India’s Jewish ‘Lost Tribe’ Faces Hard Times in Israel

Forward.com ^ | 5 July 2016 | Shira Rubin

[Cronos]

According to ethnographers and Israeli geneticists who have investigated the matter — and even most members of his own ethnic group in India — Hanoch Haokip’s claim to be descended from one of Israel’s so-called “Lost Tribes” is, at best, highly debatable.

But Haokip, a member of a small subgroup of indigenous peoples from a remote tribal area of East India, has no doubt about the matter. During an interview in the northern Israeli town of Akko, where he lives today, Haokip, whose group is known as the Bnei Menashe, spoke with some indignation about having been “interrogated” by the rabbinate during his formal conversion — or as he sees it, return — to Judaism.

“Of course, you understand that the rabbinate, the government, needs to do these things,” interrupted Zeev Wagner, a member of an Orthodox social welfare group associated with Shavei Israel, the organization that has brought Haokip and several thousand other members of his group to Israel over the last 20 years, as soon as Haokip voiced this feeling.

..Still, Haokip stressed his strong identification with Zionism and the pride he feels that his community of immigrants, which lives mostly in northern Israel and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is “getting stronger by fighting against the Arabs, to show that this is a land that belongs to Jews.”

The Bnei Menashe identify as descendants of “Menasseh,” one of the sons of Joseph, the biblical patriarch. According to their understanding of their tradition and oral accounts of their origins, they claim to have been living in exile since expulsion from Israel by the Assyrians at the end of the First Temple period more than 2,700 years ago.

[njslim]

Cant they open a 7-11 on every street corner...??

[MGG]

The “Lost Tribe” of Israel was the Banu Quayza of Medina. And they didn’t go missing. They were exterminated.

[jjotto]

It’s a lengthy article that notes that the Bnei Menashe were essentially recruited by Michael Freund and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The dispute over their lack of Jewish DNA seems more important to Christians and non-religious Jews. They seem to have converted according to Jewish law, which makes them Jews regardless of DNA.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Never lost. After the revolt of the Northern tribes under Jeroboam...
2 Chronicles 11:
13 The priests and Levites from all their districts throughout Israel sided with him. 14 The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property and came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the Lord 15 when he appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat and calf idols he had made.

16 Those from EVERY TRIBE of Israel who set their hearts on seeking the Lord, the God of Israel, followed the Levites to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the Lord, the God of their ancestors. 17 They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam son of Solomon three years, following the ways of David and Solomon during this time.

2 CHRONICLES 15:
9 Then he assembled all Judah and Benjamin and the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them, for large numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

Luke 2:36 NT times..
There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,

[Lee N. Field]

It’s a lengthy article that notes that the Bnei Menashe were essentially recruited by Michael Freund and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The dispute over their lack of Jewish DNA seems more important to Christians and non-religious Jews. They seem to have converted according to Jewish law, which makes them Jews regardless of DNA.

Interesting.

[fishtank]

"The dispute over their lack of Jewish DNA seems more important to Christians"

... not to this Christian (me).