Shalva Weil, an anthropologist at Hebrew University and one of the world's leading experts on the Bnei Menashe, says its members are not a cohesive group. "I think we have a historical responsibility, a moral responsibility, to reach out to them and to facilitate their return," he says.īut some say the Bnei Menashe's historical narrative is far from clear cut. Shalva Weil, an anthropologist, explaining the large numbers of people worldwide who could claim lineage to the 10 lost tribes of ancient Israel There might be billions of lost tribes out there by now. So I became involved, through the bureaucracy then, in arranging for groups to start coming in an organized fashion." "But I was very taken by them on a personal level, on a human level, by their sincerity, by their desire to become part of the Jewish people. "Initially I didn't believe the whole lost tribe bit," says Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel. Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organization that works with "lost" Jews around the world, has been instrumental in bringing the Bnei Menashe to Israel.
And some of the Bnei Menashe began embracing the idea that they were Jews.
But in 1951, one of their leaders had a dream that his people's ancient homeland was Israel. Most of the Bnei Menashe converted to Christianity. The story goes that when Christian missionaries encountered the tribe in the late 19th century, they found similarities between some of their own biblical stories and the Bnei Menashe's mythology. The Bnei Menashe - also known as the Kuki or Shinlung people - are of Tibeto-Burmese origin and have come to believe they are the descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel, sent into exile by the Assyrians in the 8th century B.C.
Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel I think we have a historical responsibility, a moral responsibility, to reach out to them and to facilitate their return. There was the longing and the yearning always to make aliyah, to reach the Holy Land." "Not only my dream, it is the dream of our forefathers. He remembers the feeling of awe when he arrived in 2000 at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv. Khaute's family home in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba is decorated with both reminders of India and the symbols of his present life - Jewish religious books and framed sayings in Hebrew. Now an Israeli, Tzvi Khaute wears a kippa, or Jewish skull cap, but still greets his family in his native Kuki, a dialect spoken in the remote northeastern corner of India, where he is from. While almost 2,000 members of the group have been allowed to come to the Jewish state from their home near India's border with Myanmar (formerly Burma), many more are waiting, their migration frozen by disagreement over whether or not they are really Jews. They were joining members of the Bnei Menashe community, from India's northeastern state of Mizoram, who have migrated to Israel.Įvery year, Jews from around the world migrate to Israel, a process known as aliyah, a Hebrew word meaning "ascent." But for the Bnei Menashe community of India, who believe they are descendents of one of the 10 lost tribes of ancient Israel, the road has been long and fraught with difficulty. Arriving from India, a woman and her baby walk past Israeli flags at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport in November 2006.
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