A ‘lost tribe’ ready to leave India for Israel
Conversion will help 700 Bnei Menashe Jews make move DNA tests help convince Israelis thousands deserve new life
CHURACHANDPUR, INDIA—
After spending almost three millennia in exile, India’s 9,000 Bnei Menashe Jews now believe they are about to return to their longlost “ homeland” of Israel. About 700 of the impoverished Indian Jews living in India’s economically backward northeastern states of Mizoram and Manipur will soon convert to orthodox Judaism, thereby winning the right to live in Israel. Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic chief rabbi, announced in Jerusalem in April that he accepted the Bnei Menashes, or the “ Children of Menashe,” as one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. A Beit Din, or rabbinical court, arrived in India last week on a mission to convert the Bnei Menashes to orthodox Judaism, bringing the hope of a new life in Israel to thousands of the people. Some 200 Bnei Menashes were converted last week in Mizoram and the Beit Din plans to convert 500 more in Manipur this week.
“ This time only a small population of us are being converted in India,” said Lyon Fanai, a Bnei Menashe leader in Mizoram. “ But Beit Din will return to India again to conduct similar conversions in future. We all will finally get the right of aliyah ( return to Israel) and settle in our long- lost homeland.”
After an almost decade-long investigation that included DNA tests, Israeli authorities are convinced the Jews of northeast India are one of the 10 lost tribes from Israel.
“ When we knew we were recognized by the Chief Rabbinate it was the happiest news of my life,” said David Haokip, 23, a Bnei Menashe youth leader who embraced Judaism five years ago and now prays three times a day at a synagogue.
“ Now the Beit Din will change my life selecting me for the conversion, I hope.”
In Mizoram, some 1,000 Bnei Menashes applied for conversion last week; more than 800 were rejected. In Manipur, 2,000 young men and women have submitted applications, but only 500 will be selected for conversion. Haokip, whose wife and daughter are jobless, will be interviewed in Churachandpur today, and hopes to join the Israeli army when he settles there. He said nerves have left him unable to sleep for three nights. “ If I am not picked by the Beit Din ( for conversion) this time, I have to wait for their return to India again — probably next year,” he said. “ It will be painful to wait that long for the fulfillment of my dream.
“ I have been praying to God day and night that He helps me get through this toughest examination of my life this time.”
Shavei Israel, a Jerusalembased group that has been trying to locate descendants of lost Jewish tribes and bring them to Israel, believes that all Chins in Myanmar, Mizos in Mizoram and Kukis in Manipur — three prominent tribes of the region — are descendants of Menashe, an ancient Jewish leader.
According to the organization, there are up to two million Bnei Menashes in the hilly regions of Myanmar ( formerly known as Burma) and northeast India.
Jewish tradition says that after an Assyrian invasion around 722 BC, 10 tribes from Israel were enslaved in Assyria. The tribes later fled and wandered through Afghanistan, Tibet and China. Around A. D. 100 , one group moved southward from China and settled around northeast India and Burma. These ChinMizo-Kuki people, who speak Tibeto- Myanmese dialects and resemble Mongols in appearance, are believed to be the Bnei Menashes. Some Christian leaders object to the targeting of Christians for conversion.
“ Acceptance of our people as Israelites is the work of Satan,” said Dr. P. C. Biaksama, an ethnic Mizo and former government bureaucrat who now studies Christian theology. “We don’t believe these people ever came from Israel. Christianity is at stake here, and we should never take what is happening now lightly.”
L. Thanggur, a church leader in Churachandpur, says for mostly jobless young people, conversion to Judaism is like winning a jackpot because it virtually guarantees an Israeli passport.
“ They are economic refugees. If they had better employment and income prospects here, they would have never dreamt of going to Israel and jostled for this conversion.”
In Israel, too, some groups have attacked the recognition of the Indian tribe by the Chief Rabbi.
Social scientist Lev Grinberg said right- wing Jewish groups are promoting conversion of distant people simply to boost the Jewish population in occupied territories claimed by the Palestinians.