New Delhi: The ambitious plan of the Israeli government to accept hundreds of Bnei Menashe or the “lost tribe” of Mizoram and Manipur, after a long wait has run into rough weather with stiff opposition to such artificial human settlement by a leading opposition leader in that country.
The opposition member of the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs committee, Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union) questioned why one group of such immigrants trumps the other. Apparently the Israeli government was suspending plans to bring over the remaining members of the Ethiopian Jewish community, claiming lack of funding. She also questioned why does the government refuse to divulge details of its decision to bring the Indian nationals to Israel, who are not considered Jewish by law, and convert them to Judaism? The Israeli government was expected to approve the long awaited ‘aliyah’ (immigration) of more than 7,200 Indian Jews of Manipur and Mizoram in batches soon earlier reports had said.The Israeli government was suspending plans to bring over the remaining members of the Ethiopian Jewish community, claiming lack of funding. But recently approved a “secret” deal to renew immigration for members of a tribe in northeast India claiming descent from ancient Israelites, she said. The Ethiopians live under constant danger, in bad conditions, and still wait to immigrate to Israel, the Bnei Menashe in India, whose Jewishness has yet to be clarified, are being brought over with urgency, she said.
All of them are being settled in the West Bank settlements away from the public eye, she alleged. Spearheading the campaign to bring the Bnei Menashe to Israel is a private organization called Shavei Israel that aims to return “lost Jews” to their roots. The organization was founded and is headed by American-born Michael Freund, a former aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bringing the Bnei Menashe to Israel requires special government approval because members of this community are not considered Jewish by Israeli law and are therefore not eligible for automatic citizenship under the Law of Return. Since the Indian government prohibits religious conversions on its soil, the Bnei Menashe are brought to Israel for that purpose.
The decision to allow the last members of the “lost” Bnei Menashe tribe to immigrate to Israel is being greeted with excitement by Evangelical Christian groups and the tribesmen, who view it as fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. This small group of people has been practising Judaism for more than 27 years and has not taken any “new” religion. Also known as the Shinlung, the Bnei Menashe relate their history of exile from the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. across the silk route finally ending up in India and Myanmar (Burma). The story of these people is an amazing one as after thousands of years of exile they have rediscovered their roots and are returning to Judaism.More than 1,700 members of the NE Indian Jewish community, have immigrated to Israel over the last decade, but their immigration was subsequently halted in 2007 over the issue of their “Jewishness”, even though the Israeli Chief Rabbinate had earlier recognised the community as “descendants of Israel”.
Ancestors of the lost tribe are believed to have wandered through Central Asia and the Far East for centuries, before settling in what is now North Eastern India, along the border with Myanmar and Bangladesh.The aspiring immigrants call themselves Bnei Menashe (or Manmaseh), descendants of the Tribe of Menashe, one of the ten lost tribes.
