In Yemen, religious and tribal taboos aimed to prevent Muslims and Jews from directing violence towards one another. However, memoirs by Jews from Yemen frequently describe violent altercations between Muslims and Jews. In this presentation I will discuss cases where Jews used (or were thought to have used) violence against Muslims in the light of David Nirenberg’s discussion of inter-communal violence in Spain. I will focus on a particularly complicated case from the late 1930s where a Jew beat a qadi in Rada‘. First, I intend to demonstrate the role that cultural stereotypes of Jews played in the facts of the cases in question. The idea that Jewish men were weak by nature made Muslims who were harmed by them reluctant to press charges. (It also suggested that they were more prone to murder helpless people than were Muslims.) Second, I will show that in cases where an individual Jews’ interest in attacking a given Muslim coincided with the interests of an influential Muslim, Jews could succeed in increasing their own status by means of such attacks. (Thus, violence, I argue, did not serve to reduce tension between groups.) I will discuss the role which judicial procedures like the collection of evidence and incarceration played in these cases, where Muslims and Jews were each treated differently. Lastly, I will explore the manner in which cases of inter-communal violence provided the state opportunities to pursue its policy vis-à-vis the tribes within the shari‘ah courts.