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Amongst the communities that reached out for the Rambam's help and guidance were the Jews of Yemen who lived under oppressive fundamentalist Moslems. From the outside, they were given the choice of conversion or death, and from within the Jewish community, a false messiah began to promote himself as the person who could deliver the Jews from their sorrows. With a letter that became the precursor to his later philosophical writings, the Rambam laid out the foundations of the Jewish faith that became the lifeline that saved the Yemenite Jews from total destruction.