India's 'lost Jews' wait in hope

BBC News ^ | August 18th, 2003 | Geeta Pandey

[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.

[Cronos]

Israel and Judah still have not gotten together

They have -- under the Maccabbees

[Cronos]

That all depends......do you live in Chicago? :-)

Nah, Brighton, E. Sussex.

[Cronos]

Like I said before, converts. However, if you want me to use 14 million, that's ok. Substitute 14 where I used 4 or 5.
so u mean 2 say that out of 14 million jews, 10 million are converts?

[Cronos]

Not saying your one of them....

Your = belong to you, You're = You are......

;-P

kind of like that episode in Friends when Rachel gives Ross that huge letter!

[Cronos]

Would you consider by biblical knowledge Adam and Eve to be Semitic?

Yes, they were also Aryan, and also Negroid and also Mongoloid and also Dravidian etc. They were the first man and woman and all the "races" were descended from them.

[Cronos]

and I was an anthro major in school.

Oops -- not me -- I was an engineering major

[Cronos]

I've heard, or read, the claim that Abraham was a Kurd.

Abraham was from Ur. In c.2000 B.C. there were no Chaldeans -- the Babylonian-Chaldean Empires came later -- this was during the Sumerian-Akkadian times (no population difference, just a political difference)

It was called Ur of the Chaldeans because the first books were written some time later so calling it Ur of the Sumerians wouldn't have made much sense to people reading it.

Sumeria was the first centre of civilisation. We're not really sure who those people were, but they seem related to the Harappan builders in India and blam has posted an intereting theory that both these places were populated by peoples from South-East Asia.

Anyway, the Sumerian city-states soon were surrounded by Amorites nomads -- and Abraham or Abram was a descendent of those Amorites. soon, the Amorites adopted Sumerian ways, Sumerian Gods, Sumerian writing (cuneiforms) but retained their Semitic speech -- Akkadian. The first true Emperor Sargon I was an Akkadian who extended his suzereignity over all the Sumerian city states. around 2200 B.C. Abram left Ur around this time -- and just in the nick of time, because around that time, Ur was invaded by the Elamites and destroyed, so that's why it had to be introduced as Abraham, from the city of Ur in the place now known as Chaldea (and now Iraq)

Abram was most definitely NOT a Kurd -- the Kurds are Aryan peoples related to the Iranis-Indian-Hittites. The Aryans were just moving across the Irani peninsula -- they would set up the Mittani confederation and take over the Hivites in the coming centuries.

There was no break-up of the Irani peoples into Kurds, Iranis, Tajiks etc. until much, much later. The indo-Europeans at 2000 B.C. were still in the well, 'proto' stage with the proto-Celto-Germanic-Slavic-Latin-Ionian Greek tribes still wandering Central Asia and into the Gobi while their cousins were settling down in Iran and India

[Cronos]

Somehow, this turned into the idea that the "curse." was that of being Black skinned.

A pretty racist and stupid idea that was really mooted during the Reformation.

And very silly considering that the negroid Ethiopians had been Christian centuries before the Celtic and GErmanic peoples.

[Cronos]

Hey do you know how I can post a picture?

Type in (removing the '+' signs)

<+img src = "https:/picture.jog" +>

[Cronos]

I have spent some time looking for information on the Kurds. I have found a lot about how they were pushed around and murdered by both Iraqi and Turks. I was in Armenia and got the idea they were thought of as being second class citizens. But no information on their culture or religion.
kurds are mistreated as they r ethnically different -- not semites like the iraqis or Mongoloid like the turks -- they are an aryan, Irani people. Some other Irani people separated from Iran are the Tajiks -- when the Turkic invasions began, the Turks separated the Iranis in the Iranian peninsula from the Tajiks (Tajik is close to Avestan and modern Farsi). When the Mongol invasions began later, the remnants of the Mongols remained in Afghanistan -- to become the Hazaras (literally the "thousands").

