Posted on 08/19/2004 7:11:00 PM PDT by missyme
A team of senior Israeli rabbis is due to rule soon on whether thousands of Indians who say they are members of one of the lost tribes of Israel can settle there.
Only 5,000 of the Benei Menashes have converted to Judaism Shlomo Amar recently led a delegation of rabbis to the north-eastern Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram where members of the Benei Menashe tribe live and practise Judaism.
At the Beith-el Synagogue in the Manipur capital, Imphal, nine men wearing knitted skull caps read silently from the Old Testament.
Four others stand on a wooden platform in the centre of the room as a young man reads from the holy book under the supervision of an elderly priest.
These people claim to be one of the lost tribes of Israel.
Recent discovery
Tongkhohao Aviel Hangshing is the leader of the Benei Menashes in Imphal.
We found that the stories, the customs and practices of the Israeli people were very similar to ours
Tongkhohao Aviel Hangshing "We are Benei Menashe, because we belong to the Menashe tribe," he says.
"Menashe is the son of Joseph, who was one of the 12 sons of Jacob. So we are the lost tribe of Israel."
Mr Hangshing says for thousands of years they did not know they were lost.
"We found out only 27 years ago," he says.
"When the Bible was translated into our language, in 1970s, we studied it.
"And we found that the stories, the customs and practices of the Israeli people were very similar to ours. So we thought that we must be one of the lost tribes."
Saturdays are observed by Jews the world over as the Sabbath, the day of rest, and the members of the Benei Menashe community meet for morning prayers at the synagogue in Imphal.
A lamb-skin scroll of the Torah, is unrolled and then rolled up again as each reader finishes his part.
Hope
There are more than 300,000 Benei Menashes in Manipur but most of them follow Christianity.
Only about 5,000 have converted to Judaism, most of them during the 1970s.
Mr Hangshing says although India has treated them quite well, they do not consider it their home.
Lucy Vaiphei (right) is hoping to join her family in Israel The recent visit by a delegation of rabbis from Israel has given new hope to the members of this community.
Caleb, a 24-year-old college student, wants to go to Israel because he says it is the land of his forefathers.
Amram is studying to be a lawyer. He says Israel is the promised land, for him and the others too.
"In Israel it will be easier for us to practise our religion."
In a chamber partitioned from the main prayer hall, about a dozen women join in the Sabbath prayers.
Lucy Vaiphei is the caretaker of the synagogue.
Her parents and six siblings have emigrated to Israel in the last few years and she is now looking forward to making the move herself.
Michael Freund, director of Amishav - an organisation that helps Jews move to Israel - says he firmly believes that Menashe is one of the lost tribes of Israel.
"We have brought over 800 of them to Israel," he says, "and the remaining people also want to emigrate".
Mr Freund says that last year the new Israeli interior minister, Avraham Poraz, suddenly declared his opposition to bringing the Benei Menashes into Israel.
"But I'm confident that if the chief rabbi issues a ruling saying that the Benei Menashes are indeed descendents of the Jewish people and should be allowed back home, then he will have no choice but to let them in."
So while the rabbis in Israel take a decision on whether or not to grant the right to emigrate to Israel to the Benei Menashes, this community here is waiting with bated breath - and praying.
I know a family of Yemeni Jews (Israelis) who live on Staten Island....they consider themselves Caucasian....lol..believe me....some of them look sort of Italian or Greek...hardly Negroid unless one believes racial myth fantasies from the flick "True Romance" ...lol
There are very few Negroid Jews that I know of and are most likely the result of intermarriage (someone correct me if they are indig Jews in Ghana or the Congo, please).....The Falashas are a hybrid at most and not terribly similar to West Africans which is what the vernacular "black" usually infers.
Therefore, I doubt there is much chance for what we would consider a "black" Israeli PM...they seem to prefer Ashkenazi ethnic Jews most with Hebrew rather than Germanic-Polish-Russian or Hungarian surnames.
There are also still many Israelis who don't buy the Falasha thing and in fact don't buy that all the Russkies streaming in are real Jews either.
I know a lot of Israelis including those from all 3 main ethnic groups
respectfully.
Your White if your not Black, Brown Asian or Indian.
Funny enough, I had a southern Baptist fundamentalist as a "world history" teacher in high school. The first chapter was (I can remember it like it was yesterday) "Ancient Man." Mr. Johnson, puts the history book aside, and opens up the Bible and starts reading Genesis to the class. Most of the class was giggling. So, I asked him if Adam and Eve had only sons, how did the rest of us get here? Was there incest back then? His answer was that there were "multiple Adam-Eves" all over the world...some white, some black, some brown, and some yellow.
Well,there IS that deep in Africa tribe of blacks,with the Cohen DNA,but they aren't moving to Israel. :-)
Was Noah Anglo Saxson?
Was Abraham and Moses Black? I think most of us that are Caucasion have been taught that most if not all Biblical Characters were White..
What does Saxson mean anyways
I never knew that. When I was in Manhattan in 88 at the OB-GYN with my then wife, one of the first things the MD asked was about TS and if we were Jewish...I believe they wanted to do an amnio for a study. I told him that I thought I was pure goy or so I thought till this thread. Now, I'm convinced I'm descended from some ancient Israelite gal who was tending sheep by the Med and was swept away by a raiding party of Iberians who then traded her to some Cornish Celts around 700BC or so. LOL...whadday think?...plausible?
That's a pretty incredible thing for him to have said. :-)
But, she's an Indian Jew. Indian's are not "white." They are Caucasian...but not white.
So what was the race of Noah? no-one knows that's the point...
The FLOOD OF NOAH can be found in various forms,all over the world and in every religion/mythology.
I'm with you....and what about other human species existing concurrently as they evolved.
Danger Will Robinson!
American Indian?
But there isn't anything in thes OT to say how Mongoloids (the third race) came about.
Saxon not Saxson...my! but you should be the absolute last person on this thread complaining about a person's spelling or grammer.
Semites...the original defintion which includes Israelites and their neighbors were all considered Caucazoid to the best of my knowledge.
I am not complaining....
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