them. High infant mortality was a fact of life in these camps. The children indeed vanished, but without malice.

The year's events fell far short of proving either extreme scenario -- neither systematic abductions nor a total absence of shady actions.

Tsilla Levine of San Francisco commanded nationwide attention over the summer and autumn when she located and was reunited with her putative biological mother, Margalit Omessi. According to hospital records, Tsilla (née Mazal) had fallen ill in the Rosh Ha'ayin tent encampment and was taken to a clinic on December 11, 1949. Her mother was not informed, in the manner of the time, and the two were separated as a result of a paper work foul-up in January 1950. The authorities removed her to a social service agency in Haifa, from which she was transferred to a private orphanage that arranged for her adoption by a couple that subsequently resettled in the United States. Levine was "discovered" by Sampson Giat, president of the Yemenite Jewish Federation, who used a Chabad satellite TV program in the US to encourage possible adoptees of this kind to come forth. Tsilla was one of four people who responded. Initial DNA testing on Levine and Omessi showed the highest possible probability of the biological kinship alleged: 99.99143%. The two women were so informed on August 25, after an initial emotional meeting several days earlier.

The Cohen Commission decided to retest when the State Attorney's Office found conflicting records concerning ID cards, Levine's adoption papers, and the date when Omessi lost her daughter. The results of the new test -- this time of mitochondrial DNA, performed by the Forensic Medicine Institute at Abu Kabir -- were as emphatic as the first: Omessi could not be Levine's mother. Later in the year, an embarrassed Hebrew University genetics department admitted that its initial tests had relied on invalid assumptions and that a second set corroborated the Abu Kabir findings. But for Levine, only one test the first was needed; "I have no doubt she's my mother," Levine stated (October 8).

"Open the graves," urged Yemenite community leaders referring to the many graves that the authorities say contain the remains of young children who perished of disease in the camps. So while Cohen Commission members looked on and TV news cameras hummed, investigators opened four such graves in Tel Aviv and found that two of them were empty. (ITV news on August 16). What did this prove? For now, nothing. Prof. Yehuda Hiss, director of the Forensic Medicine Institute, noted that the graves had not been examined scientifically, that remains buried so long ago can shift position, and that no doctor or anthropologist had been in attendance.

The Cohen Commission held public meetings three times a week throughout the year and set December 31 as the deadline for applications by would-be witnesses. Next it must summarize the copious material gathered -- nearly 900 testimonies of families whose children disappeared, more than a fifth of them not Yemenite. How abrasive is this issue? As of August, 350 families in Rosh Ha'ayin -- the site of the largest Yemenite immigrants' camp in the relevant years and now an up-and-coming township that is still the Yemenite "capital" of Israel -- reported they had lost children or siblings during the relevant era. Countrywide, one of many polls on the subject found that 52% believed that the children had been kidnapped, as Yemenite community activists claim (33% thought not and 15% were unsure).

And the violent fringe remained visible. Three associates of Uzi Meshulam, whose 1994 stand off led to the current inquiries, ended the year in jail and on trial for allegedly sabotaging traffic lights. Others were under investigation for an August 18 bomb explosion outside Petah Tiqva's Magistrate Court. For all of them, the ultimate in absorption ordeals -- real and suspected loss of life -- still awaits explanation.