That's why Afghanistan is such a hodge-podge of nationalities + the fact that the Brits really sc**** up the Durand line -- so the Pashto (an Indic people) are spread over south Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, the Tjiks are in the north-east (bordering Tajikistan), the Uzbeks (a Turkic people) are in the north west bordering Uzbekistan, some Turkomen (another Turkic people) are near the Uzbeks, the Hazaras are in central Afghanistan, around the Bamiyan region (remember the Bamiyan Buddhas) and there are Irani shias near the border with Iran -- in the Herat province.

[Cronos]

But no information on their culture or religion.

Religion wise -- the Kurds are Sunni Muslims. However, they are related to the Iranis, being an indo-European people.

in Iraq you've got another Brit bungled Hodge-podge with Sunni Kurds in the north (in the former Mosul province of the Ottoman EMpire) along with Assyrian Christians, Shia ARABS in the south and Sunni+Syro-Chaldean Christian Arabs in the central portion.

[Cronos]

It is not paramount. Ruth was from Moab and married Boaz. Their grandson was King David. Prophecy states that the Messiah would come from David's line(patrilineally).

See Will, genetics don't matter to God.
Plus, the prosttitute from Jericho, wasn't she supposed to have married into Israel?

[Cronos]

Actually there was an alphabet prior to what you call the Aramaic alphabet. It was similar to ancient Phoenician or today's Hebrew script. The "Aramaic" alphabet was brought into the Hebrew language after the Babylonian Captivity.

thanks -- Phoenican or Canaanite, correct -- the first phonetic script in the world and the basis for the Greek and later Latin scripts

[BlackVeil]

I think it is shocking that people have addressed you so rudely, and I can understand that you feel upset. There are many rude and ignorant people.

I have always found your posts polite, and I commend you for that, and I consider you an interesting member of the forum, with a habit of gentle speech.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Thank you for the good information.
Do you know of any books that cover the smaller tribes in the mid east?
I love history but even though I have traveled to many countries most of my trips were either new crew starts
or to take care of problems.
Most of my meager knowledge is from reading or talking
to workers on the crews I visited. So I sometimes get
skewed information from these people or information that they think would impress me.

[Cronos]

Hmmm... well, I would tell you to steer clear from the kooky sites on the internet -- there are many. The Best books are the travel books that deal with the people of the region and don't bother about the politics. Can't really recommend one particular book though Jawaharlal Nehru's book on Central Asia is a good starting point

[Cronos]

Do you know of any books that cover the smaller tribes in the mid east?

And do you mean the Middle east as in the lands from Iraq to Egypt? Or do you mean The Indian continent-central Asia- (which tends to be one continuous culture landscape)? Or do you mean the CAucasus? Each of these are pretty different tribally except for Iran which straddles all three regions

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I would get a travel guide for most countries I was visiting, they were slanted for tourists. If I was able to travel to historical sites, I would get any books or information that the sites had available in English.
Von Daniken (sp) books (in search of ancient astronauts) and (chariots of the gods) were popular at the time.
Yes I knew they were fiction, but I seemed to be able to visit most of the areas he used as proof of his ideas.
This whetted my thirst for more information and as usual I started from the back door.

[blam]

"Abraham was from Ur. In c.2000 B.C. there were no Chaldeans -- the Babylonian-Chaldean Empires came later -- this was during the Sumerian-Akkadian times (no population difference, just a political difference)"

When Abraham lived in Ur, it was a seaside town/city. Today Ur is almost a hundred miles inland. 15,000 years ago, the Persian Gulf was completely dry.

[blam]

"around 2200 B.C. Abram left Ur around this time -- and just in the nick of time, because around that time, Ur was invaded by the Elamites and destroyed, so that's why it had to be introduced as Abraham, from the city of Ur in the place now known as Chaldea (and now Iraq)"

Don't forget this little incident that happened around 2200-2300BC. I'm guessing that this incident provided the imagery for Revelations and maybe even the story of Soddon & Gomorra.

Disaster That Struck The Ancients

Iraq Meteorite Crater