Love of the Land: Members of Bnei Menashe to make aliyah

Members of Bnei Menashe to make aliyah

Group claiming lineage to Lost Tribes of Israel set to immigrate to Israel after undergoing conversion in Nepal by teams from Rabbinical Court

Itamar Eichner
Jewish World/Ynet
08 January '10

(As our community may be the largest current grouping of Bnei Menashe in Israel, we consider ourselves to have been very fortunate, for their having chosen to live here. Y)

Some 7,200 members of Bnei Menashe ("Children of Menasseh"), a group of people hailing from north-eastern India who claim lineage to one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, will make aliyah after converting to Judaism in Nepal.

According to a tradition that has been passed along for generations, the members of Bnei Menashe identify themselves as descendents of the Menashe tribe – one of the 10 tribes that exiled from Land of Israel at the end of the First Temple period.

For the past decade, Shavei Israel Organization, which help Jewish people across the world immigrate to Israel, has been working with Bnei Menashe communities in India and building education centers where they can learn Hebrew and Judaism to help strengthen their Jewish identity and aid those who wish to immigrate to Israel.

The organization, headed by Michael Freund, has also been working with the government in order to convince it to allow all the group members to immigrate to Israel.

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Love of the Land: Members of Bnei Menashe to make aliyah

Waiting for the magic carpet - Haaretz - Israel News

Waiting for the magic carpet

By Natasha Mozgovaya

CHURACHANDPUR, India - When Asher Kipgen is asked the Hebrew name of his father, who immigrated to Israel six years ago from a village in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, he blurts out "Netanyahu" without thinking twice. The real name of his father, who lives in Kiryat Arba, is Natan, but the mention of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's name is no coincidence. Many of the 7,232 members of the Kuki, Mizo, Lushai and Shin tribes carefully followed the elections in Israel, in the hope that the new prime minister of Israel would bring them to the country.

That's because they consider themselves Bnei Menashe, residents of northeastern India, along the border with Burma and Bangladesh, who claim descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who were sent into exile by the Assyrian Empire more than 27 centuries ago.
Since hearing rumors last summer that the Israeli government planned to bring the Bnei Menashe to Israel, Kipgen and his family have been waiting - though they aren't concerned about what to bring with them.

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Waiting for the magic carpet - Haaretz - Israel News