The Scribe part 6

Besides the Sephardic and Ashkenazic scripts, several others are used.I have mentioned on several occasions the customs of the Yemenites. The Jews of Yemen  are the oldest continuous group in Jewish history. They were in one geographic area since the fifth century BCE, until recently (most came to Israel shortly after its founding, the last members of the community leaving  recently). They have preserved the most ancient Jewish practices. A bit of a mystery is the fact that they have preserved two separate scripts. One is virtually identical to the Sepharadic, except that there are no crowns on the letters. Both Ashkenazic and Sepharadic scripts place little crowns on certain letters. Although there is apparent reference to this practice in the Talmud, the Yemenite rabbis considered this to be  a misinterpretation, as well as being rather vague in its proper application. Therefore, they wrote in an essentially Sephardic script (and they are NOT Sepharadim, but a much older tradition, by about 1,000 years!) but without the familiar crowns. However, there is a second script current among them. It is far less ornate. At first glance, it hardly looks like Hebrew. But, in fact, it is consistent and uniform, not haphazard. Many consider it a distortion of the traditional script, that sprang up in outlying areas, away from the centers of learning. (It should be pointed out that Yemen had an amazing tradition of learning. Books were scarce, and even middle-level scholars knew Tanach, Talmud, and the writings of RAMBAM   by heart). Others maintain that on the contrary, it represents a far more ancient form of the Hebrew letters, with the Sepharadic-like script coming in from the outside only later. I do not know which is the truth, but both have been used for many centuries. I once had the distinct honor and pleasure of visiting the late scholar, Mori (Yemenites use that title instead of "rabbi") Yosef Kappah at his home in Jerusalem. He showed me a Torah scroll that had been written by his grand father, an immense scholar, and leader of a large segment of Jews in Yemen. It was in the "cruder" script. If it had been a later distortion, it seems unlikely to me that he would have used it. A final conclusion awaits further research.
Meanwhile, back in the Land of Israel in the sixteenth century, the great teacher of Kabbalah, the ARI, was about to change a great deal. Ironically, he declared all scripts to be valid, and all with deep spiritual meaning. However, despite the fact that he created no new script, he was about to become the father of two new variations of the sacred alphabet, both known today as "ARI Script". Stay tuned.