Iftah Ya Simsim
Iftah Ya Simsim (; meaning "Open Sesame") is the first international co-production of the American children's television series "Sesame Street" created in the Arab world. It premiered in Kuwait on September 14, 1979 and was broadcast in 22 Arabic-speaking countries, running until April 6, 1990. The program continued to be well-known decades after it went off the air. In 1978, educators, mass media officers, and social planners agreed to adopt "Sesame Street" as a feasible and economical solution for the low attendance in preschools and illiteracy that plagued the region. They approached the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the producers of the American show, and purchased the rights to create an Arab version for US$2.5 million.
Yiḥyah Salaḥ
Yiḥya was born in the lunar month of Cheshvan, in the year 5474 "anno mundi", a year corresponding to 1713 CE, to Joseph b. Ṣāliḥ. Ṣāliḥ, his grandfather (d. 1749), was a survivor of the infamous Mawza Exile, the founder of the "Saleh synagogue" in Sana'a and one of the city's judges and ritual slaughterers (Heb. shochet). Although Rabbi Yiḥya Ṣāliḥ would later serve as chief judge ("Av Beit-Din") and President of the rabbinical court at Ṣanʻā’, for most of his life he worked under the shadow of two great men of his generation: the illustrious Rabbi David Mishreqi (d. 1771), the author of "Shtilei Zeitim", a commentary on the Shulhan Arukh ("Orach Chaim" and "Yoreh De'ah"), and Rabbi Shalom Iraqi al-Cohen (1685–1780), called "al-'Ousṭā" (the artisan), the comptroller of the customs and surveyor-general of the royal buildings and gardens who had been the favorite of two successive kings, although demoted in 1761.