MK Danny Danon, committee chair and deputy speaker of the Knesset, said at the hearing, “Until today, about 1,700 members of the Bnei Menashe community have made aliyah to Israel from India. It’s the Israeli government’s duty and responsibility to bring the rest of them home as soon as possible.”
Michael Freund, founder and chairman of the Shavei Israel organization, who was invited to testify before the committee as the leading proponent for the Bnei Menashe, said, “Thousands of miles to the east, in the farthest reaches of northeastern India, there is an entire community that is anxiously awaiting the day when they will be allowed to rejoin the Jewish people.
“Despite being cut off for more than 2,700 years, the Bnei Menashe never forgot who they are or where they came from, and they never gave up on the dream of returning to Israel,” Freund told the committee, urging the government to take action.
The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for “sons of Manasseh”) 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. They live in India‘s northeastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram.
Their ancestors wandered through Central Asia and the Far East for centuries, before settling in what is now northeastern India, which borders Bangladesh and Burma.
Throughout their exile, the Bnei Menashe nonetheless continued to practise Judaism just as their ancestors did, including observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, celebrating the festivals and following the laws of ritual purity.
“The Bnei Menashe always considered themselves Jewish,” Freund told the Jewish Tribune. He explained that they were waiting for their ‘big brother,’ Judah, to redeem them and bring them to the Promised Land. At the end of the 19th century, British missionaries discovered the Bnei Menashe and called them ‘Lushei,’ Burmese for “the Ten Tribes.” The majority of the Bnei Menashe naively thought that the missionaries were ‘Judah’ and subsequently converted to Christianity.
About 60 years ago, some of the members realized that they were duped and decided to embrace Judaism. In recent years, Shavei Israel has brought some 1,700 Bnei Menashe back home to Zion, including 450 in the past three years who settled in the Upper Galilee. Another 7,232 still remain in India, waiting for the day when they too will be able to return to Israel and the Jewish people.
Gurion Sela was raised to identify as a Jew. His parents dreamed that one day the entire family would immigrate to Israel. One by one, they did.
“My classmates laughed at my name. They told me that it didn’t sound anything like a Hindi name,” Sela told the Jewish Tribune at a recent event honouring the Bnei Menashe immigration, held at the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption.
Sela came to Israel with a tourist visa and then underwent a conversion program at Yeshivat Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem. After his conversion, Sela subsequently enlisted in the army.
Michael Freund of Shavei Israel, a non-profit organization committed to strengthen ties between Israel and descendents of Jews throughout the world, approached Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar six years ago to clarify the halachic status of the Bnei Menashe. In response, Rabbi Amar sent a fact-finding delegation to India for two-and-a-half weeks. In 2005, the Israeli rabbinate recognized them as the descendants of Jews. However, the rabbinate requires that they undergo conversion to remove any doubt as to their Jewish status.
In the past, Shavei Israel was able to procure special tourist visas for about 270 Bnei Menashe at a time to study and undergo the conversion process in Israel. However, bureaucratic snags have prevented the remaining Bnei Menashe from coming.
The Law of Return allows anyone who has a Jewish grandparent or has converted to immigrate to Israel. But the law excludes the Bnei Menashe since their Jewish roots skip generations, all the way to the First Temple period. Rabbi Amar had initially set up a conversion court in India to enable Bnei Menashe to immigrate under the Law of Return as converts.
“Amazingly, no one went to the trouble of coordinating with the Indian authorities,” Freund points out. The Indians weren’t happy with the diplomatic faux pas. As a result, they disallowed conversions of their citizens on Indian soil.
As a result, the only remaining option was to bring the Bnei Menashe on extended tourist visas, since those who still hadn’t converted weren’t eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return. However, previous Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit restricted the number of Bnei Menashe to immigrate.
In email correspondence with the Jewish Tribune, Sheetrit explained: “I was opposed to bringing the Bnei Menashe or any other group from various countries to Israel and I didn’t authorize bringing any group. I feel that there is a real concern for the future of the Jewish character of the state of Israel and we’re obliged to exercise extreme caution in our bringing additional groups. Therefore, the government accepted at the time a decision according to my recommendation to prepare a law of citizenship and immigration that is intended to deal with the issue as acceptable in the [rest of the] world.”
Sheetrit regrets that his term as Interior Minister ended before a law was formulated. However, as a current MK of the Kadima party, he informed the Tribune that he drafted a migration bill signed by all members of his party, which will be deliberated on the Knesset floor sometime in the future.
The present Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, favours providing the visas. Roei Lachmanovich, the interior minister’s spokesman told the Tribune: “The minister acts only with the authorization of the Chief Rabbi of Israel.”
The spokesman stated that after Chief Rabbi Amar clarified the status of the Bnei Menashe, Yishai approved the issuing of extended visas for the group.
Freund was surprised by Sheetrit’s response, saying: “The Bnei Menashe are a blessing for the Jewish people. They work hard, serve in the Israeli army and raise the most beautiful Jewish children.”
Yet he understood that bringing the remaining 7,232 Bnei Menashe would take enormous government funding and coordination for their successful absorption. And there isn’t the same sense of urgency to bring the Bnei Menashe to Israel as there was for Ethiopian Jewry, whose lives were threatened.
Freund stated that the Bnei Menashe is the only group of Jews or potential Jews of which 100 per cent of them want to make aliyah.
“It’s time to bring the Bnei Menashe home.”
The next issue of the Jewish Tribune will feature the Subbotnik Jews, another group of “lost Jews” that Shavei Israel is trying to assist.