'Lost Jewish tribe' set to migrate to Israel

After delaying for over a year, over 200 members of a "lost" Jewish tribe are all set to immigrate to Israel in November from northeastern India.

"This is a project of national and historical and even theological significance," said Michael Freund, chairman and founder of Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem–based organization that helps communities around the world return to their Jewish roots and to Israel.

According to Freund, the Bnei Menashe (children of Manasseh) living in northeastern India are descendants of one of the 10 "lost tribes" of Israel.

"Their ancestors were exiled from the land 27 centuries ago, and despite wandering for so long and so far, they managed to preserve their sense of Jewish identity and now, just as the prophets foretold, we are witnessing their return. It is a miracle," he said.

Last year, the Indian government complained to their Israeli counterpart about "conversion" of the 6000–strong Bnei Menashe tribe members to Judaism, compelling the latter to put a "freeze" on the conversion drive.

In March 2005, Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, a dayan or rabbinical court judge and spokesman for Shepardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar, said the decision to accept Indian Bnei Menashes as a lost Jewish tribe followed a careful study of the issue.

In September 2005, an official delegation or a beit din (rabbinical court) arrived in northeastern India to formally convert the tribe to Orthodox Judaism, thus, paving the way for the tribe to apply for immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, which grants the right of citizenship to all Jews.

However, this "conversion" ceremony was frowned upon by both the local churches as well as the state governments. According to news reports, at their behest, the Central Government advised the Israeli government to check such activities.

"The Indian authorities, through official channels, told us they do not view positively initiated efforts at conversions to other religions," Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev was quoted as saying. "When the Indian government issues a complaint we take it seriously. At the moment there is a freeze on all such conversions taking place."

"We were all shattered after we got confirmation that the Indian government forced Israel to stop converting any more people to Judaism," Peer Tlau, a practicing Jew in Mizoram's state capital Aizawl, said.

In Genesis, God promised Abraham that his descendants would become "a great nation," but the line begins with Jacob, Abraham's grandson. Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, does not have a tribe bearing his name. Instead, Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are blessed by Jacob as his own and each fathers a separate "tribe." The Menashes are descendants of Menasseh.

According to an Israeli organization formerly called Amishav — "My people return" — there are 1 million to 2 million Bnei Menashes living in the hilly regions of Burma and northeastern India.

After an Assyrian invasion circa 722 B.C., Jewish tradition says 10 tribes from the northern part of the kingdom of Israel were enslaved in Assyria. Later the tribes fled Assyria and wandered through Afghanistan, Tibet and China.

About 100 A.D. one group moved south from China and settled around northeast India and Burma. These Chin–Mizo–Kuki people, who speak Tibeto–Burmese dialects and resemble Mongols in appearance, are believed to be the Bnei Menashes.

Although many Bnei Menashe want to "return" to Israel, only about 800 have been able to emigrate there in the past few years. Israeli visas were denied to most others. The last batch of 71 tribal people left the northeast for Jerusalem in May 2003.

According to Shavei Israel, all Chins in Burma, Minos in Mizoram and Kukis in Manipur — three prominent tribes of South Asia — are descendants of Menashe and India has more than a million people who are ethnically Bnei Menashes. Because they lived for centuries in northeast India, mingling with local people, many of their Jewish traditions became diluted. And after Welsh missionaries arrived in the area in 1894, nearly all Indian Bnei Menashes converted from their animistic beliefs to Christianity.

In the early 1970s, some Kuki and Mizo Christians noticed that many of their customs — like male circumcision, animal sacrifices, burial customs, marriage and divorce procedures, observation of the Sabbath and the symbolic use of the number 7 in many festivals — were similar to those of Jews around the world.

DNA studies at Central Forensic Institute in Calcutta also concluded that while the tribe's males showed no links to Israel, the females share a family relationship to the genetic profile of Middle Eastern people. The genetic difference between the sexes might be explained by the marriage of a woman who came from the Middle East to a man of Indian ancestry.

Further genetic studies on the Indian tribes are continuing at the University of Arizona and the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel.

Tamar Astrow, married to an American and with three children, was one of the first Bnei Menashe to come to Israel some 16 years ago.

Every morning when she was growing up in India, Tamar recalled, she awoke to the sound of her mother praying, "God when are you going to take me to Israel?" she said. With no foreign language skills, no education and no money, her mother looked for a miracle. "Even my friends [said] 'I think your mother is crazy!' But today the prayer is answered,"she said.

When she was a teenager, Tamar's parents sent her to Bombay to learn about Judaism. A visiting Israeli rabbi took the names of students who wanted to immigrate.

But when the course finished all the participants returned home. Tamar became a successful hairdresser and heard nothing from Israel for several years. When she finally received a visa, she no longer wanted to go. But her mother persuaded her.

"This is my prayer. You're the key to the family. You have to go...then all the family will come," she remembered her mother telling her. So she immigrated and eventually her parents and all of her siblings did, too.

Zvi Khaute moved to Israel with his wife Nurit and their son in 2000. "It was a dream come true," he said. "It was so emotional when the flight touched down in Tel Aviv airport. We were crying because it was a real dream come true."

The Khautes, who now have three sons, moved to the community of Kiryat Arba, alongside Hebron, where the Biblical patriarchs are buried. "We wanted to reconnect to the roots [of] our forefathers, the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," he said.

However, the migration of the 'lost tribe' from India to Israel may not be an easy one. Besides the Indian government, the local Christians are also frowning over the latest development.

"Acceptance of our people as Israelites is the work of Satan," said P.C. Biaksama, a former government bureaucrat who now studies Christian theology in Manipur. "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."

In Israel, too, recognition of the Indian tribe by the chief rabbi has been assailed by some groups.

Social scientist Lev Grinberg told the BBC in an interview in 2004 that right–wing Jewish groups were promoting conversion of distant people simply to boost the Israeli population in areas claimed by the Palestinians.

Despite the controversies, local Jewish leaders and Shavei Israel activists in Manipur and Mizoram are working hard to prepare the newly recognized Indian Bnei Menashes for conversion to Orthodox Judaism and help them "return" to Israel as soon as possible.

"They have proved themselves to be dedicated Jews and committed Zionists. They are a blessing to the state of Israel. We aim to bring all of them to Israel by the end of this decade," said Freund.